Does this study mean we can never grow a healthy head of hair? Ack, please discuss!

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=256511

" Baldness occurred in persons in whom calcification of the skull bones apparently had not only firmly knitted the cranial sutures but also closed or narrowed various small foramens through which blood vessels pass, most prominently in persons with a luxuriant crop of hair. These blood vessels are mainly veins which normally communicate with the diploic veins in the spongy tissue of the skull bones but which"

But isnt it that once a dormant follicle is reignited it starts to expand vessels from the follicle itself outward into the surround tissue and then most likely into the bone? Kind of like how a baby tree expands its roots deep into the ground?

Anyways, I hope this doesn't mean we can never regrow full heads of healthy hair... That would be very no bueno!

this is fibrosis

and yes you can grow back hair.

minoxifil and rogaine have proven this, even if you don't like using artificial drugs with side effects.

take your negative attitude somewhere else

I want to think other wise and I just want to have someone help me do so.

The thing that gets me down is he talks about the "skull" itself and I'm trying to understand how we are getting down that far..

Not trying to be a downer, rather just want to have someone help me get positive, as this study depressed me a bit..

*edit: just wanted to add, a lot of treatments like minox/fin tend to grow wispy terminal hair, no where near the health one is usually looking for.. Could it be because of this factor? Who knows ..

There have been a couple of anecdotes in the last couple of weeks on another forum I go to (not a hair forum) that people have re-grown their hair with the right combo of supplements, after 10-20 years of loss. These are not young people, either. Solid middle age. One was a man that says he's coming back from cueball to fuzz plus some terminal, slowly, and another is a woman with loss at her crown. Their anecdotes give me hope.

But every case is different. I suspect you can't regrow unless you find the right combination of methods for you.

And probably if calcification is too far along, then it would be incredibly difficult if not outright impossible to regrow hair. But for most guys here I would say no, not impossible. Just hard work.

First of all, we should get a bit of perspective of scope. This was not only the observation of one man, but it was also taken from observation of only 80 cadavers. This is far from being able to make significant claims about the etiology for a process as diffuse in a population as MPB. BUT, it does offer some interesting points, and at the same time, the small scope does not negate the possibility that he was observing something common to the MPB process.

To me, it highlights the fact that we are dealing with more than just the physiological state of the hair organ. We are dealing with the health of that organ as an effect of a greater environmental change in the entire physiology, from superficial to deep, in the scalp. That means the fibrotic changes and ossification are a central part of the problem. Reversal of bone ossification is a complex process, and then we'd still have to gauge whether we'd experience angiogenesis if the bone density was reduced in that region. These are biological processes occurring over long periods of time and we've got to consider that if we are trying to reverse them by the natural mechanisms they were laid down with, time is a huge issue. Resources are a huge issue. These processes are beginning at a massive growth phase in our life cycle. Can we expect to be able to take these processes and just flip the switch in reverse given the metabolic and hormonal requirements?

I think it becomes very possible to imagine that we could only achieve this with some type of "unnatural" intervention. I'm referring to a situation where the process has been occurring for a long period of time. If the mechanisms were identified concretely, we could expect to be able to prevent baldness completely before its set in.

Just some thoughts. This whole thing makes the sex hormone aspect very interesting. We know that both testosterone and estrogen play roles in bone density, but trying to hammer out the picture of how each one is contributing to this calcification in MPB is confusing. Estrogen receptor alpha, and estradiol (via aromatization of testosterone) both increase bone density. Its been thrown around here a bit before that too much ER-alpha signalling might be involved in MPB. This would implicate why having a higher level of free testosterone is a common factor in MPB, but that total testosterone isn't really the relevant figure. This would connect the body hair changes we see often as well. So again, how the ER-beta is functioning is something we should be looking at.

what is the precursors to fibrosis happening?

sizzlinghairs wrote:
Anyways, I hope this doesn't mean we can never regrow full heads of healthy hair... That would be very no bueno!

There are many people on hair loss forums that have done it with fda treatments, so yes it can be done.  I'm not suggesting resorting to those drugs but it is possible to grow hair back despite what the study says

AS54 wrote:First of all, we should get a bit of perspective of scope. This was not only the observation of one man, but it was also taken from observation of only 80 cadavers. This is far from being able to make significant claims about the etiology for a process as diffuse in a population as MPB. BUT, it does offer some interesting points, and at the same time, the small scope does not negate the possibility that he was observing something common to the MPB process.

To me, it highlights the fact that we are dealing with more than just the physiological state of the hair organ. We are dealing with the health of that organ as an effect of a greater environmental change in the entire physiology, from superficial to deep, in the scalp. That means the fibrotic changes and ossification are a central part of the problem. Reversal of bone ossification is a complex process, and then we'd still have to gauge whether we'd experience angiogenesis if the bone density was reduced in that region. These are biological processes occurring over long periods of time and we've got to consider that if we are trying to reverse them by the natural mechanisms they were laid down with, time is a huge issue. Resources are a huge issue. These processes are beginning at a massive growth phase in our life cycle. Can we expect to be able to take these processes and just flip the switch in reverse given the metabolic and hormonal requirements?

I think it becomes very possible to imagine that we could only achieve this with some type of "unnatural" intervention. I'm referring to a situation where the process has been occurring for a long period of time. If the mechanisms were identified concretely, we could expect to be able to prevent baldness completely before its set in.

Just some thoughts. This whole thing makes the sex hormone aspect very interesting. We know that both testosterone and estrogen play roles in bone density, but trying to hammer out the picture of how each one is contributing to this calcification in MPB is confusing. Estrogen receptor alpha, and estradiol (via aromatization of testosterone) both increase bone density. Its been thrown around here a bit before that too much ER-alpha signalling might be involved in MPB. This would implicate why having a higher level of free testosterone is a common factor in MPB, but that total testosterone isn't really the relevant figure. This would connect the body hair changes we see often as well. So again, how the ER-beta is functioning is something we should be looking at.

AS54, do you think its possible that it could be happening in the way I mentioned, in terms of reversal? Say someone has had long standing baldness, 20+ years, they decide to try DT or brushing or another treatment. Growth signals are triggered and the papilla cells multiply. Then it is a slow process for the full and healthy vessels to dig their way through the calcification, like roots of a tree, slowly establishing a proper network? Otherwise, how else could people regrow hair after so many years?

And to Seeker: Have there been documented cases of people regrowing from NW 5-6s with conventional treatments fin/minox? I think that is what the scientist in this situation is referring to with "baldness".

Sizzling,

Possible? Most definitely. Probable? Well, I'm not educated enough to say.

AS54 wrote:Sizzling,

Possible? Most definitely. Probable? Well, I'm not educated enough to say.

iol. That's a nice way of putting it.

Is hair growth/regeneration possible?

Of course it is.

I haven't spent one minute doing any manuals (except for 15 seconds of hair brushing).

It's about detoxification and introducing minerals/nutrients most of us are not getting.

sizzlinghairs wrote:

AS54 wrote:First of all, we should get a bit of perspective of scope. This was not only the observation of one man, but it was also taken from observation of only 80 cadavers. This is far from being able to make significant claims about the etiology for a process as diffuse in a population as MPB. BUT, it does offer some interesting points, and at the same time, the small scope does not negate the possibility that he was observing something common to the MPB process.

To me, it highlights the fact that we are dealing with more than just the physiological state of the hair organ. We are dealing with the health of that organ as an effect of a greater environmental change in the entire physiology, from superficial to deep, in the scalp. That means the fibrotic changes and ossification are a central part of the problem. Reversal of bone ossification is a complex process, and then we'd still have to gauge whether we'd experience angiogenesis if the bone density was reduced in that region. These are biological processes occurring over long periods of time and we've got to consider that if we are trying to reverse them by the natural mechanisms they were laid down with, time is a huge issue. Resources are a huge issue. These processes are beginning at a massive growth phase in our life cycle. Can we expect to be able to take these processes and just flip the switch in reverse given the metabolic and hormonal requirements?

I think it becomes very possible to imagine that we could only achieve this with some type of "unnatural" intervention. I'm referring to a situation where the process has been occurring for a long period of time. If the mechanisms were identified concretely, we could expect to be able to prevent baldness completely before its set in.

Just some thoughts. This whole thing makes the sex hormone aspect very interesting. We know that both testosterone and estrogen play roles in bone density, but trying to hammer out the picture of how each one is contributing to this calcification in MPB is confusing. Estrogen receptor alpha, and estradiol (via aromatization of testosterone) both increase bone density. Its been thrown around here a bit before that too much ER-alpha signalling might be involved in MPB. This would implicate why having a higher level of free testosterone is a common factor in MPB, but that total testosterone isn't really the relevant figure. This would connect the body hair changes we see often as well. So again, how the ER-beta is functioning is something we should be looking at.

AS54, do you think its possible that it could be happening in the way I mentioned, in terms of reversal? Say someone has had long standing baldness, 20+ years, they decide to try DT or brushing or another treatment. Growth signals are triggered and the papilla cells multiply. Then it is a slow process for the full and healthy vessels to dig their way through the calcification, like roots of a tree, slowly establishing a proper network? Otherwise, how else could people regrow hair after so many years?

And to Seeker: Have there been documented cases of people regrowing from NW 5-6s with conventional treatments fin/minox? I think that is what the scientist in this situation is referring to with "baldness".

Great post man