Wes Welker Hair Transplant

http://blacksportsonline.com/home/2013/06/wes-welker-proudly-discusses-his-hair-transplant/

He's only 32 and must be in great shape to be in the NFL.  Does this mean anything?  Does he have some sort of underlying health condition and can still train like an NFL player?

Why would being able to train like an NFL player and losing your hair be mutually exclusive? Many professional athletes go bald despite being top in their game. Here's an article on Wayne Rooney having a second hair transplant at the age of 27 Link

Its just a problem for alot of people on this site, because it goes against theryre theory on mpb being caused by underlying health issues.  The reality is  u can have a perfect diet, and be perfectly healthy, and still get mpb.  I suppose it would be possible for it to be epigenetically caused by the diet and health of previous generations, but how would u know.  I suppose it doesnt rule out the possiblity that he has too much sex but again how would we know.

However that isnt to say that fixing diet and health cant stop a certain amount of hairloss or shedding.  It just wont stop mpb.  However if we can slow it down to a crawl, thats still helpful, thats wat i have done.

I think way too much emphasis is put on this forum on general health, when most of us really are here for regrowth primarily.

  I have come to the conclusion that MPB is genetic in nature, but it doesn't necessarily mean we can't do something about it - but I don't think having a perfect diet is the answer. Guys like Welker and Lebron James who are in tip top physical shape, still go bald.... The fact of the matter is that there is a reason MPB has a pattern that repeats itself, which I think this board tends to ignore sometimes. If general health, and thyroid function, etc. were truly the answer, then why the hell would hair continue to grow on the sides and back of the head, while thinning on the top? Clearly our bodies still have the necessary nutrients and capacity to grow hair every else on our bodies.

  There is more than likely a genetic predisposition in people with MPB that causes the follicles to be inflamed or attacked in that area of the scalp for whatever reason, leading to baldness on top of the head. General health is a good thing to be focused on, but it can't be the only thing. I think manual methods probably have some merit, but aren't the complete package either.

I agree with these posts. I think the idea that MPB is always the end-result of some underlying health condition that can be controlled with proper diet and supplementation is absolutely ridiculous. The distribution of pattern hair loss is just to wide to be explained by "inherited nutritional deficiencies" or thyroid problems. There is a well perpetuated hormonal/immune relationship occurring here, a large part of which falls outside our control.

That doesn't mean I don't believe we can have an impact on how it progresses. I do believe that the underlying health conditions in the body can dramatically accelerate the process over and above how it would present naturally. The reasons for this are all over the forum. The problem that tends to occur is people will attribute that which can have an effect on hair loss, as the CAUSE of hair loss. This happens all too frequently.

Part of that, for me, is that people don't want to lose hope. They want to feel in control, because we live in a culture that tells us, and influences, that idea that we have control over all of this. The drug-culture of medicine contributes to that. So we champion one physiological malfunction as the root cause of hairloss and throw a ton of supplements at ourselves to correct it. And people with hairloss will continue to do that same thing over and over again, because the shadow of the elusive "cause" will forever haunt them. "We just have to find our deficiency". A lot of money has been wasted and a lot of people have been taken advantage of by people who recognize this thought process. Its like telling someone who gets wrinkles or bags under their eyes as they age "You could prevent or reverse that with proper nutrition". Nope. At some point the idea that we are fully in control of our genetics has to die, because we aren't. We can influence their transcription epigenetically, but its prideful and just wrong to say we know exactly how this occurs, to what extent, and that its consistent. There are just too many variables.

I think athletes provide another great example of susceptibility to hair loss: steroid use. Testosterone is a common designer "supplement". You also see this a lot in the bodybuilding/fitness model world. I've known plenty of people in my own life of being a gym rat who've used testosterone or pro-hormone derivatives. Some are apparently immune, while others lose hair rather quickly.

The fact of the matter is, I do believe all of the stuff on this forum is extremely valuable. I feel we can slow the progression down in a big way, but the cause of MPB never has been a lack of nutrition on our part, a lack of exercise on our part, or something of this nature. There are too many old men who have smoked for 50 years, eaten shit diets, and gotten fat, but still have great heads of hair. The athletes are another great example. These men are watched over by professional health experts daily, trained optimally, made to eat correctly. They are specimens of excellent health. And yet they aren't immune from MPB. And am I to think that each of them has some common organ malfunction, i.e. low thyroid or adrenals?

We will all continue to see new theories sprout up about this or that as the cause of hairloss, but the reality of it all is that we are all going to be waiting for a real hair-loss breakthrough to see any type of permanent cure. How accessible that cure will be at first is up for debate. But luckily, I am of the belief that we will see this cure in our lifetime, hopefully sooner than later. 

Playing devil's advocate here, but I doubt many athletes are taking high doses of iodine.

I'm also going to play devils advocate....

Most of the globe is a collection of sick people. Optimal health isn't really known because an entire generation has horrendous digestion, poor constitution, epigentically influenced genes going the wrong direction because of the 100,000 toxic substances that do not belong in our environment.

Most people no longer walk on bare feet and touch the dirt...instead we walk with rubber insulation, shielding us from electrons from the earth (that neutralize pain and provide energy).

Most of us are inoculated at some point in our lives, which in some causes inflammation the in the brain for years.

Many of us has been poisoned with mercury in obscene amounts. Think of the cadmium we breath in everyday from traffic, the fluoride in our water, the mercury in who knows where, the lead in the air and food.

Many of us has been either cauterized (burned/drilled), or cut by dentists or doctors.

70% of people in the USA are taking prescription drugs. It's a sick place.

Virtually everyone has been given antibiotics in one form or the other, and has destroyed most of the natural
flora around us (good germs/flora).

Most of has have breathed in chemicals, taken some form of medications that have altered our gut microbiota.

A significant number of us have a polymorphism that prevents proper detoxification or genetically switches off some immune privilege where it counts.

Those of us who life in a city with automobiles breath in various pollutants that reduce hormone levels.

Over the last 30 years sperm counts and testosterone have plummeted.

Environmental estrogens have been wide spread in the environment. Not to mention BPA, phallates, etc.
over 99% of people tested have radically high levels of this stuff in their bodies.

Orthodox measurements for thyroid hormone are virtually useless, therefore mainstream isn't alerted of the 
warning signals of this epidemic.

People are not consuming enough minerals...this has been going on for 100 years (soil assays prove it). Iodine is one of them of course....Since RDA (rats, drugs and assumptions/ridiculously deficient amount) has no clue that the paltry iodine in salt is only enough to prevent goiter, not supply full body iodine levels...and of course there are other minerals.

The USDA supplies synthetic vitamins which do not always work...sometimes makes things worse, not better.

Now, we've got the EPA (Evil protection agency) raising the "safe" limits of Glyphosate) to 200 parts per million.
It only takes between .05 and 1 part per million to drop testosterone levels to 30% or more. Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is the stuff found soaked in crops of GMO foods.

Hair loss is a mitochondrial problem in the heart of it...this is becoming more common place, and the number of degenerative diseases that exist today are proof that collectively we are sicker than ever before.

Now for the elephant in the room...stress. The amount we deal with is ridiculous. Lower testosterone levels don't help much, because men need this to keep things calm.

Epidemic rates of autism....is there a link with hair loss?  Yes there is....Almost everyone consumes GMO whether they are aware of it or not.

There are dozens of "canaries in the coal mine," yet the government is only protecting polluters and food producers that are poisoning people (albeit slowly).

Most people think germs are harmful (yet 300 to 1) are good for us vs bad.

How many people go out in the sun totally naked to get enough vitamin D?  Probably none.

We drink "purified water" that lacks natural minerals in a state of river flow.

It goes on forever...

My diet isn't perfect by any stretch (I just avoid hydrogenated oils as best as I can) and some grain foods), 
can't live in a bubble totally, so detox and supplements for me is mandatory.

Beating hair loss is also anti-aging medicine. Hair loss is premature senescence.

Yes, lots of great health and longevity tips here but as far as keeping or regrowing hair I'm not sure.

CF wrote:Playing devil's advocate here, but I doubt many athletes are taking high doses of iodine.

Not many people period are taking high doses of iodine.  I've never heard of it outside of this forum.  Is it common in alternative medicine (they sell it for a reason)?  I doubt Wes Welker has a thyroid problem.  There are thousands of amazing athletes from age 22-35 that would love to be in his spot and any tiny slip up in his 40 time or bench press would knock him out.  I really don't think he could handle an NFL camp with a thyroid problem.  Watch Hard Knocks on the NFL channel.  These guys really are some of the healthiest and best conditioned athletes on the planet.  I think NFL corners are the best athletes in the world (think Deion Sanders) and Welker has to beat these guys play after play.  Most people have healthy thyroids and don't supplement so I'm guessing we should get enough iodine from our diet and that's why it's not really recommended much.  You could argue that the 40 year old weekend warrior type of athlete could have an underlying health condition but a 30 year old world class athlete?  I don't know.

I absolutely do acknowledge we live in a different world (post-industrial revolution and even moreso the past century) than our ancestors did for most of human history. The level of exposure we have to thousands of chemicals is extensive and probably more gratuitous than any of us could even imagine. Our systems for immunity and detoxification are no doubt challenged on a daily basis to a greater extent than in all of human history. We're all part of a great big experiment.

That said, what is the underlying mechanism creating the susceptibility in some versus others? Can we truly say its a better system of detoxification, or greater numbers of or more resilient mitochondria? I really don't know for sure. But given women's relative tendency to avoid pattern hairloss, and some people's seeming immunity to it, we have to identify something that explains those differentials. The only thing capable of that is something uniquely male and something that can vary and precipitate through generations, i.e. genetics, and those related to hormones and the immune response.

Again, i completely agree that the problems underlying hairloss become exaggerated in our current environment. I'd wholeheartedly expect the rates of premature baldness to be accelerating, and like CS mentioned, I think if you were able to perform a cross-sectional study of several markers for senescence, I'd bet you find there are elevated in younger and younger people. Hence, the importance of things to deaden that impact, like the strategies on this site.

But the original subject of the post led to the age old dispute over whether there is some kind of shield against baldness, and frankly I just don't believe there is. Obviously that would require some kind of information we don't have about rates of baldness in the distant past. But we can be sure it existed, although at what rates we won't know. I think it stands to reason then that we can classify some absolute predisposition to baldness.

What is interesting, and what I totally agree on, is that a big part of the problem lies in mitochondrial function, and subsequently the way we handle energy. But again, I think the malfunction there is what allows the underlying process of balding to advance. THIS is why we see baldness typically set in as we get older, because mitochondrial function and respiration decline. The energy system declines, hair loss begins. What typically happens then, hormonal imbalance. This hormonal imbalance directly leads to hair loss. But today, people's mitochondrial energy systems are degrading earlier and earlier from awful diet (oxidative stress from junk) and direct toxicity.

So is there an true immunity to baldness, well if we could keep our mitochondria/energy systems functioning like a 15 year old for our whole lives, then maybe. But until then, I believe if you are predisposed to baldness you will eventually go bald. What we can do is keep the mitochondria functioning to the best extent possible. It is more than likely the rate at which our energy systems decline that determines the rate at which we bald. This can obviously be influenced to a huge extent.

As a side note to this, my great grandfather went bald at 19. From any outward observation, you'd have said this guy was healthy as a horse. When he died, he had no obvious signs of disease OTHER than diabetes. What does that suggest? A mitochondrial defect, perhaps genetic or one he created himself through diet.

and lets not forget  gorillas and monkeys get mpb.  are we to believe that cavemen didnt go bald? because i highly doubt that.  And if they didnt its probably just because they only lived until a teenager when they got bashed over the head to death.

we can blame poor health and environment all we want, but regrowth still eludes us.  If it is just the result of poor environment, i guess all we can do is try and reverse epigenetic damage to change the trends for generations to come.  We are still going to be left with the simple fact that if we want to stop mpb, we have to do something unnatural, such as drugs, or surgery.  Not that i advocate such things, we all know wat finasteride does, but nevertheless, im still waiting for something to compete with drugs for cessation and regrowth.

IMO the answer is going to be personalised medicine.  that is basically getting DNA tests, and tayloring chemicals and dosages to suit the defects and attributes.  I believe computers and biotechnology will be able to do this eventually.  were halfway there already.  I dont think we are going to stumble upon a magical herb or combination of supplements that will fix wat is obviously there by design.

Lets face it, we will eventually run out of health issues to correct, and find we are still receding.  wat will we do then?  Become like hoppi and make up health problems just to explain why we r going bald?  watever the reason behind mpb, we need to accept its evolved that way.   Its by design. trying to stop it, is like trying to make our noses grow smaller.

rofl wrote:Its just a problem for alot of people on this site, because it goes against theryre theory on mpb being caused by underlying health issues.  The reality is  u can have a perfect diet, and be perfectly healthy, and still get mpb.  I suppose it would be possible for it to be epigenetically caused by the diet and health of previous generations, but how would u know.  I suppose it doesnt rule out the possiblity that he has too much sex but again how would we know.

However that isnt to say that fixing diet and health cant stop a certain amount of hairloss or shedding.  It just wont stop mpb.  However if we can slow it down to a crawl, thats still helpful, thats wat i have done.

Actually, the reality is that you can be a superlative athelete and still be incredibly unhealthy. 

Pro sports players athleticism is just as, if not more so, determined by genetics than their hairline/hairloss will be.  These guys could abuse the #$@! out of their bodies and still compete at the pro level while still suffering from internal infections and imbalances that speed up hair loss or other signs of aging.

Wes Welker is just going to be one of the best slot receivers in the world, even with heavy metals toxicity, h pylori, and scalp fungus infections etc.  If he addressed these things, he would only be incrementally better at his craft, but he might reduce the speed at which his skin, hair, and body ages...thus he might add a year or two to his career. 

Tony Gonzales, TE of the Falcons is a good example of how being very healthy will prolong your career, but that guy at 24-34 was going to be pretty much the same player whether he ate grass fed beef and raw milk or pancakes and mcdonalds all day.

Let's also remember that pro athletes aren't just body builders training systematically in a vacuum like you or I could be.  They are involved in violent collisions and actually push their bodies to the limit, engaging in rigorous physical contact increasing inflammation and damage to nerves, organs, immune system etc. 

IMO

Lutz, you do make a good point. I guess, especially with football, there are more of a subset of positions that seem to be very healthy (collisions aside, but they take recovery very seriously). As an o-lineman, I don't care if you can squat 700 lbs. and still run a decent forty for your size, carrying around 350 lbs. probably isn't healthy. Plus its always popular to talk about how NFL athletes tend to have shorter lifespans. Yeah I get its a violent game and cumulatively it takes its toll, but we still have to acknowledge these guys (skillies especially) are in top physical condition. I agree that these things like heavy metal poisoning or an underlying fungal issue could still be present in these athletes without effecting their performance.

But neither metals, nor fungus is the cause of pattern hair loss either. Again I think its a matter of assigning the label "cause" to things that can "influence" hair loss. Because there are men out there who could have an ounce of mercury in their system and fungus so overgrown you could talk to it, and they still won't lose hair. The initial predisposition must be there, and its these other conditions that are permissive to the process.

(Haha, I'm thinking about a documentary I saw one time with Chad Ochocinco, eating McDonalds every day.)

Being involved with these forums since "ancient" times I've read most of these good arguments before.

So here are some new thoughts to add into the mix.

Several years ago I conducted a poll...this poll was about hair loss, yet the aim was to find out if the average age of a balding males mother was above the mean. The idea behind this question was the fact that offspring are typically more healthy and are projected to live longer lives *if* the mother's age was 25 years or less at the time of giving birth to a male.

If the male was balding upon adult age, the chances of his mother being older than the average was quite high.

The results of my poll/survey showed a strong trend of the mother's age being above 25. In my case, my mother 
was 31 when she had me.

The idea here is mitochondrial integrity. So assuming this trend is accurate, and the research on other areas
suggests that it is, gives some insight into a healthy appearing person being susceptible to balding.

Another factor, which shouldn't be ignored is iodine and other minerals....*note* as before that thyroid testing isn't accurate. That means that regardless of what the endocrinologist or GP says, your thyroid isn't necessarily normal.
A TSH does not tell the truth about thyroid. No test currently exists to measure inter-cellular thyroid levels.

Also it's not just thyroid, it is HTPA...and how minerals are sorted...do these athletes replenish their electrolytes 
with minerals holding a charge?  In most cases I would say no.

High stress will kill off hair though regardless of the century.

Good post CS. Some interesting points there, and that poll is highly interesting as well. My mother was also over the age of 25 when I was born. Hmmm.

For me, I think we can define some absolute cause of AGA. While that hasn't been completely laid out bare yet, it could be CAG polymorphisms in the androgen receptor, a pattern of receptor density in prone areas, or an overly sensitive immune response, or a combination. Its the amount of conversion enzymes the individual makes that determines their hormone levels. There is without a doubt a specific profile of the 17b-HSD, 11b-HSD, 3b-HSD, 5a-reductase, and aromatase in the balding scalp. In some people, the raw materials might end up being shuttled toward more estrogenic hormones, in others more androgenic, and combined with the right receptor densities and immune antibodies, you either have the ground set for hair loss or hair protection.

Where I think everything else comes into play is by acting as the gate keeper. Oversimplifying it: the hair loss monster is caged and requires certain conditions to be let out of the gate. Typically those conditions set in as we grow older, the energy system function declines, stresses grow in number and our mechanisms to deal with them deplete.

The more I research into the mechanisms behind hair loss (which seem to have similar pathologies across many mammal species) it is ultimately the stress response that is the gate keeper. At the end-organ, there is obviously an immunoreactive hormonal interaction taking place, that once it gets to that point we are at a loss to stop it. There seems to be some kind of target of immune attack at that point, whether than be a peptide-receptor complex or microorganisms proliferating in over-produced sebum as the result of androgens, or maybe just a poor profile of fatty acids in the sebaceous glands leading to an overproduction of eicosanoid/leukotrienes that degranulate mast cells and release the evil prostaglandins.

But I feel stress is the gate keeper and our response to that stress that ultimately determines if it gets to that point. And what is the single greatest determinant of our ability to cope with stress (and can be a significant source of it if malfunctioning)...our energy systems. The mitochondria. When adequate respiration is not occurring to support stressed physiology (where the thyroid ties in) the pituitary is forced to direct the body's functioning and somewhat artificially keep the ship afloat with all of the inflammatory stress hormones. Not only do these oppose mitochondrial respiration and thyroid, but they are directly inflammatory and reduce adrenal capacity. Its a vicious cycle.

Many of the pituitary hormones have direct correlations with hair loss (prolactin, ACTH) and the hypothalamic CRH hormone. We talked earlier today about how these very hormones are produced through a cascade of enzymes that also direct pregnenalone/progesterone down a pathway to becoming DHT. When these enzymes are upregulated, so is DHT. And at the same time, although not intuitive, normal testosterone (which I think is hair protective) is opposed. The decline in testosterone levels is also damaging to the body's stress response, another vicious cycle. 

In this sense, mitochondrial decline and stress become the gate keepers that are kind of the rate-limiting control of how fast the process of AGA occurs in prone people. If you are prone, then these accelerate the process. And stress is vague, but a significant amount is mental. People with depression and bipolar disorders or severe anxiety demonstrate reduced amounts of protective hormones (melatonin) which normally oppose the stress hormones, connecting mental disorders to hair loss. A lot of stress is physiological too, with probably the biggest amount connected to the gut. The gut is basically a second brain, anything that stresses it (anything inflammatory) is going to trigger the stress hormones, and the flood gates for MPB open up. Frankly though, I firmly believe that if you have not inherited that genetic predisposition to MPB, you may be suffering physiologically too but it may never present as hair loss.

CS and anthonyspencer,

Holy hell, gentlemen.  Fantastic posts.  And who would of thought those would surface in a "Wes Welker HT" thread, haha!

So like CS has said before, we've essentially got hair loss in the bag, in theory.  Problem is discovery and implementation of an effective regimen, perpetuated for the rest of one's life or until a cure is commercially available.

What I think is beautifully sick about MPB is that there is not only strong evidence that it is triggered and perpetuated by stress, but the progressive nature of it is extremely stressful in itself.  Not only that, but recent posts by you guys suggest that the physiological feedback loops involved the the stress response can also perpetuate and intensify..

It's truly unbelievable how stubborn and unique the condition is.

TrueGround wrote:Not only that, but recent posts by you guys suggest that the physiological feedback loops involved the the stress response can also perpetuate and intensify..

Absolutely, so very true. Once this process has begun, it truly does feed itself.

I've learned a good deal over the past year or so from guys like Peat and Masterjohn and fellas here at IH, and the more I learn and begin to try and connect the dots in all of this, the more it all points to the energy bodies of the cell, the mitochondria. So for me, addressing this requires addressing anything and everything that can impact the mitochondria, and that is why I believe CS says that the science of hair loss is the science of anti-aging. Its very true, mitochondrial decline is probably the number one factor in aging, besides our built in telomerase (whose activity is hastened by mitochondrial decline and inflammation).

And for me, the biggest factors that play into mitochondrial health are reactive oxygen species, providing inefficient fuel, and an inability to clean up cellular waste. We have to be able to tackle the ROS we produce through our own respiration, provide the type of fuel that allows us to clear oxygen so it doesn't cause problems, and eliminate toxins that build up in the cell.

Something I've been pondering is why finasteride works in most users to arrest hair loss and some actually get regrowth or hair quality improvement if it really is a matter of inefficient energy or cell respiration?  How would 5ar inhibits positively impact this for hair growth.  As a matter of fact, CS mentioned fin is manufactured from bromide, so we would expect detriment to thyroid and thus proper energy production, right?

TrueGround,

This is the difference between the allopathic and hollistic approaches, they can both be successful, but here's the tradeoff: whereas allopathic medical treatments can be hyper-successful at doing a single task (blocking 5-ar for example) they tend to come with the greatest amount of side effects.

The differences you are talking about are because you are looking at a different level of organization. Addressing energy/respiration occurs at the cellular level. Inhibiting entire enzymes happens on the macro level.

Generally, a good deal of problems at the macro level are the result of problems at the cellular level, mitochondrial problems being the one getting a lot of talk recently.

There is a good deal of evidence to show that cellular stress is able to promote increases in the conversion enzymes that lead to greater levels of DHT. So from a hollistic standpoint, we'd say we should be tackling cellular stresses, some of the greatest of which originate with the mitochondria. In the hollistic theory, this would translate up the levels and have a positive effect on hair.

From the allopathic view of medicine, we'd say DHT is the problem, so we'll use a medication to directly inhibit the 5-ar enzyme. Two approaches, both valuable, but currently things like finasteride are pretty intolerable. But I have no doubt an absolute cure for baldness will probably come from the medical side of things.

here's another scenario that is possible that I haven't talked much about on this forum, but will start going in depth in the near future:

if you have methylation issues, there's a 90% chance you have a mutation of a genetic SNP called CBS. to make all this as simple as possible, basically, if you have this genetic mutation and you eat a sulfur rich diet (A LOT of healthy foods have sulfur) you may have higher than normal levels of ammonia in your body.

now, there's a process in your body called Nitric Oxide Synthase. it's responsible for converting l-arginine into nitric oxide. nitric oxide stops plaque formation. now, when you have high levels of ammonia in your body Nitric Oxide Synthase gets distracted from it's normal production of nitric oxide, and instead starts converting l-arginine into the free radicals peroxynitrite/superoxide. these free radicals can cause or play some part in hair loss. it's been said on this forum in the past that it could possibly be the "itch" and i've discovered it to be the main cause behind the "itch" in my case after A LOT of investigation.

these are genetic mutations that are causing this. if you have a diet high in sulfur and you have these genetic issues, then there's a possiblity you will be plaqued by some of these problems. even if you eat healthy, it won't be avoided. it's necessary to eat a low sulfur diet (which is considered healthy and is found in many vegetables) and add in many different supplements/treatment options to try to counter it. my assumption now is you do this until you maintain a baseline low sulfur point, then you can add back in sulfur rich foods, but you have to keep your supplements close by in order to counter potentially high levels of ammonia.

just another scenario... not sure how many people this really effects though. i'll be making a post soon to see if any others could have these genetic defects.

One simple question needs to be asked: why do even the most unhealthy people still keep the hair on the sides of their heads?

The ONLY diference between the hair on the sides of our heads and the top of our scalps is that the galea region has the ability to get tight; it is the only part of the body that has this ability and the only part of the body that balds (typicaly)

Stress
Stress
Stress

AKA

Chronic scalp muscle tension
Chronic scalp muscle tension
Chronic scalp muscle tension

Other factors may make it somewhat better or worse, but the mottom line is, if the scalp wasn't tight, the hair up top would be essentially as thick as the hair on the sides of our head, which even for the most unhealthy of us is not bald

Slowmoe, I agree that there is something creating the pattern and the anatomical coincidence of the galea and that connective tissue cannot be denied. But we have to do something more to lay out what the real mechanism is. Somehow or another we have to go beyond the galea being tight, or a lack of bloodflow, etc. We have to account for why hormones receptors are also in greater number and more disproportionate in that very region, and why this hormonal activity is going on there to begin with. I have to agree there is something anatomical effecting all of this, but until we establish that, and ultimately make the connection between it, cellular stress, and hormones, then I just don't think massaging it for the sake of reducing tension is going to really cure hairloss.

TrueGround wrote:Something I've been pondering is why finasteride works in most users to arrest hair loss and some actually get regrowth or hair quality improvement if it really is a matter of inefficient energy or cell respiration?  How would 5ar inhibits positively impact this for hair growth.  As a matter of fact, CS mentioned fin is manufactured from bromide, so we would expect detriment to thyroid and thus proper energy production, right?

Finasteride as well as "Do Trash Your Ride" (Dutasteride) do help destroy the endocrine system. 5-alpha reductase is needed to metabolize necessary steroids, such as allopregnenolone, otherwise depression and anxiety can occur.

Fin & Dut are less effective as we age.