Best advice for someone balding almost purely from genetics

I've noticed that a lot of the treatments on here are to correct some underlying problem involving multiple systems, organs, etc. – problems that in turn have come to have a degrading effect on the person's hair health

But let's just say for the sake of discussion (I know that opinions will vary as to whether this case truly exists) that someone, despite their mpb, is perfectly healthy.

Here is my question: What treatments could potentially remedy this person's mpb?

The genomic causes of hairloss aren't understood to a degree that a non-systemic treatment is available yet. We have pieces, and important ones, just not the nitty gritty. The treatments available that work by mechanisms developed according to our understanding of the genetics, well, they tend to cause a lot of problems for men, and aren't altogether that successful in the first place. Drugs like finasteride and dutasteride seem to be decent at stopping further loss, but regrowth isn't as easy. That's because we understand that androgens play a key role in MPB, but the things happening further downstream of this are still being figured out. Androgen blockade isn't viable at this point because we can't contain it to the tissues we want: the hair. We end up downregulating androgen activity through the whole system, and this is a huge problem.

The point of treatments here at the forum - besides avoiding the sides of more mainstream treatments - is to try and effect the process further upstream of the end organ. It won't work for everybody, but the connections that can be drawn between the thyroid, the adrenals, the immune system, etc. are what's being explored, to see whether we can have an impact on our loss with non-prescription therapies to target inflammatory instigators before they are able to effect our basic vulnerability to hair loss. Its not removing the underlying mechanisms of MPB, but trying to slow, halt, or throw a wrench in the gears of the machine.

Addressing the underlying genetic cause literally requires some type of means to "turn off" nuclear signalling inside of highly specific, specialized cells, and nowhere else. That's a tough egg to crack and there's just nothing viable out there, from what I've seen. Yet.

Take, for example, a study CS posted just the other day. It implicated JAK signalling in the etiology of alopecia areata. Its a different type of loss, but just so we can paint a picture here, JAK is a multi-functional kinase enzyme involved in many growth and cell death pathways. The cross-talk is mind boggling if you ever want to look up some of the images of the signalling cascades. Its just stupid. You begin to see how you have to be surgical and precise to a level we aren't yet. You can't go in and just start knocking out enzymes, which is pretty much where we are at now, otherwise you effect all of the other interconnected pathways.

You don't bald purely from genetics. It's genetics + underlying condition.

stresssucks wrote:You don't bald purely from genetics. It's genetics + underlying condition.

I'll attempt to further simplify it.

Androgens invite susceptibility to toxin exposure. This is why certain diseases are more prevalent in men than women.
A good example, just one of many is the relationship between mercury and zinc (a toxin displaces a mineral).

However, sometimes the inflammation comes from sources different from this relationship.

Thanks a lot for the reply AS54! That really changes the way I look at this