PGD2 proven to be implicated as a cause of baldness

US researchers identified the protein responsible for male pattern baldness, raising expectations that an effective treatment for the most common cause of hair loss in men is on the horizon.

Male pattern baldness affects eight out of 10 men and causes the hair follicles to shrink and produce microscopic hairs, which grow for a shorter duration of time than normal hairs.

"We looked at bald scalps last year and saw the hair follicles were still present," according to senior author George Cotsarelis, from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "So we inferred there was either a lack of an activator [to spur hair growth] or the presence of an inhibitor."

Using microrays, Cotsarelis and his colleagues took tissue samples from the scalps of men who suffered from androgenetic alopecia and measured levels of different genes. The samples were taken from both bald spots and spots with hair.

The researchers found that the bald spots had abnormally high levels of a protein called Prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) - nearly three times the amount present in the scalp areas with hair.

Once the researchers identified the protein, they did further tests to study what effect PGD2 had on hair in mice and hair follicles grown in a lab.

"It really decreased the growth," Cotsarelis said, adding that the findings are "completely new".

However, for the protein to inhibit hair growth, it has to first bind to a receptor called GPR44, which, according to Cotsarelis, is the target for future treatments to combat baldness.

"We had genetically-modified mice that lacked the GPR44 receptors for the PGD2 protein," Cotsarelis said. "In normal mice, PGD2 inhibited hair growth, but in mice with non-functional receptors, the hair grew fine. The inhibitory effects of PGD2 act through the receptor, so what we want to do is block the receptor."

Some compounds targeting the GPR44 receptor are underway in other labs to treat health issues such as asthma.

Cotsarelis believes this latest finding means that a topical treatment for male pattern baldness may be on the way soon.

The study was published in Science Translational Medicine.

Prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) is synthesized by two distinct types of prostaglandin D synthase (PGDS), the lipocalin-type (L-PGDS) enzyme and the hematopoietic (H-PGDS) enzyme. PGD2 is produced by H-PGDS in large quantities by allergen-stimulated mast cells and acts as a pro-inflammatory mediator in allergic reactions. Selective inhibition of H-PGDS is therefore being pursued as a drug target for allergy treatment.

These messengers—prostaglandins and leukotrienes—are synthesized from an omega-6 fatty acid called arachidonic acid, or AA. Obviously, some level of AA is necessary so that the body’s immune system is not left defenseless. But when we have too much AA, we produce too many inflammatory messengers; too many messengers, and we have inflammatory disease.

There is a direct connection between the amount of preformed AA that we consume in our diets and the amount of inflammatory messengers that our body produces. Dr. Jay Whelan and his colleagues at the University of Tennessee and Cornell demonstrated in the early 1990s that introducing even low amounts of dietary AA into hamster diets caused a dramatic upsurge in the ability of inflammatory cells to produce inflammatory messengers. The same is true in clinical trials done in humans. Dr. Andrew Sinclair and his colleagues in Australia have shown that the more dietary AA humans consume in foods, the more inflammatory messengers they produce. In fact, research has proven that a high AA diet has the potential actually to change normal immune responses to abnormal, exaggerated ones. A study carried out in 1997 by Dr. Darshan S. Kelley and colleagues at the Western Human Nutrition Research Center in California showed that people on high-AA diets generated four times as many inflammatory cells after a flu vaccination as people on low-AA diets.

In 1997, Dr. Aldo Ferretti and his colleagues at the Nutrition Requirements and Functions Laboratory did a study that showed that people on a high-AA diet (1,500 milligrams a day) had 41 percent more of the messengers that control inflammation and platelet stickiness than people on a low-AA diet, one that contained only 210 milligrams of AA per day.

here is unquestionably a connection between elevated levels of AA in the diet and elevated levels in the blood. High levels of AA in the blood cause significant increases in a number of parameters that directly affect our health: the production, and overproduction, of inflammatory messengers, as well as the messengers that call for platelet aggregation, or stickiness, a major contributor to heart attack. In people cursed with a certain genetic makeup, eating high levels of AA dramatically leads to—and worsens—serious human diseases, like heart disease, the leading killer of Americans today.

My laboratory has just published a paper in the Journal of Nutritional Health and Aging showing that the concentration of AA in our blood naturally increases as we age. To do the study, we took a group of younger and older adults, and we fed them ordinary Western diets. The food they ate was prepared in what’s called a “metabolic kitchen,” which means that all of the nutrients in each food item were carefully analyzed and portions strictly weighed before the participants ate the meals, to ensure that everyone was eating the same thing in the same amounts. When blood AA levels were measured at the end of the study, the older adults had markedly higher blood concentrations of AA

ferox wrote:Is there any possiblity to inhibit arachidonic acid?

virtua_ wrote:Could this be the binding between TCM theory of weak kidneys, post orgasmic illness syndrome and western science? And also why some have found success with abstaining from ejaculation to preserve hair?

Doesn't ejaculation release prostaglandins, and if these might increase inflammation, that may be a connection?

virtua_ wrote:Could this be the binding between TCM theory of weak kidneys, post orgasmic illness syndrome and western science? And also why some have found success with abstaining from ejaculation to preserve hair?

Doesn't ejaculation release prostaglandins, and if these might increase inflammation, that may be a connection?

Mastery wrote:Kidneys = hair. No need to worry about cuming.

You need great kidneys, period. How? - (i) eat & drink perfect, (ii) reflexology or acupuncture, (iii) eat warm, root veggies, (iv) go to bed early and (v) avoid women!!! (instead fuck a lady)

virtua_ wrote:
But excessive ejaculation can lead to weak kidneys per TCM?

I have been diagnosed with bad kidneys (both yin and yang both primarily yang) and liver (liver fire I believe?), how do one go to rectify this?

Acupuncture didn't really do it for me.

virtua_ wrote:

Mastery wrote:Kidneys = hair. No need to worry about cuming.

You need great kidneys, period. How? - (i) eat & drink perfect, (ii) reflexology or acupuncture, (iii) eat warm, root veggies, (iv) go to bed early and (v) avoid women!!! (instead fuck a lady)

But excessive ejaculation can lead to weak kidneys per TCM?

I have been diagnosed with bad kidneys (both yin and yang both primarily yang) and liver (liver fire I believe?), how do one go to rectify this?

Acupuncture didn't really do it for me.

When you say avoid women, fuck a lady, I guess you mean to have a steady partner and only have sex with her, right, which seems like good advice, as there is an energy exchange I believe and love can help mitigate the problem.

Do you do any sort of semen retention of not cuming every time?

I got CFS on top of this now after an infection I got while in Asia, but I believe it might also be due to the immune system being weak after years of weak kidneys and liver...

angusmojo wrote:According to the GPR44 wikipedia page, indomethacin is a proven blocker of GPR44 receptor:
"""
Hirai H, Tanaka K, Takano S et al (2002). "Cutting edge: agonistic effect of indomethacin on a prostaglandin D2 receptor, CRTH2". J. Immunol. 168 (3): 981–5. PMID 11801628.
"""
The full study

As indomethacin is widely available in topical or gel for pain relief treatment, why not testing it?

virtua_ wrote:I got CFS on top of this now after an infection I got while in Asia,

rdkml wrote:

virtua_ wrote:I got CFS on top of this now after an infection I got while in Asia,

Did you get a vaccination before you went to Asia?

Thanks.

rdkml wrote:

virtua_ wrote:I got CFS on top of this now after an infection I got while in Asia,

Did you get a vaccination before you went to Asia?

Thanks.

virtua_ wrote:I did have that in the back of my mind, perhaps this triggered it?