The Most Common Cause of Hair Loss Is the Least Suspected, Warns Trichology Expert

"Sweating is a generally healthy mechanism in which sweat glands help remove
impurities and cool the body down from overheating. "But excessive sweating
can be harmful to the hair and scalp because of the lactic acid in our sweat
secretions," explained Harris-Wells. The acid strips away the epithelial
sheath, which is the outer protective layer of the hair. As a result, hair
loses volume and density, and it becomes porous and dry to the point of
brittleness. The excess acid can also cause inflammation of the scalp, and if
untreated can produce red, sore pustules that will become infected with
bacteria. Harris-Wells has treated both genders, from adults to children, for
this condition.

"The most notable form of hyperhydrosis is excessive sweating in the hands,
feet, underarms and face," she said. "For example, people with thyroid
problems may not outwardly sweat but still undergo the internal chemical
processes that lead to lactic acid being secreted onto the scalp and hair."

Hyperhydrosis cases range from mild to severe in terms of hair loss. Sufferers
can include hair transplant patients, men and women with hormonal imbalances,
avid gym-goers, sports figures and athletes, highly stressed individuals, and
people with medical conditions that are genetic."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/21/idUS129045+21-Apr-2009+PRN20090421

this lactic acid may also destroy the hair producing components of the papilla if it isn't efficiently expelled from the scalp, hence the inflammation many men (such as myself) report after heavy exercise.

men with tighter scalps may be more prone to lactic acid residue being trapped in their scalp tissues.

I haven't sweat for maybe 2 years, that's right, I don't exercise at all, yet my hair loss continued at the same space.

FredtheBelgian wrote:I haven't sweat for maybe 2 years, that's right, I don't exercise at all, yet my hair loss continued at the same space.

i'm not saying this is the sole cause of hairloss, as i believe there are many contributory factors, but it seems to me that a tighter than usual scalp is the precursor in creating the many problems which lead to baldness... lactic acid build up possibly being one of them.

So I'm doing more damage to my hair if i exercise and sweat?

theseeker86 wrote:So I'm doing more damage to my hair if i exercise and sweat?

only you will know the answer to that. does your scalp feel inflamed after continuous heavy exercise? if no, then there's your answer.

i think over exercise may cause higher lactic acid due to muscle exhaustion. the high lactic acid levels move to the scalp to be sweated out, but have a tendency to become trapped because the scalp - in some men - is tighter .

eta: i guess it depends upon how much lactic acid you produce, also.

I am using Emu Oil and Coconut Oil before I venture out maybe that lessens the effect? And are scalp massages good? Someone posted here about blood clots? EEK!

Hairbeback wrote:I am using Emu Oil and Coconut Oil before I venture out maybe that lessens the effect? And are scalp massages good? Someone posted here about blood clots? EEK!

well, topical oils may cover sweat glands (like sebum) and may cause lactic acid to become trapped in capillaries, yet some women i know report thicker hair after using coconut oil. so who knows?

...never heard of massage induced blood clots... i thought it would have improved circulation, esp. scalp loosening exercises.

The thicker hair from coconut oil is purely a cosmetic effect.

I luckily don't notice any scalp inflammation after strenuous exercise. However, I would think the excess lactic acid issue would likely be due to general or systemic acidosis, which is probably a health concern all on its own that needs to be addressed. That being said, a lot of the individuals I know who have zero MPB and generally good quality hair are quite physically active.

It's a great post, but I'd take it with a grain of salt..

FredtheBelgian wrote:I haven't sweat for maybe 2 years, that's right, I don't exercise at all, yet my hair loss continued at the same space.

Fred,
I was wondering what happened that broke the plateau you had a year or two back? You started a thread showing great results with supplementation, but now you're always saying nothing works except for minoxidil and that your hair loss can't be stopped.

Not trying to start a fight, I'm just curious. Did that supplements stop working for you? Was there a bad reaction?

Can someone shut him up? Excessive sweat is not the cause of MPB. You are insane.

moby wrote:Can someone shut him up? Excessive sweat is not the cause of MPB. You are insane.

i never said it was. i said it was a possible contributory factor. lactic acid is contained in sweat and if it's release is delayed from tight scalp tissue, then it may cause inflammation.

how hard is that to grasp, moby dickless?

Yeah moby's a moron, I think everyone got that.

The problem I faced is that minoxidil worked, very well in fact, and when you have results, you start to become greedy and want more. So I added the supplements and later thought that the supps were contributing to my success when in fact, they had nothing to do with it. Then I made the mistake of taking iodine which made me lose my mind for 3 months.

Lesson learned, I'll never take another supplement that comes from the internet and I'll follow only proven treatments and methods.

btw moby dickless, you wax lyrical about hairloss being "nailed", yet do you have any evidence to back up your claims, i.e., actual regrowth? the only thing being nailed is your bullshit to the cross, and of course, your ass over the car bonnet

FredtheBelgian wrote:Yeah moby's a moron, I think everyone got that.

The problem I faced is that minoxidil worked, very well in fact, and when you have results, you start to become greedy and want more. So I added the supplements and later thought that the supps were contributing to my success when in fact, they had nothing to do with it. Then I made the mistake of taking iodine which made me lose my mind for 3 months.

Lesson learned, I'll never take another supplement that comes from the internet and I'll follow only proven treatments and methods.

Wow. Shit. Sorry, Fred. How much iodine did you take?

IMO I've definitely noticed a change in energy and bloodwork with supplementation. Going to get a new round of tests done soon. I'm waiting to judge my maintain/regrowth though because it's only been a few months since I went off propecia and started this alternate route.

I'm definitely scared at times, but I know I have to give it a chance to work. I also know that I can alway go back on propecia as a failsafe - but I'm hoping I won't. Yes I had regrowth and maintenence, but I was getting sides. They were subtle and they disappeared after I stopped, yet I hate to think what they might develop into with long term propecia use.

Anyway, thanks for responding, Fred, I hope you can regrowth some of what you've lost with the minox and sups.

Thank you . In fact, I know I won't improve anymore, my hope now is that my hair loss stabilises just like it's supposed to according to my genetics and common evolution of diffuse patterned alopecia so I can do a FUE in less than a year.

I've already contacted two top surgeons in Belgium and I have an appointment in January. The first one told me to jump on propecia as soon as possible, yeah right, after all I've been through, all I need is to regrow my man boobs and lose my libido.

I sometimes don't understand doctors, I maybe have 1000-2000 hairs on top, "quick, take propecia to keep them!" I told him every man in my family is NW5 after 50 years old and he answered "you might be NW7 when you're 30!" WTF?!

Xenon, treating MPB is a long process. Nevertheless, in the last 3 months I would estimate that my hair loss is 80-90% halted. This is before gut detox, antioxidant restoration and EC. Once those are added my hair loss will be halted 100% and I expect to slowly regrow some.

Forget about tight scalp. Notice how you're only attracting crazies and newbie to your thread. Have you ever have gotten a positive answer from one of the senior posters in here?

fred, you said you haven't exercised for 2 years... i also saw your website and saw your 3d artwork. do you have a sedentary job where you spend most of the day sat down, and is the air really stuffy where you work? if so, then your scalp may be producing lots of carbonic acids because of low oxygen delivery. carbonic acids are susceptible to forming in tight scalp tissue because of reduced oxygen levels / lowered circulation.

i have noticed mild inflammation in my scalp when i sit on my computer for too long, and have no doubt it would become worse if i repeated the same routine on a regular basis.

I'm not working yet, I'm still at uni. I did those 3D environements when I was 15, a time when I didn't know balding existed :p.

moby wrote:Xenon, treating MPB is a long process. Nevertheless, in the last 3 months I would estimate that my hair loss is 80-90% halted. This is before gut detox, antioxidant restoration and EC. Once those are added my hair loss will be halted 100% and I expect to slowly regrow some.

Forget about tight scalp. Notice how you're only attracting crazies and newbie to your thread. Have you ever have gotten a positive answer from one of the senior posters in here?

i don't look for validation from senior posters, and i don't care what they make of the information i present here. they're entitled to their opinions, as i am to mine. no one has all the answers, asshole. if they did, then mpb would be cured wouldn't it?

FredtheBelgian wrote:I'm not working yet, I'm still at uni. I did those 3D environements when I was 15, a time when I didn't know balding existed :p.

do you experience any form of inflammation prior to shedding, i.e, a burning / stinging feeling throughout your scalp? if so, then it might be worth trying to find out what is causing the inflammation.

FredtheBelgian wrote:Thank you . In fact, I know I won't improve anymore, my hope now is that my hair loss stabilises just like it's supposed to according to my genetics and common evolution of diffuse patterned alopecia so I can do a FUE in less than a year.

I've already contacted two top surgeons in Belgium and I have an appointment in January. The first one told me to jump on propecia as soon as possible, yeah right, after all I've been through, all I need is to regrow my man boobs and lose my libido.

I sometimes don't understand doctors, I maybe have 1000-2000 hairs on top, "quick, take propecia to keep them!" I told him every man in my family is NW5 after 50 years old and he answered "you might be NW7 when you're 30!" WTF?!

fred... get back on the rogaine AND brush your hair twice a day before you apply it. you'll see it all come back, of course depending on how long you were off the minoxidil.

Fredthebelgian: Why don't you wait for replicel or aderans? Why spending all your money on a shitty FUE? And HT is not the answer to your problem.

Not a shitty FUE, a state of the art FUE. 4000 grafts in two sessions , 8000€. I'm not waiting because nothing will come, in 5 years, it will still be 5 years away, I'd like to be done with hair loss by the age of 25. Sure I won't have amazing coverage, but 4000 grafts to go from a NW5 to a NW2 which I was to begin with will be enough.

I've never said I stopped the minox, I've been continuously using it for 3 years now.

Fred,

I've been doing a lot of research on FUE the past few months and am very intrigued. If you keep your hair short on the sides and back aren't you concerned about white dot scarring being visible? Even a 0.8mm punch will leave something.

Here's a senior poster giving his input (for what it may be worth)

This post, like many, have only fractions of real science involved, and it goes deeper than that as those fractions are taken from studies or articles or hear-say that only contain fractions of "truth". This is a longwhinded way of saying, xenon is looking at a leaf and trying to understand its biological purpouse, without looking at the tree.

There was some threads years ago regarding sweating, and body heat allocation, whether centered on one part of the body, or whether it was happening too much or not at all. A lot of this thread as well as xenon's (no offense to you xenon, inquisitive minds drive the world brutha) others, and many more recently would be unessecary if those threads were brought back or a more general understanding of biology, physics and chemistry were had by most.

Suffice to say that yes, the way your body detox's and regulates its body heat is a symptom of what can cause hair loss, and it can also exacerbate hairloss I'm sure. Pathogen's and bacteria are things I study daily, they fascinate me, mammals will never ever catch up to these microscopic forms of life. If there is anything I could say is "God" it would be them, they are like the invisible presence that surrounds us all the time and influence so much of our lives. In relation to this topic I thought for sure in 2011 that they were topically the cause of scalp fibrosis and inflammation and androgen sensetivity, why? because I misinterpreted the available data, I put pieces of the puzzle together wrong, in a way that left too much information out of the equation and too many answers open.

In reality, I have to surrender to a more realistic and complicated view, that being the reason for the initial low-oxygenated environment that becomes perfect for pathogens in the scalp, is more hormonal. It all begins with some sort of inflammitory cascade, from my research it is the gut that most often initiates it, though there are many possible points of origin. Slowly you see a complex change of the hormones that keep us going, insulin resistance occurs, androgen insensetivity occurs, healing is impaired as a result, we become worse at regulating weight and emotions, stress hormones go out of wack, etc, in some individuals this leads to too much aromatization of testosterone into DHT and a strong upregulation of androgen receptors (necessary under times of metabolic stress to maintain our reproductive systems), which is a major player in the downfall of our microvascular system. Estrogen keeps that system open in such a gentle way compared to androgens, which sort of try to keep things open with a stick of dynamite. This is where I believe we see where the scalp comes in, being such major targets of these receptors and hormones, they're gonna be victims to this whole process and with the lack of available tissue to contain the tiny microvasculature that is already present, a canary in the coalmine is a great analogy. This becomes a perfect environment for the bugs (that were there all along not doing much damamge or any damage) to get into the epidermis and breed, which should piece together nicely the reason studies have shown immune activity in the base of the hair. Really, women would have just as much hairloss as men if it were the other way, androgens obviously have something to do with it.

Another note as this has been argued against the metabolic tie to hair loss before, you don't have to be overweight or this or that to be insulin resistant, nor do you have to present with many or any symptoms, I intend to post studies when I can to give clear reasons why these are my opinions on the topic.

Sorry for the novel of a post.