Recent content by pproctor

Traish AM, Hassani J, Guay AT, Zitzmann M, and Hansen M. Adverse side effects of 5 alpha-reductase inhibitors therapy: Persistent diminished libido and erectile dysfunction and depression in a subset of patients. J Sex Med 2011;8:872 - 844. Propecia Side-Effects Paper Introduction. 5...

I published my first research paper taking advantage of molecular orbital calculations in 1970 ( http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v2 ... 868a0.html ). So " computor pharmacology " has long been useful. Unfortunately, we still don't know enough of what happens at the cellular and...

Er, I wasn't commenting about Dr Gho. Rather, I was lamenting about the notorious ( at least among transplant surgeons ) tendency of a few such to "talk their book", overstate their own accomplishments for marketing purposes, and trash-talk the "competition". To understand who I am...

I will break my usual policy and say something about hair transplant surgery. Long ago, I took a course in transplant procedures, but I do not perform them. So, I have no dogs in this fight. I also have seen a lot of transplants and know some of the principals. You can use the...

Paradoxically, sometimes finasteride does increase the sex drive. This is thought to be due to the reflex increase in testosterone levels plus tissue androgen siensitivity that happens with such agents , AKA "reflex hyperandrogenicity". Also, many persons adjust to the side-effects of...

Any treatment that brings follicles out of dormancy early can cause early shedding of loss phase hair. This means any treatment that works, There are no exceptions that I have seen. The hair that sheds is "telogen hair". It was about to fall out in the next few weeks anyway. The good...

There are lots of other treatments that can be helpful. In fact, I have patents on some of them. Our host asks that people not market here. so I will not. The drug companies gave up on this area a decade or so ago. Not enough of a market to justify the $500 million plus to do the...

Inconclusive. Normally ( but arguably not always ), as baldness progresses hairs get progressively miniaturized with each succeeding hair cycle, not during the hair cycle itself. However, people on medical treatment sometimes do find hair coarsens during the cycle. I.e., the part closer...

No way to tell for sure, not medical advice, ymmv, consult your local dermatologist, etc. etc. But 4-5 hairs when running your hands thru your hair is probably not abnormal, depending. Anyway, pattern loss is primarily not a matter of losing too fast, but of not replacing what you...

Depends. "Shedding" is part of the normal hair cycle. Normal shedding is 50-150 hairs per day . Sometimes this can seem like an awful lot. Normal shed "telogen" hairs all have a little white bulb on the end. So this means nothing. Peter H. Proctor, PhD,MD

Good question. The pigment in skin spots or "nevi" is melanin. This is the same material as in our pioneering electronic device, now in the Smithsonian's electrical collection. One type of nevus is called a "hairy nevus". Ya see that pigmented "freckle" with extra hair. That's a...

Not comparing our products to Nioxin. Just making the point that lots of things grow some hair on some people and Nioxin is probably one of these. The real trick is getting cosmetic growth in significant percentage of persons. BTW, he says modestly, check out this link...

I am originally a PhD, Pharmacologist-toxicologist. We are the people who develop drugs for drug companies. Which is why I can point out how AstraZeneca messed up their NXY-059 stroke trial by cleaning up their formulation, as noted below. PhD pharmacologists with MD's are vanishingly rare...

Dr Proctor sniffs: I'm pretty open, but: Our products are the result of 25 years of development and the formulations are proprietary, as well as patented. Go ask Intel for the design of their latest masks, while you are at it. Or for that matter ask any shampoo manufacturer for the...

White bulbs mean regular telogen shed hair. If there is not this bulb, it is likely just hair breakage. Unless you are on chemotherapy for cancer. 1. Reflex hyperandrogenicity. Increased testosterone plus increased testosterone. 2. Just because. E.g., the balding process has just...