Diet and Exercise. Can they help?

[In_The_Night]

I've been on the raw food diet for about a year. I feel amazing eating this way and don't plan on stopping. I also run every morning. Could these things possibly slow the onset of male pattern baldness? I'm also going to be adding more meditation to my life. All of these things have their own benefits, but it would be great if anyone has some input on whether they could help me keep my head of hair.

I've got some frontal thinning which has been pretty stable for a while as far as I can tell, I would be happy to have it stay here for a decade or more, maybe get a little better.

 

[Todd]

An exellent question.
Some people would say that excersise and diet definitely would have an impact on your hairloss. A few would even go as far as saying that the right diet alone could stop hairloss, even regrow hair.
Others would claim that hairloss is purely genetic, and that nurture doesn't stand a chance against nature on the subject of hairloss. Your genes account for a given number of androgen receptors and/or a high alpha reductase activity; and that blocking those receptors or enzymes, or chemicaly inducing the follicle to keep growing, is the only treatment.

My personal guess is that the truth lies somewhere in between.
Diet and excersise can have a great impact on hormones.
There are studies linking the intake of soy and beta sitosterol to a reduced frequency of prostate cancer, studies linking aerob excersise to testosterone levels etc, etc.
However: there aren't a single study actually confirming that hairloss can be treated through diet or excersise.

 

[In_The_Night]

Mhm. Somewhere in the middle sounds reasonable to me.

About studies though, couldn't it just be next to impossible to conduct an accurate study on long term effects of these very particular diets and fairly disciplined exercise regimens? It seems it would be difficult to find subjects who you could count on sticking to it.

 

[Cassin]

Who knows for sure but a healthy body makes everything work a little better so why not for hair loss?

 

[WhatYouEgg]

there was a huge uptick of male pattern baldness in Japan after WWII and their society got more westernized (more sedentary lifestyle, more fatty food).

there's also a link between cardiovascular disease and male pattern baldness.

do the math.

 

[Cassin]

38

 

[DHTHater]

As I understand it, there is a correlation between aerobic exercise (non-weight lifitng cardio) and lower overall DHT levels. I don't have the articles off hand but anyone can find the info by Googling Aerobic Exercise DHT or Cardio Treat Hair Loss.

A Decrease in Free Testosterone due to aerobic exercise indirectly can lead to lower DHT levels, and what's more is that stress is greatly reduced by regular cardio exercise, which can have a profound effect on hair loss. What's maybe most important here is what others have already mentioned with regard to balancing hormones. The body is inclined to release more stress hormones and more inflammatory cytokines when it is not being exercised. To compound all of that, the bodies circulation is improved when it is regularly exercised, and I'm sure you don;t need me to sell you on the obvious benefits of improived circulation getting to the scalp.

Regular Cardio (30 to 40 minutes a day for 4 -6 days a week) can help fight hair loss.

 

[Todd]

Mhm. Somewhere in the middle sounds reasonable to me.

About studies though, couldn't it just be next to impossible to conduct an accurate study on long term effects of these very particular diets and fairly disciplined exercise regimens? It seems it would be difficult to find subjects who you could count on sticking to it.

Next to impossible, yeah. In fact; subjects dropping out of experimental diets are a major concern in many nutritional experiments. That and the fact that it takes at least 20 years for a given diet/lifestyle- study to be able to conclude anything.

I you found a way to get a hundred or so young men to eat healthy food and excersice daily without fail;well, I would assume you were in for a nobel prize in medicine

 

[In_The_Night]

Great input guys. I read so much about drugs for male pattern baldness.
It's encouraging to have these lifestyle choices affirmed too.

 

[s.a.f]

I would'nt put your hopes on it. :thumbdown2:

 

[In_The_Night]

I would'nt put your hopes on it. :thumbdown2:

Funny you should say that.

I actually do have quite a bit of hope invested in this.

 

[Moony]

At the very least improved circulation has to count for something. I always notice after a good cardio workout my scalp feels the best it ever has, suffused with blood and much more loose when I move it around with my hands.

 

[GeminiX]

I have no idea if my new healthy(ish) diet and regular excercise have helped with the hair-loss, but they *definately* make me feel much better in general.

It takes about three months to get past the "Oh crap I hate the gym" phase, but once your though that and your body really starts responding to the training it's one of the best natural "highs" you can get.

I feel grouchy if I spend more than a couple of days without a good workout.

 

[s.a.f]

I would'nt put your hopes on it. :thumbdown2:

Funny you should say that.

I actually do have quite a bit of hope invested in this.

Exercise and diet are not enough to prevent male pattern baldness from taking it's course; no matter how healthy your diet may be, or how frequently you may exercise. Your hair follicles will still be adversly effected by DHT. Exercise and diet will not change your genetic predisposition to DHT, nor will they prevent the programmed cell death of your hair follicle, which is triggered by DHT.

If you want to slow your hairloss than your best bet would be a proven DHT inhibitor such as Finasteride. Finasteride will suppress the enzyme A5R2 which is the ezyme responsible for Testosterone's conversion into DHT; by addressing the underlying causes of hairloss Finasteride reverses the balding process for many men, Excerise and diet cannot accomplish this.

Exactly its not going to have anymore positive effects on a m.p.b succeptable head of hair than a bad lifestyle will have on a unsucceptable head of hair. We are slaves to our DNA and no lifestyle changes can alter that. If your father grandfather ect is bald and you have their genetics you will go bald also. I should know because it happend to me.
You might aswell be a short guy arguing that diet and excercise will make you tall - they wont.

 

[In_The_Night]

Exactly its not going to have anymore positive effects on a m.p.b succeptable head of hair than a bad lifestyle will have on a unsucceptable head of hair. We are slaves to our DNA and no lifestyle changes can alter that. If your father grandfather ect is bald and you have their genetics you will go bald also. I should know because it happend to me.
You might aswell be a short guy arguing that diet and excercise will make you tall - they wont.

But these practices can actually lower the level of dht and testosterone in the blood. So I don't see how you can say concretely that they have no effect.
We are not complete slaves to our dna in many ways, why this one?
If my family has a history of prostate cancer, I can do my very best to eat right, and take care of myself in a way that could make this a non-issue for myself. I'm hoping the same or similar can be done for male pattern baldness, and I don't see why it can't.
I know and feel exactly when my scalp feels tense and uncomfortable. After a run, a cup of green tea, yerba mate, or good meditation session, this feeling is gone. That tension, in my mind, is one of the major factors in the early onset of my hairloss. If I can do my best to decrease the amount of time my scalp feels like that, I think I'll be doing something right. It's a feeling of tension right in the temple and general frontal region, which is precisely where I'm thinning. The only ways I know of to lessen this for me, are dedicated lifestyle changes, and eventual forming of new habits, and even ways of thinking. There's no proof out there that lifestyle like this can't do something. First, the issue of an accurate study, and second, in things like this, we can never know what was prevented, or slowed.
So, as far as I'm concerned, these lifestyles hold the potential to help not only my hair, but my overall health and well-being.

I think one of the biggest problems is that some people find these changes among the most difficult in life to make. Requires a different kind of effort than is required for popping a pill.

BTW, there actually are changes and additions to diet, and exercises people can do to make themselves taller. (plus leg breaking)

 

[WhatYouEgg]

There's no outright link. There are fat gross slobs that stay NW1 their whole life, and ridiculously fit individuals that go bald as quickly as anyone.

But I fully believe there over a large sample size, and all other things being equal, the fitter people will tend to have less, and less severe male pattern baldness.

 

[In_The_Night]

I'm not saying that diet and exercise will make a dht sensitive scalp a non-dht sensitive scalp. But just what someone else posted. That these lifestyle changes actually do have the potential to lower stress, dht, increase circulation and offer other benefits that could help slow, halt, or reverse the male pattern baldness process.

 

[timbo]

In The Night, Healthy lifestyle changes will help promote hair growth in general. However, Diet and exercise has nothing to do with DHT causing damage to your follicles. If you are losing your hair, treatments are your only hope. Diet and exercise won't do the trick.

 

[DHTHater]

I did some additional digging and found some important studies. It seems there is conflicting and confusing information on the specific subject of aerobic exercise lowering levels of DHT, at least in respect to middle age to older men. If the Medscape published study is what we're following as gospel, then the results are interesting with regard to lowering DHT, but also keeping hair. According to them, in men tested between the ages of 40-70, regular aerobic exercise actually showed increased DHT levels by 14.5% over a year long span of regular exercise. Quoting them:

"Conclusions: A yearlong, moderate-intensity aerobic exercise program increased DHT and SHBG, but it had no effect on other androgens in middle-aged to older men."

The kicker here is that regular aerobic exercise also increases SHBG levels, and in one study, men that were bald or balding had low SHBG levels. So prospectively the two studies could cancel each other out with regard to hair loss.

The online conflict is that at Wikipedia a cited source link lead one contributor to write that only free testosterone is used to convert to Dihydrotestosterone, and since cardio exercise reduces free testosterone, that should mean DHT would be lowered as well according to him. I can't confirm or deny that free tesosterone is all that is used in conversion to DHT or how much of free testosterone is reduced by running for example. The conflicting information is in the treatment is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness in the Treatment section, under Exercise :

"Regular aerobic exercise can help keep androgen levels (particularly free testosterone levels) naturally lower while maintaining overall health, lowering stress and increasing SHBG.
SHBG has been found to be significantly lowered in men with hair loss before the age of 30.
"

The Medscape published study is here (I actually had to register to view the entire article which is 4 pages in total) http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/569299 To add further confusion, on the same initial bounce page of the study it points out that increased SHBG levels counteract increased testosterone here:

"Prospective, nonrandomized studies of resistance exercise over a few weeks either increased testosterone[50] or not,[26,42] whereas one study of daily aerobic exercise together with a low-fat diet increased SHBG, which could counteract the biological activity of testosterone."

And as mentioned before, according to the cited study at the reference section of the wikipedia article, lower SHBG levels were found in balding men.

It's important to point out here that nothing in the study monitored links or correlations between said DHT levels and hair, or specificity in the type of 5-alpha-reductase. So we can't conclusively say that exercising more means that we'd lose more hair. For all we know the DHT increase in the studies was higher in type I 5ar. There's also the SHBG dilemma that any argument against exercise would need to get around that I pointed out earlier, not to mention that regular aerobic exercise leads to lower stress levels, lower production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and increased circulation.

I should also point out the Medscape study makes a direct correlation between decreased DHT levels and cardiovascular disease risk, which would somewhat ironically mean we'd still be better off running if we're regular Finasteride users if we'd like to keep our tickers going. It also stresses the importance of omitting saturated fats and trans fats from our diets as much as possible if we're lowering our DHT with drugs/supplements.

Additionally it's important to note here, that the study was specific about the age groups it was testing on - 40-70 yr old men. Certainly that would factor into the results of the studies, considering the body's level of free testosterone, and the way in which it is produced vs other hormones as we age.

Bottom Line:
So does aerobic exercise fight hair loss? We now know that regular aerobic exercise has been shown to increase SHBG levels, and in one study men with hair loss were shown to have low levels of SHBG. Conversely, we also know that in older men regular exercise actually increases DHT a little (14.5% increase in DHT for regular exercisers over a 12 month span vs a baseline 1.7% in non exercisers), but which type of 5ar is unknown. The real question is - Should the slight increase in DHT from exercise prevent you from doing it, especially given the known hair benefits from doing it (e.g. increase in SHBG , lower stress levels, lower inflammation, and better circulation)? Also consider that lowering DHT with things like Finasteride and Dutasteride could place you at a higher risk for heart disease. For me the answer is clear, aerobic exercise is something I must continue to do for a host of reasons I just mentioned, even if it means a slight increase in DHT, it also increases my SHBG, and gives me a slew of other hair growing benefits I'd rather not give up.

 

[DHTHater]

To underscore the confusing find in the study posted above, and possibly one more reason why the slight rise in DHT due to exercise is likely negligible, I found this statement on page 4 of the Medscape study, and thought it was interesting enough to share:

"Surprisingly, we did not find that DHT increases were greater among men who lost more fat in our study. "

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/569299_4

Since the body fat decrease due to the yearlong exercise regimen had no marked effect in DHT levels, that could point to the possibility of exercise induced rise in SHBG canceling out the testosterone needed to create DHT. I couldn't speculate as to how that happened with any degree of certainty, but that part was at least comforting to know.