Dr. Cole on Life of the Follicle

[Old Baldy]

I thought there were unlimited hair cycles throughout our lives. However, this reputable hair transplant surgeon posted something that I never thought existed:

All hairs on the scalp have a specific number of cycles (anagen, telogen, effluvium, resumption of anagen). You can think of it as the number of lives a cat has. Once a hair reaches the critical number of cycles, it is thought to abruptly transform form a coarse thick terminal hair to a finer, slower growing, less pigmented hair that will have a shorter anagen duration or a shorter growing phase. Treatments aimed at hair loss include medications such as Propecia or finasteride. Propecia is known to competitively inhibit 5 alpha reductase type 2. this results in a decrease in Dihydrotestosterone (DHT). How does DHT reduction promote hair growth? No one knows for sure, but it probably has something to do with stimulation and prolongation of anagen. It is not uncommon for individuals on Propecia to experience a shedding of hair 3 to 6 months after beginning the product. Many individuals are understandably frightened out of their minds over this. It probably is a good sign, however. It probably indicates that the propecia has stimulated a new anagen cycle. When a new anagen cycle is stimulated, the resting hair in telogen phase is pushed out much like a baby tooth is pushed out of the way by an adult tooth. Thus, 8 to 12 months after this shedding, you should see a thicker shock of hair.

I'm baffled and confused to say the least! :?

 

[Bryan]

I don't know of any evidence to support his claim. Frankly, I think he's talking out of his rectum.

Bryan

 

[michael barry]

I have been struck at how little hair transplant surgeons in general seem to know about how to "fight" baldness in general. Cole posted at hairsite on what he thought about minoxidil and how it worked. I was astounded. He is a great great surgeon, but he thought it was primarily a vasolidator and a anagen inducer. He didnt say anything about potassium channels, VEGF, connective tissue sheath fibers and inhibition of their hardening, TGF-beta inhibition, sulfudryl receptors, etc.


Rassman, on his balding blog, all but dismisses nizoral and spironolactone (less so with spironolactone).


One has to keep in mind however, if everyone went on the big three as soon as they started losing hair.........................most men would make it about ten good years before really losing a great deal more hair, and there really should be cloning available by that time. Its in their financial interests not to tell guys that they can add spironolactone, peptides, nizoral (I consistently am amazed that nizoral is hardly ever mentioned by transplant docs-----its as if it does not exist).

 

[So]

Hang on, what?

I have read numerous times that the hair follicle produces approximately twenty hairs in it's life time which equates to twenty cycles.

Are you saying that this is bull-sh*t?

If this is true, then there is an abundance of literature that needs to be rewrote.

I've never really given this a second thought, nor do I really care, however such claims are wide spread and if such is incorrect then there is an abundance of literature that needs to be rewrote.

 

[Bryan]

Hang on, what?

I have read numerous times that the hair follicle produces approximately twenty hairs in it's life time which equates to twenty cycles.

Are you saying that this is bull-$#iT?

No, that's not bull-$#iT at all. That's based on the typical life-span of a person. But that doesn't mean that every hair follicle has some sort of a "genetic clock" inside it which causes it to automatically self-destruct once it ticks-off that 20th cycle. THAT is what we're talking about, not just how long the average person lives.

Bryan

 

[So]

Ok, I understand. However some literature needs to be rewrote because they construe their statement as if there were only 20 cycles (approximately) give or take available to a person in their life as opposed to that is the amount the average person will achieve over the course of their live due to the length of each phase etc.

Thanks

 

[michael barry]

So,

Some 115 year old woman just died a few weeks back. She wasn't bald. At five years per cycle, and 20 cycles, she should have been bald at 100. Get it?


I have posted pictures of THREE women who went bald due to testosterone injections. None of the three would have went bald without them as normal women dont usually bald in youth. They didn't "use up their cycles", androgens and their side effects miniaturized their hair.


With new medicines and new info on nutrition, I'd imagine we are going to be seeing more centanariun people in the coming decades. I imagine all will not be bald either. Body hair, for instance, sure as hell doesn't seem to thin too much with age.

 

[Old Baldy]

Oh, I see guys, maybe Dr. **** is leaving out the average lifespan in his "equation". That makes more sense to me from all I've read. Whew!

So: Where have you read all these articles relative to a set amount of hair cycles regardless of the average lifespan? And, if Dr. **** is correct, why don't you care? That would mean transplanted hairs will "disappear" over time, plus, no matter what we do treatment wise (i.e., surgery, medications, etc.) is going to be an exercise in futility eventually?

 

[Bryan]

Ok, I understand. However some literature needs to be rewrote because they construe their statement as if there were only 20 cycles (approximately) give or take available to a person in their life as opposed to that is the amount the average person will achieve over the course of their live due to the length of each phase etc.

I agree with you 100%: some literature needs to be re-written, because it's ambiguous and misleading. I personally sometimes get a little too wordy in things that _I_ write, because I have a fundamental fear that people are going to misunderstand what I was trying to say in a post or email. I wish everyone else had the same paranoid concern!

BTW, I've seen that same idea expressed a few other times over the years on hairloss sites (that there is a natural limit to how many times a hair follicle can cycle), and some people who talk about that do in fact consider it to mean what you assumed it to mean above. Furthermore, it's fairly obvious to me where that idea came from: it's likely to be an offshoot or an extension of the well-known "Hayflick limit", which is the discovery that many cells do in fact have sort of a built-in limit on how many times they can divide, due apparently to telomere shortening. Some people have hypothesized that maybe hair follicles have a similar built-in limit to how many times they can cycle; the only problem with that is that it's SHEER SPECULATION. I've never heard of any evidence whatsoever to support that notion. I think it's basically just an attempt by those people to show off their knowledge by trying to link cellular biology with human hair growth in a new and novel way! :wink:

Bryan

 

[Matgallis]

Interesting... however, i've also heard that the heart has a set amount of "beats" in it. One doctor stated, by increasing caffeine consumption you're increasing your heart rate, which lessens the amount of time you live.

bad assumptions. If hair follicles are pre-programmed to be gone after so many cycles, then why does the top thin and the sides and rest of the body don't? have you ever seen an eyebrow less man at 95? Causation and correlation are completely separate, yet are often confused.