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@JaneyElizabeth Thank you for your productive, thorough, and insightful posts. You are one of the few who understands the hair loss methodology inside out.
Struggling for hair loss for 10 year now has been debilitating. I have more than 400 studies saved on my desktop. Trying to connect all the dots.
My conclusion after suffering from many painstaking trial and errors: without sufficient estrogen, you won't regrow hair!
Probably the most insightful study I came across was https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article/27/6/677/2355194. Just read the title. Hair Follicle as and Estrogen Target And Source. That explains it all.
If you further read the researchers main points you'll find that estrogen is the one primary hormone that upregulates hair growth modulators further proliferating the genes necessary for hair growth to commence.
I am talking about WNT pathway, IGF-1, FGF-7, etc.
Just to give you some perspective of my hair loss story similar to @Itsnoahkennedy, whey protein isolate was the main offender. It took me 6 years to realize this was the case.
I was taking 4 scoops of whey protein isolate for 1.5 years 5 days weekly trying to build muscle mass. It lead to diffuse thinning with major recession,
My hair loss looks like leprosy especially when it is wet. I don't recognize myself anymore in the mirror. A similar type of hair loss pattern happened to @Itsnoahkennedy and he too took whey (noah correct me if I am wrong here, but I remember you telling me this a while back).
So my question Janey is: If one simple "natural" supplement can destroy my hair because of a hormonal turbulence why can't we find a "natural" supplement that can regrow our hairs?
Have you remotely considered soy isoflavones (they have to be a specific kind of supplement not the ordinary soy milk, soy protein, or the a generic soy) with capsaicin? There was a study on this and the results do look promising.
Soy isoflavones are the closest "natural" estrogen remedy. Soy isoflavones consist of genistein and daidzein. Genistein binds to estrogen beta receptors similar to E2 and these receptors are known to influence hair growth. I am not talking about the estrogen alpha since it has no direct impact on hair growth.
Read the study I posted above if not already to better understand estrogen beta. I also have compiled a couple of noteworthy studies on soy and their effects on various receptors.
I don't mind posting those here only if you are interested.
Thanks again. You are a legend and a rockstar. We appreciate your generous and meticulous feedback. Very few people have the cognitive skillset and keen observation to fully grasp the hair anatomy. You happen to be the few.
JaneyElizabeth:
My, my.... Thanks so much for the nice comments but you know more about signalling pathways than I do. I fail to see why whey protein would hurt one's hair but I do recall now seeing a posting in this thread related to that. If you want to explain more your thoughts on how this permanently harmed your hair, that would be an interesting post.
This topic fascinates me because most mammals appear to produce hair with testosterone mediating, such as mice. It's the male mice and rats that seem to have better "hair" growth than the females. But there is something similar among many male animals upon reaching adulthood, be it manes, or antlers or horns that are sexually dimorphic and related to, from what I can tell, DHT and its effects in terms of "masculinizing" such animals. If so, and this again is much more of a caucasian issue, then we are truly swimming upstream against something that seems hardwired into white males who also generally have the best beard growth and experience more body hair growth compared to Siberians or Asians or Native Americans.
So beard growth in Europe appears to have played significant roles in terms of differentiating people even when viewed from a distance. As an aside, this is why it is so important to have beard removal for MtFs who want to pass. Females, through the ages among whites and Semites, have used the beard or stubble as a protective way of avoiding unknown males that might be dangerous.This is probably also true for other primates/apes as "baldness" appears in these groups as well.
With respect to herbal supplementation, I started out eating soy all of the time and other isoflavonoids. There is much less baldness in Asians, so it was easy to think that it might help. I would like to see your postings related to this. One thing is that we spend a lot of time in the MtF community trying to steer people away from herbal "estrogens" because we fear folks getting disappointed or experiencing temporary placebo effects but it could conceivably set someone up for better results during HRT. The problem is though that phytoestrogens might actually be competitive with human estrogen and they might occupy receptors where we want estradiol or estriol to be occupying. The issue of Serms, even with respect to Premarin is related to this because Premarin has many types of natural estrogens that are non-human in nature and some of them might be working at cross-purposes. Some meds have divergent effects on different receptors and if there is a baldness cure for males, it might involve raloxi or tamoxi but I honestly don't think any "cure" is coming because this is the way that caucasians are wired. Women get the hair on top and men get the hair below the lashes.
So in this sense, people obsessed with not getting gyno are sort of right because the effects of estrogen clearly make a person less able to work, hunt or defend him or herself in a non-modern context. Beards are highly protective in cold climates while baldness might serve as a form of heat regulation. Beards are also highly protective during fist fights, and against scratches by bushes or thorns. My skin now tears and bruises much more easily. Nature giveth and nature taketh away. So why the differences in scalp hair among white males and females? It might just be random as a mutation but it still seems conceivable that white females had an advantage in terms of carrying infants and toddlers because the hair was down and available for the child to hold onto, and thus promotes the ability to handle tasks with a child in tow.
If you want to message me privately or ask about different protocols, please do and I will look forward to your posting again. I have fought baldness for 36 years and you name it, I have tried it or used it but for many males, it is such an uphill battle.
Trying not to be mean here but for MtFs, the idea of FtMs deciding to go bald intentionally is very difficult to contemplate and for some reason, they all continue to be shocked that that baldness/recession but especially poor hair quality is now the reality of their life. And what do they post typically? "I can't be going bald; none of my relatives who are male are bald...."
Been there, done that and half the posts on tresses on reddit are related to that. Baldness is shocking it appears regardless.
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