Bobman,
Since your last post isn't indicative of someone trying to sell something, which I suspected you might have been, I'll level with you......
One quick place to learn a ton about baldness in a "to the point" article is to go to Dr. Peter Proctor's website, drproctor.com. I'll get into that in just a sec though.
In Dr. Proctor's years of practice, he states that topical spironolactone is "about as effective as finasteride". Topical spironolactone is applied twice a day. It effective as spironolactone for 3.97 hours, and by that time its turned into carneoic acid, a weaker anti-androgen, which is active for about four more hours.
So if you apply spironolactone twice a day, youre getting receptor blockage (and inhibiting testosterone synthesis during the "spironolactone" hours) for about 16 full hours.
Finasteride just blocks about 85-90 percent of type two alpha five reductase enzymes from being able to make DHT. These enzymes are located in your hair follicles, beard, and prostate. DHT gets quickly bound by globulin in the blood stream except for about one percent of it. The DHT that harms your hair is made right there in the outer root sheath of your hair follicle by the enzyme, and it falls to the receptor sites on the cytoplasm of the dermal papilla. Proctor states that after hair "becomes sensitive" to androgens, other androgens like androstenidione, DHEAS and testosterone may also enact the same genetic instructions when they are uptaken by receptor sites in the papilla.
Ive seen an experiment that shown that testosterone could make even donor hair miniaturize as well as DHT if you gave the donor hair "enough of it". Thats why sex-binding-hormone globulin levels are important (drink that green tea once a day and up it if you can). Men with low globulin, have a lot of extra "free" testosterone. Western diets build insulin resistance and we dont eat the soya with its phytosterols, the green tea, the fish (fish oils) and the rice (did you know that rice bran oil has the highest incidence of sterols of any foodstuff?---it aint close). Old Japanese diets had tons of this stuff plus lots of veggies which have some phytoestrogens and are anti-inflammatory also. THIS IS WHY the Japanese are balding so much more now. They are getting less globulin and more androgenic uptake in their skin and dermal units at younger ages. Baldness is a "low" process unless you possess the triplet repeat androgen receptor mutations that Docj077 talks about very strongly.
Back to anti-androgens.........................there was an androgen called RU58841 that was manufactured for a while by a pharmacuetical company in Europe, but they were bought out by another company. The new company considered cosmetic pharmacueticals "beneath" their mission, etc. So, they didn't produce it. However it was tested in animals to a very good response. Its just a receptor blocker. Will Brink, a life extension writer/bodybuilding writer, wrote about some of his wealthy aquaintences who had chemists bake batches of the stuff up for their personal usage. These are men to whom money isn't an object and were probably doing expensive things like proxiphen for their hair. They told Brink that the RU58841, a receptor blocker, was the best thing they ever used.
Ive seen an article way back that had Duke University researchers who declared that castration was "pretty much a way to stop further baldness". Apparently they had done this to balding apes. That sealed the deal to me, as the Hamilton info, as Bryan has stated, is out there on the internet, but in the medical lit is elusive.
However, we can pretty much tell that its true because of the varrying effectiveness of the drugs we do have for baldness. Dutasteride, which stops 98 percent of type two DHT and even 50 percdent of type one, is better than finasteride for baldness. When people add topical ketoconazale to finasteride, the two anti-androgens work better than one. Only something that blocked receptors completely like flutamide would be better.
In tests flutamide has been better. Its used in transexuals, and the STOP losing their hair (Ive read alot on that subject beacuse it relates to hair). However, flutamide even when used topically gets systemically abdorbed with awful side effect in males (no libido, gyno, no energy, diarreaha, stomach upset). I tried flutamide from lipoxidil for one week once. I felt like sh*t and couldn't lift my dick with a crowbar after three days. I had diarreaha somethin awful too. Its the best anti-androgen for your head hair though, no doubt.
Things that can get "some lost hair back" are copper peptides, and minoxidil, and latanaprosts. However, these are much better used with anti-androgens. The effect is much greater. Look in the hairloss photo gallery on this website and see Martin's picture. He did the "big three". Those are his one year results. They are drammatic. Bryans are pretty damn impressive on prox-n alone, with no anti-androgen to speak of.
I wish baldness was a microcapillary disorder or some such, and I know its associated with heart problems, insulin resistance, and a few other things. But if you look the inflammatory enzymes associated with the immuno attack in baldness are associated with those disorders also. Like PKC, TNF-alpha, TGF-beta (in alot of autoimmune disorders), IL-1.
If you read Proctors website (there really is only about three or four pages to read), you'll see whats up for the most part. The immuno attack on the follicles involves the cytokines involved above, negative dermal papilla growth factors and superoxides, and excessive collagen deposition and crosslinking of collagenous fibers and hardening of the connective tissue sheath, and microcapillary degeneration of the capillaries that feed the follicle. All this will stop if you block receptor sites for a while though. I think anti-androgens are important in an attempt to get good regrowth because they can stop further damage while one uses something like prox-n and minoxidil to remodel the skin, kick start the follicles. Something like emu would probably help also as it gives the peptides "skin" to work with in a sense. But in my opinion, stopping andorgenic uptake is essential until we figure out all the negative growth factors and how to counteract them in the papilla. (we know the dermal papilla uptakes androgens and releases negative growth factors to the rest of the follicle-----we just dont know all of the negative growth factors or what substances might couteract all of them). We know some thought................proantocyandiands from apples and barley and bromelain and curcumin and some green tea catechins can inhibit tgf beta, grape seed can inbibit PKC, ......external cytokines TNF alpha can be inhibited by borage oil , green tea, curcumin and a few other things, IL -1 can be inhibited by silica. Thats some progress. ITs being looked into.
Apparently when we are fetuses, as the skin grows upwards from the face over the head, the determination of which hairs will be androgen-sensitive is made for both males and females.....................thats the working theory in the scientific establishment at this point. There has been talk of being able to give mothers medications when they are pregnant that might inhibit this, but of course there might be risks to the childs sexual development etc. WE know pregnant moms cant have propecia for insatnce.......
Well, gotta go, Check out proctors site. Check out keratin.com and read McElwee too.
