Immune System & Hairloss - A Few Research Papers

[macaroni]

. .

 

[luiza]

Guys - it's late, i'm tired but i have been reading through some papers about auto-immune diseases (ADs) and found a nice paper - you can read it in full here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1299128/. The line that immediately stuck out to me was:
"The central role of sex hormones is quite obvious, as they modulate T-cell receptor signalling, activation of cytokine genes and lymphocyte homing."

Mind you this is a paper about ADs in general, yet they are highlighting the role of sex hormones as being "obvious"; this is in relation to ADs affecting women much more than men. However, i can't help but wonder how that proportion would change if Androgenetic Alopecia was considered an AD; and what would that mean regarding the abundant DHT and its role in triggering an autoimmune reaction against our lovely follicles?

This of course lead me to ponder whether a full immune system transplant via haematopoietic stem-cell transplants (HSCTs) would be effective at resolving the issue. The examples i could find were for Alopecia Universalis, see here: http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/bloodjournal/105/1/426.full.pdf?sso-checked=true

A couple of things are noticeable:

1. The amount of regrowth in such a short period of time challenges everything we know about how long it takes for hair growth to take place
2. Even as the regrowth takes place, there is still an Androgenetic Alopecia pattern visible - whether this stayed the case i don't know, but if it did then the mechanisms may be different (though related)

My current belief (unscientific) is that all forms of Alopecia are varying degrees of the same Autoimmune Disease caused by an overactive immune system responding to what it perceives as a foreign "threat" (hair) as indicated by the large accumulation of sex hormones (DHT) on the scalp. I'm not looking for a debate or anything - i just wanted to share what i found in case someone found it of interest. I'll continue researching this to try to understand this angle of the issue better.

It might be a stupid question but I'm gonna ask anyway.
If you're right about that, does it mean we have more chances of JAK inhibitors also working for other types of hair loss (like Androgenetic Alopecia and Telogen Effluvium) when used topically?
I know most people here don't believe it will work but if all types of hair loss are actually AD, would it mean we have more chances of Christiano eventually being right about JAK's potential?

 

[coolio]

I agree there is probably an AD link. But it has frustrated attempts at understanding it so far. We can depress a person's immune system pretty severely without killing them and they never regrow any lost hair.

One thing occurs to me here - I don't know if anyone has ever studied whether loss off immune system function affects the rate of the continuing balding process. The fact that turning off the immune system won't reverse the process could be explained by the progenitor cells still being missing.

 

[abcdefg]

I have always since the very beginning thought male pattern baldness was tied to the immune system somehow. The problem is no one understands the immune system and its so complicated with hooks into so many places that most new drugs dealing with that are crazy dangerous. You certainly are playing a risky game playing around with male pattern baldness from that angle.
Yeah certainly possible you removed DHT completely and some people the immune system dont give an F and just continues the male pattern baldness process. Also could be the immune system adapts to androgen levels and keeps it going versus just receptor changes. Who really knows.

 

[FootyStar]

Does anyone know when hair follicles become DHT sensitive? Is the sensitivity present from birth with hairs waiting to be exposed to DHT or is follicle sensitivity "triggered" by changes in the body? Does the immune system play a part determining/triggering that sensitivity?

 

[abcdefg]

With how complicated all this is do you really feel like taking propecia is a good idea long term? We dont even know what half this stuff even does some of this is just our current understanding so far. Its not all of it.
male pattern baldness is not a reversible process so timing matters a lot. Removing DHT before male pattern baldness is a lot different then removing it after your Norwood 7 and suppressing the immune system might be the same with helping prevent male pattern baldness from happening