Sorry for the long post
So, all those theories that slick bald people have mini hairs in their heads "asleep" and that they could be woken up is bullshit. The reality is that slick bald people have hair follicle fossils on their scalps?
Fibrosis and inflammation of connective tissue is also a major player. It restricts the blood flow to the hair follicule and that's why Minoxidil enters here into play. I think we can all agree that finasteride/Duta are more effective than Minoxidil but still it shows what part fibrosis may play in this game.
We also have calcification, which is when calcium builds up in places where it doesn’t usually appear, like the coronary arteries or brain. (PS:
calcification is not necessarily caused by a calcium-rich diet, and Fibrosis =/= calcification.)
There is the theory that DHT is related to Calcification and Fibrosis. "in mice, DHT and testosterone injections increase arterial calcification lesions by 200-400%. The more DHT or testosterone injected, the greater the calcification. That’s a pretty strong case that androgens cause calcification." (
link here)
The twist comes next tho: paradoxically, in studies done in test tubes (outside of our bodies), increased androgens don’t cause calcification. In these tests, androgens protect against calcification.
This means that maybe our bodies counteract the "protective effect" of androgens by creating more calcification (ie; upregulation), Or, some other variable not present in the test tubes with the androgens (but present in our bodies) is what kick starts the calcification process.
If you have "red" until this long, congrats
So, on that link they state that the variables, which are androgen receptors (something we here in the forum know very well), and calcification regulators.
The Connection Between Increased DHT And Increased Androgen Receptors
In our scalp tissues, increased androgens turn on more androgen receptors, and together, the increased DHT plus the increased androgen receptors results in calcification. In other words, it's a snowball effect. the more DHT you have ,the more receptors you get and with these two increasing, you get
calcification.
Now for the DHT paradox: Increased tissue DHT encourages hair loss in the scalp, but encourages hair
growth in the face and body. (WHY god...why?
) This means that in the body and face, when DHT increases, androgen receptors
must not increase. Otherwise, our body and facial tissues would also calcify, and hair wouldn’t grow.
But as it turns out, both balding scalps and hair-bearing body and facial tissues have increased DHT
and increased androgen receptors… Yet hairy body and facial parts aren’t calcified or filled with fibrosis.
And this is why we don't understand hairloss. In addition to DHT and androgen receptors,
another factor must also be causing calcification and fibrosis. Either something is
protecting our body and face from fibrosis and calcification,
or something is
causing both to happen in our scalps.
https://perfecthairhealth.com/the-ultimate-hair-loss-flowchart-why-we-lose-our-hair/
Just read this article. It's kinda long but at the same time, it explains Everything about hairloss. I'm actually super impressed with their chart because it explaines exactly WHY treatments don't work as much as they do and where we should attack