Malabsorption ( & malnutrition ) and male pattern baldness

[Hoppi]

Right, I have gradually reached the conclusion that for me, this MAY be the big one. I had

Terrible, persistant, predictable digestive issues begin --2 or 3 months pass--> skin thins --6 or 7 months pass--> I notice lots of male pattern balding (but this had actually been going on for months, it just took me this long to properly notice/acknowledge it).

I recently have pretty much determined that egg kicks off the particularly bad digestive episodes.. however I am not confident that if I simply cut egg the problems would go away, I cant help but think that some DAMAGE has been done down there that is simply manifesting itself.

Therefore at the moment I am putting my skin thinning and body hair increase / scalp hair decrease down to malabsorption. This could be wrong, but if my digestive system is a bit messed up, and good nutrition is required for adequate collagen synthesis, I feel it's a fair gamble at this point. My Doctor agrees too.

I'm having tests etc atm through my GP, but am also interested (1 of 2)

 

[Hoppi]

(2 of 2 - sorry, posting this from my old mobile phone) ... in people's opinions regarding this, particularly that of Brains Expel Hair who i BELIEVE also blames malabsorption for his hair loss due to the effects of celiac. The Doctor does actually want to test me for celiac just to rule it out!

So erm, yeah, that's what this thread is about - nutritional deficiencies and male pattern baldness, if there is a relation (as there seems to be at present) and why such a relationship may exist!

Thanks for reading! lol

Hoppi


EDIT - To be honest I have experienced a fair amount of deterioration over the last... well, broadly since this episode began. My eyes got much worse much more quickly than before (although this may be simply excessive computer and phone use, although I've been doing that for years), and some other small details that may or may not be related. I wonder what my Doctor's tests will reveal about my digestive system ._.

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

I had so much chronic inflammation and frequent infections along with my bodies repeated attempts at even partial digestion that it would be hard to point the finger at any one thing in particular.

 

[123000123]

I dunno, I'm less enthusiastic about digestive issues playing a major part compared with insulin resistance. The digestive health/naturopathy industry is so full of misinformation, false advertising and money-making bullshit schemes (yes, even more than the male pattern baldness industry) it's hard to know what to believe. Fact of the matter is the candida/leaky-gut/vitamin malabsorbtion/etc theory has never been proven to cause the infinite number of symptoms claimed from hair loss to acne to cancer to autism.

- hoppi, how the hell could malabsorbtion/malnutrition cause excess body hair?


I believe digestive issues may have a negative impact on hair in 2 ways:
- inflammation
- good bacteria is needed to process B vitamins essential for hair/skin/nails (debateable)

But whether or not this could explain MALE PATTERN BALDNESS is another thing...

- Brains, what infections did you have in particular and did you have any other causes apart from gluten intolerance do you believe? And how did you come to these conclusions (what testing did you have and what did they reveal?)?

Thanks

 

[Hoppi]

Malabsorption isn't really a "theory", it's accepted medical science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malabsorption

It's when the body's digestive system isn't digesting food or absorbing nutrients from it's food properly... it's what my doctor is looking at in me. Celiac can cause it by shortening and damaging the villi (I only scan read this on Wikipedia but.. sounds pretty feasible to me!). It also explains why my Doctor (regular, NHS GP) wants to check me for celiac (among many other things).

Thing is.. you have to bear in mind that for me this is more a matter of "reverse engineering" than the formation of a theory from the ground up. My hair loss and skin thinning occurred rapidly after my digestive problems began, so it seems very natural for me to link them all. I would consider the chance that there is no link to be minimal, perhaps 10-20%. Possible, but just.. it would be SO coincidental it would just be a bit ridiculous!

The body needs the nutrients in food for pretty much everything. The digestive system is such a core part of the body that I would imagine significant digestive problems can lead to pretty much anything in some way or another. I mean, apparently stress increases insulin levels.. what a bizarre connection that seems to be! lol

Sometimes the body is so complex, it's incredible what can trigger what. A friend of mine also said his hair loss started after digestive issues, it's something I have heard a fair few times (it's certainly one of the more common hair loss stories I've heard, up there with things like stress).

Erm.. yeah that's it really.

It is of course possible that me AND Justin (my friend) both had sudden bursts of insulin resistance that happened coincidentally with our digestive problems and then hair loss... but doesn't this seem more unlikely, unless of course one triggered the other...

Man the body is complex >.< hehe

Hoppi


EDIT -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

Thaaarrrr she blows! hehe That's probably the best human diet on the planet Probably!

"The increased contribution of carbohydrate from grains to the human diet following the agricultural revolution has effectively diluted the protein content of the human diet." - probably spot on!

This stuff is questioned as well but.. I just can't imagine how carbs would be as dominant back then as they are now.. I just can't imagine it

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

The problem with pointing the finger at any of those "macro-conditions" of naturopathy that 123 described is that they can often have underlying causes that extend far beyond in scope of damage. My condition for example is known to cause quite frequently: malabsorption/incomplete digestion, major vitamin deficiencies, abnormal gut flora and in increased susceptibility to bacterial and fungal infections all over the body. On top of that my condition is actually correlated with things like acne and schizophrenia/autism, when measuring blood antibodies to gluten instead of villous atrophy.

The abnormal tests I received were on my for liver markers, hypoglycemia, thyroid markers, vitamin D deficiency, vitamin B deficiency, protein deficiency, creatine deficiency, fat malabsorption, excess cortisol and high bilirubin. In addition I had previously had asthma, a number of neurological issues and frequent "athlete's foot" of the hands, feet and ears. All of these either slowly or rapidly resolved themselves with the administration of a strict gluten free diet. It seemed like every other week after going on the diet I'd realize that there was yet another symptom that I had simply been living with as if it were normal that was suddenly gone, because I'd had the condition active since most likely sometime around the end of elementary school all of the problems just seemed normal to me since I didn't have anything really to compare them with.

The issue with using this sort of a condition as a model is the ridiculously high amount of systems it affects. Insulin functioning, vitamin levels, incomplete digestion, oxygen uptake, inflammation along with skin conditions and increased rate of infections where do you point the finger? Hell it's even sometimes linked with hypogonadism and increased infertility in both women and men. How do you pick which fucked up thing is f*****g you up more? The only hope is to find the actual underlying cause and treat that.

 

[Hoppi]

Very true Brains - very, very true

I have been learning SO much about the paleo diet though - it just makes so much sense to me! I'm not saying I shall adhere to it strictly, but I think I will base my diet around it, and go from there. I hope I work out what messed me up in the first place. I think chances are it is one single thing that caused the "domino effect" of symptoms I've had of late. It's easy to just say "bad diet" caused my digestive issues, but I just think there's more likely to be a single trigger.. one single food that was particularly damaging to me, and caused a particular response leading to malabsorption. Until then.. paleo diet! ^^

I wonder how many people on the paleo diet suffer from male pattern baldness?

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

Malabsorption isn't really a "theory", it's accepted medical science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malabsorption

I think the theory aspect of it comes into play whenever any practitioner starts looking at it as the "obvious" cause of someone's problems instead of possibly just another symptom of the real cause (as would be the case in celiac disease).

I've probably mentioned this before in one of our previous messages but make sure that find out exactly which tests your GP wants to run on your for celiac disease so you can look up the relative reliability of the tests. I know that some countries in Europe are quite a bit more advanced in their celiac research than the US, such as Italy and Finland, but I'm not sure how it's generally viewed by the medical community over there in England. Last I read there is a really promising new(ish) testing method available in the EU that involves the administration of gliadin to the *ahem* rectal mucosal lining in order to observe any reactions. Such a test generally greatly diminished the effect that a lowered gluten or gluten free diet can have on the false negative rate of all of the other tests.

What you need to be wary of is stuff like how many of the doctors in the US view an intestinal biopsy as the be all end all test for gluten issues. The results from using such a test alone can be highly unreliable in the case of a negative diagnosis however it's use in addition to other more reliable tests can be highly useful in catching other related conditions (such as bacterial overgrowth I mentioned above) or other conditions whose symptoms can mimic celiac disease. The villous atrophy that the biopsy looks for however is not sole effect of a gluten intolerance, it is yet another in the long list of symptoms, most of which can be present in the complete absence of villous atrophy.

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

I know that someone on these boards whom I haven't seen post in a while either follows or messes around with the paleo diet. Can't recall his name but his avatar was Tom Selleck. My personal diet is paleo-like, yet I doubt there's anything that could cause me to give up my black beans and rice! I have found coconut oil though to be a reasonable replacement for butter in a lot of cooking applications, it's got a higher smoke point to so there's less development of free radicals!

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

In a perfect world all of the meat you consume on a paleo diet would come from game animals. Our population is at such levels where that is pretty much impossible however so most of the meat in our food chain kinda sucks. As a result we end up with livestock that are raised on the same crap people on the paleo diet are trying to avoid. Even in ruminant animals where the animals are designed specifically to live off of grasses the consumption of the grains of these grasses can cause significant differences in their fat profiles. This difference manifests itself in an increase in omega-6s in comparison to the omega-3s and as such even on a paleo diet if you're not eating regular (3+ times a week) fish or kelp then you're supposed to supplement with some fish oil just as you should be doing already.

Other than that fats problem, no supplementation is only needed on specific case by case deficiency issues. The whole diet pretty much revolves around only eating items necessary for health and that our species has been exposed to during the periods where we were actually susceptible to evolution. This include meat, lots of vegetables, moderate consumption of seeds/nuts/fruit.

With celiac disease there is often times a specific trigger that causes your body to finally give in to the agitation. Most common triggers are surgery or other severe injury, pregnancy and puberty. It's something that can "develop" at anytime in life however there's some evidence that the vast majority of humans have at least some sort of immunological response to gluten and that gluten itself can alter the intestinal permeability in non-celiacs as well.

As far as the dairy and legumes goes, no flipping clue, there's so much info to absorb about celiac that I don't really have the time or care to go through the limited amount of info on those two. Legumes however do seem to be somewhat specific in the "damage" they can cause. All of the toxic compounds in legumes are neutralized by thermal treatment ie: cooking. It can take an hour or more to effectively neutralize the toxins but this is pretty much guaranteed with most dried legumes.

Paleo men all had luxurious heads of hair, were fertile enough to impregnate women just by touching them, had the strength of 10 men and could singlehandedly take on mammoths with their bare hands. Nah, for the most part hair doesn't preserve at all in archeological records so that would be pretty hard to find out. For various reasons though, the life span of our species dropped with the advent of agriculture, although other important changes happened during that time.

Rice is consumed in significant quantities across pretty much all cultures across the world. It has a very very very low rate of allergies and intolerances associated with it and as such is one of the "safe" foods you start off with on an elimination diet. Aside from its carb content I doubt there's anything wrong with rice consumption, I certainly haven't seen anything that would lead me to stop eating it.

Soy and asians... Actually if you live in America you eat more soy. Soy is an amazingly cheap source of protein and for the past few decades has been being pumped into more and more products as a way to increase nutritional profiles and to boost health claims (many of which are quite dubious). As far as using population studies to validate claims of any sort of diet, it's complete crap. Unless you can account for all other factors then the comparison is invalid. Asians also eat different varietals of fruits and vegetables than we do, they eat different grains and it accounts for a different portion of their diet, they have different health expectancies and think eating tiger penis will cure impotency and well this one might have at least a small effect: they have different genes! Such cultural comparisons are pretty lacking in usefulness.

Red meat is as bad for you as the grains in a mediterranean diet are good for you. IE: not at all. I threw the mediterranean diet thing in there to show an additional case of how experimental design can be used to give very faulty results. Up until recent years all of the studies linking red meat to heart disease was done lumping nitrite/nitrate treated red meats in with non-treated red meat. When researchers finally started pulling their heads out of their asses and running the numbers without lumping the preserved meats in with the regular meats they found the link ONLY in the nitrite/nitrate treated meats. When they went even further and analyzed dietary intake of any source of nitrate/nitrites they found the risk of heart disease increasing with increased nitrate/nitrites from ANY food source, meat or vegetable.

Basically: put some meat on your plate and surround it with vegetables (not fruit, they're overrated).

 

[Hoppi]

wow. You have to promise you will never stop giving this kind of info/advice Brains as it's just great - you have answered questions that I could not even begin to scratch the surface of!

I am relatively new to this stuff, so my views are usually based on observation and trying to think analytically and scientifically about what I see. I haven't been learning about the human body and health for long enough to answer questions like you can

To be honest, I only really started when my skin and hair started turning to crap lol Before then it was all computing, science and getting drunk xD

Oh and btw -

Paleo men all had luxurious heads of hair, were fertile enough to impregnate women just by touching them, had the strength of 10 men and could singlehandedly take on mammoths with their bare hands.

Quote of the thread! lol

I sooo hope our ancestors were that bad ***! hehe

I do have trouble imagining a caveman running around in the jungle with his hair falling out around him, or fashioning a razor or pair of clippers to shave his hair down! lol But that's not to say it didn't apply to them (I always find the stories about some monkeys / great apes losing hair a little silly, as of course SOME of them will lose their hair (particularly bad genes), but in our society pretty much ALL men lose significant amounts of hair, which suggests a difference).

That was fascinating about the way we raise animals and produce meat these days. The thing is I am veering towards the paleo diet as my view of dietary ideal not because of any ethical standpoint or preconceived bias, but because it is logical to me considering our evolutionary past. This is then reinforced to me when I observe the prevalence of gluten and lactose intolerance we observe in our society. It seems quite clear to me that male pattern baldness does have a health connection, it seems very common for men to lose hair in this pattern following some kind of health event, such as digestive problems, stress, and I've also heard through poor/polluted environment (my friend in Canada lives in a very polluted area, and says all the guys over there seem to lose their hair young, she pointed it out without me even really indicating it was a possibility).

This then logically leads me to believe that a diet that is ideal... would preserve hair. Genetics is only the background template for our bodies IMO, it does not dictate precisely the course of your life, or the strains and stimuli that will be placed upon your body while it is alive.

I truly would be fascinated to see if a paleo diet (together with obviously a semi-active and reasonable lifestyle) would yield positive results for things like hair loss. It would certainly aid in improving hormonal balance and overall health. The meat issue I am not 100% sure of as many/most vegans swear blind that it's so bad for us, but I just can't understand that from an evolutionary standpoint. Something doesn't quite fit there, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily NOT true...

Anyway, some interesting food for thought (damn, that's the second time I've managed to make that pun xD) and maybe deserving of some trials and studies with regards to it's application to male pattern baldness The insulin argument is certainly one of the most prevalent out there.

 

[Hoppi]

hehe ok I just gorged on smoked salmon, hummus (lazy paleo diet xD), fruit, veg, nuts... it was actually pretty fantastic lol

It seems logical for me to make this dietary shift tbh

It's not a strict paleo diet, I'm just using a combo of that and veganism for my template I'm cutting out gluten and egg 100% though, and just shifting in the direction of a more natural, healthy diet with far less of a carb-focus

Does that sound like a good move Brains? ^^

Ah.. although actually I'm feeling a little bit of inflammation atm.. perhaps that was the rapeseed oil in the hummus...

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

A vegan diet centered on meat and animal fat consumption? Sure what could go wrong!
While some of these steps are most likely good in the broader sense, I still think you need to get on to making that food journal I've hounded you about a few times. If you think you're having dietary issues at all a food journal is invaluable!!! Also, smoked meats are most often times treated with nitrates (see above) but damn are they ever tasty.

 

[123000123]

What the hell is wrong with eggs?

Hoppi, I guarantee you will not be able to do this for one day let alone maintain the strictness and length of time for it to have ANY effect on your hair...

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

Shoot it might have been him, could have sworn he talked a bit about the paleo diet as well. The inuit diet is semi-similar in reasoning as the paleo diet, it fails hard though when people don't understand that you need to eat EXACTLY like the inuits used to in order for it to have any beneficial aspect to it. This means that if you're going to your local grocer to get your inuit diet supplies you need to skip the cow and pick up the seal/elk/bear meat, and then on top of the meat from those animals you have to eat most of their organs as well along with actually eating the stomach contents of them! Apparently many of the animals the inuits ate had pretty nutritious stomach contents full of algae and other sources of phytonutrients.

Not sure what you're talking about in regards to preparation. I guess some random facts about proper preparation of foods are: the addition of a spice rub to meat before cooking reduces the production of carcinogens; whenever you're cooking a vegetable (that's edible in its raw state) find a way to consume any water it's cooked in; learning how to cook for yourself is the most rewarding thing anyone can learn in life.

As far as temporary hair loss conditions like inflammation go, the unfortunate part about reversible hair loss of any sort is that the greater in severity it is and the longer it persists for, the less you will be able to get back to baseline even if you completely correct the cause. There's only so much damage the scalp can take before it's destroyed.

Who said anything bad about eggs? Oh, hoppi mentioned eggs because he thinks it may be having some sort of reaction to it. Eggs are actually one of the "big-8" allergens and are also responsible for a number of food intolerances. Eggs in general are quite healthy for you in their cooked state, unless you have reactions to them.

 

[Hoppi]

Yeah, eggs is something specific to me! Raw eggs (such as mayonnaise) trigger really bad stomach cramps in me, diarrhoea, and often even fainting if I eat enough of it My male pattern baldness and body hair increase and skin thinning all coincided with this starting

Cooked eggs are better but still really bad for my digestive system >.<

I have no idea why... I also suspect that fats may have an effect on it.. I've been eating a reasonable amount of fats recently (things like nuts, hummus, oily fish, etc) and they just feel like.. my insides just don't feel quite right. I am suspicious of fats (again, this is just me analyzing my own digestive problem, not saying anything bad about fats in general ).

Brains, what do you make of that that my male pattern baldness coincided with a body hair increase which coincided with my digestive thing and skin thinning? My best guess is I either had a drop in SHBG, an increase in androgen receptor sensitivity or that "mysterious change in the workings of the hair follicles" that people speak about on here lol

I don't feel that inflammation or malnutrition directly is causing my male pattern baldness, I feel it is some kind of change in androgenetic response. At one point I thought it was an increase in serum DHT, but I just don't think DHT really works like that, it tends to happen more within the ARs themselves doesn't it?


ANYWAY erm.. oh, to idontwanttobebalding, yeah man I wish I took everything as far back before as I am now... I mean it took me like 3 or 4 months of being on here to make the link that my hair loss coincided with my skin thinning, then another month or 2 to take it back to digestion, then ANOTHER to work out eggs were the things triggering my cramps and stuff...

It's a long road eh.. >.<

Now.. I don't know, I guess I have a whole lot of new questions! The body is just so complex...

Ah and thanks for the warning about nitrates Brains! Should I buy uncooked, organic fish ideally?

 

[Hoppi]

heya, I just wanted to resurrect this thread as I've been looking so much more into this. It would be a true dream if I were able to get to the bottom of it!

I was wondering, I wonder what the odds are that it could be bacteria/parasites/candida? My appalling diet of wheat-based foods, sugary foods, processed foods and dairy would have certainly ENCOURAGED candida. I am considering doing a line of thorough digestive system cleanses, as well as pursuing this with my doctor. I mean, if I choose them wisely then they can't hurt, and Justin (previous HairLossTalk.com member, INCREDIBLY smart guy in his way hehe) puts this down to "bacteria and parasites" and the build-up of DHT in the body as a toxin that the body is now unable to remove sufficiently (obviously DHT is important, but I believe he is referring to EXCESS dht). Anyway, whether that part is correct or not I am very interested in this idea of cleansing my digestive system of things like candida overgrowth.

Oh and idontwanttobebalding, I believe the "big 8" are simply the obvious common allergens/intolerance foods (let's give this a shot) - gluten, wheat, dairy, egg, shellfish, celery, nuts, erm... soy? ^_^

Hoppi

EDIT -- Oh, apparently there's a test you can do for candida where you spit into a glass of water first thing in the morning, and then watch at intervals over the next couple of hours or something to see if cloudy clusters or stringy bits fall from the saliva. Worth a shot anyway...

 

[123000123]

That saliva test is bullshit. Get a stool test and that will tell you if you have any of those 3 things you mentioned (candida overgowth, parasites or bacterial infections). DO THIS BEFORE YOU DO A BUNCH OF INTESTINAL/LIVER/BOWEL/COLON CLEANSES (which are also all bullshit by the way).

I'm willing to bet you do not have any of those things, but the stool test will put your mind at ease at least.

 

[Hoppi]

Yeah, everything's nonsense, everyone just has "IBS" and male pattern baldness is purely genetic. See this is why I spend a lot of time rejecting mainstream medicine, because so much of it is BS.

 

[123000123]

Not everything's nonsense. Just the saliva test as a means of testing for candida overgrowth, and various "cleanses" that are advertised on the internet.

Candida overgrowth is however a recognized medical condition, and it can be detected with a simple stool test. Likewise, the presence of parasites and bacterial overgrowths can also be detected in the stool test.

It makes a lot more sense to actually check if you have these problems before you undertake a series of "cleanses", no?