Enden said:
Ok, let's change the view. Would you agree that dutasteride is more potent than minoxidil?
I'm not sure how to answer that question, because the two drugs do COMPLETELY different things! It's a little like asking, "Would you agree that aspirin is more potent than penicillin?"
If you're talking about which one of those two drugs (dutasteride or minoxidil) grows more hair, I'd have to say that you'd have to be more specific about how you'd measure the hair! Topical minoxidil seems to do better at improving haircounts in specific locations (like the specific areas of the scalp where it's being physically applied), but dutasteride would have a better overall improvement in the entire scalp (as judged by before-and-after photographs of the full scalp).
Enden said:
Do you think that dutasteride is able to regrow everything minoxidil can, and more?
Again, that question is rather ambiguous. Let's put it in this simplified way: if you're not using any treatment at all, then start to use dutasteride every day, you will regrow a certain amount of hair. Let's call that extra number of hairs you now have on your head "A".
Sometime later, you now start using topical minoxidil,
in addition to the dutasteride you've been using for a while. Soon you start growing even MORE hair! Let's call the impressive extra number of hairs you now have on your head "C".
Sometime later, you STOP using the dutasteride that you had been using for a while, but continue using the minoxidil. Now you start to LOSE some of those extra hairs you had, but not all of them. Let's call this latest extra number "B".
Doing some actual counting of all the extra new hairs that you had regrown (or lost) every time you changed your regimen, you notice that A + B = C. See what I'm saying? The dutasteride and minoxidil BOTH grew extra hair for you, and in
completely different ways! Dutasteride did it by reducing a lot of the androgenic stimulation that was harming your hair, and minoxidil did it by making complicated changes to the chemistry going on in your hair follicles. The effect that those two different agents had on your hairgrowth was
additive. Neither one by itself could fully replace the other. Understand now?