I was under the impression that the prostaglandins were just lower in the cascade - meaning if they were fully controlled they would stop it
Someone told me this was the way hairloss worked:
Cortisol excess/low SHBG > androgen excess > thymus disregulation > excess pro-inflammatory cytokines > prostaglandin imbalance + PPAR imbalance > PGD2 excess > P53 > apoptosis
Is this all BS?
Has anyone seen success with those treatments? I hadn't heard of them until the other day
I doubt cortisol and SHBG has anything to do with it. Androgen excess is a part of the picture but mostly on a follicular level, which I don't see how that would affect the thymus. Most studies do not show significant differences in
systemic androgen levels of balding vs non balding people but do show a very large difference between balding follicles and non balding follicles.
Androgen excess (possibly due to STAR protein or other factors) > Too much Testosterone & too little Epitestosterone > Too Much DHT > 5-AR & AR Upregulation > AR overactivity
Androgens can drive ROS which further increases testosterone synthesis, this makes a positive feedback loop
ROS drives TGF-beta = fibrosis
AR upregulates negative growth factors like DKK1, TGFb, etc. and downregulates positive growth factors, and WNT and b-catenin
Essentially Androgenetic Alopecia is localized hormone imbalance and must be treated as such. It is very unlikely that you can mitigate all of the AR-damage by going after downstream factors like prostaglandins because there is too many of them.
It's pretty much the opposite situation of having a testosterone level of 100 ng/dL (bottom range), then trying to build muscle by taking BCAA and creatine. Not gonna happen. Hormonal imbalances have to be fixed. Androgens in the follicle have to be reduced to that of non-balding follicles for any significant results. It's not just DHT either. The entire cascade from Testosterone downwards is screwed, possibly even before that. They need to research what drives excessive androgen synthesis and where that cascade starts, but nobody has been doing that for the past 20 years. That's why we still don't know anything.
I thought this video was kind of interesting - though he believes in a lot of weird sh*t
The only reason Roddy and his alt ideas exist is due to him not having baldness genes. How many people would believe his sh*t if he presented them as a NW5? I can assure you no one saved his hair with anything he preaches (not going to go into how it affects general health where it may have merit), if he does get something right it is usually by accident like here - aspirin is closely related to some anti-inflammatories which may have some potential, but aspirin in itself taken in significant enough doses to do anything for hair will f*** you up. I tried salicylic acid topically and it was useless.