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It's also made in the skin, key fact here.
Prostate Size And Male Pattern Baldness
- Thread starter Haircraft
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It's also made in the skin, key fact here.
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You're looking to use hydroxy progesterone as a topical? I believe there are some pharms previously mentioned on this board that can add progesterone to mino. Not sure what you're after though, @rclark.
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Yeah, there are a few organs that produce 5-alpha-reductase. It would be interesting to know for how much each one of these organs account for the amount of 5-alfa-reductase made though.
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we seem to get more sensitive to the negative effects of hormones as we get older despite there being less levels.
for example, in the hamilton eunuch studies, eunuchs in the 20s given testosterone injections lost hair over several years while the eunichs in their 50s or 60s lost hair rapidly in a few months after the injections.
also while estrogen can increase the risk of breast cancer, usually its women after the age of menopause when estrogen levels are lower who get breast cancer.
sensitivity, age and receptor upregulation
for example, in the hamilton eunuch studies, eunuchs in the 20s given testosterone injections lost hair over several years while the eunichs in their 50s or 60s lost hair rapidly in a few months after the injections.
also while estrogen can increase the risk of breast cancer, usually its women after the age of menopause when estrogen levels are lower who get breast cancer.
sensitivity, age and receptor upregulation
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no source just the fact that androgen deprivation is proven to shrink it and removing testicles would heavily reduce androgens.
finasteride, dutasteride, Cyproterone, bicalutimide, enzalutimide. these are all different drugs but all have been used to treat prostate cancer because they all share something in common which is that they reduce the total amount of androgenic activity
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Do you have a source for the Hamilton eunuch studies? Were they castrated prior to hitting puberty or in adulthood? What were the doses of the testosterone injections? Did all of the eunuchs lose hair? How many test subjects were there? Really interesting. If it turns out that they lost hair even without a developed prostate then I might have to scrap my theory about prostate growth contributing to male pattern baldness.
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Yeah, but if we understand why men who are castrated before puberty never develop male pattern baldness then there might be a way to achieve the same results without castration. Also, why do men who already have developed male pattern baldness not regrow their hair after castration? A difference between prepubertal castration and adult castration is that prepubertal castration halts the development of the prostate entirely. Without a developed prostate there should be less production of 5-alpha-reductase. I don't know if this explains why adult castration doesn't lead to regrown hair. Maybe the hair is just too dormant to be regrown by massively reducing androgen levels alone. Something really interesting to know would be how much of the production of 5-alpha-reductase the prostate stands for in the body.
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apparently we have to pay to access all of it. :/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aja.1000710306/abstract
but ive seen parts of it copied and posted to this forumn before so im searching.
there were multiple castration studies done by Hamilton.
"In 1942 a Dr. James B. Hamilton, a Yale anatomist, studied the castrated inmates. The story is that one day Hamilton noticed an identical twin of one of the inmates who came to visit his brother. The castrated inmate brother had a full head of hair. His twin, with the family jewels intact, was quite bald. This gave doctor Hamilton an idea. He experimented with the castrated brother by giving him testosterone. It is rumored that the poor inmate's voice got deeper, he developed acne, large muscles and a sex drive. Dr. Hamilton tells us that he becamebald. His hair never grew back.
The "population" of institutionalized, castrated males provided Dr. Hamilton with a means of demonstrating the relationship between baldness and hormones. Testosterone was orally given to 104 castrated inmates; they were compared to 312 "normal" men. When given testosterone, the castrated inmates grew bald, if baldness was in their family history. There was a direct connection between the length of time that testosterone was given and the degree of baldness that occurred: the longer the treatment, the more baldness. Echoing Hippocrates Dr. Hamilton concluded "Men who failed to mature sexually did not become bald".
oh wait, here's something..
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id...hamilton eunuch hairloss sixth decade&f=false
"In contrast, the eunuchs who had reached the sixth decade of life before receiving androgens lost hair within a few months after beginning the treatment."
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Thanks a lot. I draw the conclusion that the inmates were castrated in conjunction with being incarcerated. Maybe they were sexual assailants? This would mean that they were castrated in post pubertal age, thus having a fully developed prostate. Upon being administered with testosterone injections, they'd basically function as a man with the testes intact. It'd be interesting to know whether prepubertal castrated men would react in the same way upon being injected with testosterone.
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It's specially worth noting that the older castrated inmates experienced a more rapid hair loss than the younger ones. This implies that the older inmates were more sensitive to testosterone. However, it remains to be known for how long the older inmates had been castrated. If it turns out that the older inmates had been castrated for as long as the younger inmates, then the prostate should be significantly bigger in the older inmates. In that case there could still be a correlation between a bigger prostate and more 5-alpha-reductase being produced, which in the end leads to more male pattern baldness being developed.
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I think its just a corrrealation really, not a causation. androgens enlarge the prostate but not sure enlarging the prostate itself would make more 5ar or androgens. women don't even have prostates but can still experience hairloss.
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The prostate isn't the only organ with the 5-alpha-reductase enzyme. Also, women have other organs, which men don't have, that have this enzyme, such as the womb and the ovaries. According to a study, women who develop cysts in their ovaries (polycystic ovary syndrome) experience a 4-fold increase of 5-alpha-reductase activity within these cysts. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10404813) Additionally, women with polycystic ovary syndrome have increased androgen levels:
Signs and symptoms of PCOS vary. A diagnosis of PCOS is made when you experience at least two of these signs:
- Irregular periods. Infrequent, irregular or prolonged menstrual cycles are the most common sign of PCOS. For example, you might have fewer than nine periods a year, more than 35 days between periods and abnormally heavy periods.
- Excess androgen. Elevated levels of male hormone may result in physical signs, such as excess facial and body hair (hirsutism), and occasionally severe acne and male-pattern baldness.
- Polycystic ovaries. Your ovaries might be enlarged and contain follicles that surround the eggs. As a result, the ovaries might fail to function regularly.
So if a woman develops cysts in her ovaries, causing increased 5-alpha-reductase activity and androgen levels which can lead to hairloss, why wouldn't a man with a bigger prostate have a higher production of 5-alpha-reductase?
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It's also interesting to note that cysts in the ovaries cause increased 5-alpha-reductase activity and increased androgen levels which can lead to hairloss in women. The ovaries are homologous to the male's testes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_related_male_and_female_reproductive_organs)
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those are specific medical conditions. normally women should have lower dht than we do.
maybe but ive seen no evidence. except that more androgens enlarge the prostate but if the prostate enlargement itself causes 5ar then its a vicious cycle.
right, so maybe instead of prostate size we should focus on testicle size.. antiandrogens can shrink testicles too lol.
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The important androgens for hair cycle are made inside the pilosebaceous unit,
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nope that is the easiest way
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Sure, polycystic ovary syndrome is a medical condition, but it's actually very common. This study doesn't study the prevalence of the condition but it concludes its prevalence with someone else's data which says that between 15 and 20 percent of women meet the criteria for the condition:
The prevalence of PCOS varies depending on which criteria are used to make the diagnosis, but is as high as 15%–20% when the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology/American Society for Reproductive Medicine criteria are used. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872139/)
Do you have any study that concludes that women have lower dihydrotestosterone levels than men? It'd be interesting to compare. Unfortunately, I haven't even found any information regarding the amount of 5-alpha-reductase that any of the organs stand for.
Also, you're right about the size of the testes. For example, those injecting anabolic steroids will shrink their testes. If you inject anabolic steroids, your testes will no longer need to produce testosterone due to the body already receiving its demands from the injections. If you've been injecting for a prolonged amount of time, your testes will have lost their former ability to produce testosterone.
However, the testes don't constantly grow as is the case with the prostate. The ovaries on the other hand risk developing cysts with age. Thus we could have a similarity between the prostate in men and the ovaries in women. My theory is that an increase in size of the prostate leads to an increase in 5-alpha-reductase, just like cysts in the ovaries do.
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Isn't it that the hair on the scalp merely has dihydrotestosterone receptors? Or would you argue that the pilosebaceous unit itself produces dihydrotestosterone, which in turn is responsible for hair loss?
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835896/
"Human sebaceous glands and hair follicles are equipped with all the necessary enzymes for biosynthesis and metabolism of androgens"
And take note: Even before puberty.