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Hello all
I have a made separate post about this in one of the female forums, as well as having discussions with various male members. However since I find this personally very interesting, I think many of you male members shall also. Let me start from the beginning...
I am a female diagnosed with Androgenetic Alopecia. When my hairloss first started however, my pattern was odd. I was losing hair diffusely, but with rapid hairline recession with miniturisation identical to that which we see in typical male pattern baldness. For this reason, doctors failed to accurately diagnose my hairloss until a scalp biopsy confirmed Androgenetic Alopecia. Now, I’m that same year, it was discovered that I had underlying hormonal issues which caused this hairloss. These were: premature ovarian failure (ovaries no longer producing estrogen), and hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism (brain not producing luteinising hromone). Effectively, I was left with 0 female sex hormones, and higher end of normal male sex hormones. With this, I just accepted that I had a weird pattern of hairloss and took hormone replacement (Diane-35) and minoxidil when I was diagnosed.
Now let me skip forward to recently.
I’ve been researching many MANY things lately. I like to understand terminology and find myself often googling things so thah when I read studies or articles, I can make sense of it. As I was reading an article, I stumbled upon “Aromatase enzyme”, something I’d seen before in a few other things but didn’t know the real meaning of. So, for out of curiosity and further clarification, I googled what this enzyme was, and where it could be found. This is where things began to fall into place. Upon looking further into it, I discovered that this enzyme, “Aromatase”, is something which is directly connected to estrogen by means of production, and is found on the hair follicle sheath, and prevents loss of the hair, nourishing the follicle. I came across a study which discussed the role of Aromatase in the different patterns of hairloss in men and women. You can read it here: http://www.androgeneticalopecia.com/hair-loss-biology/hair-loss-aromatase.shtml
Essentially what it states is that, due to the exponentially higher levels of estrogen that females have compared to men, we therefore create more of this enzyme, which can be found most abundantly in the frontotemporal and parietal hairlines, meaning that women with Androgenetic Alopecia will generally have no hairline recession, and men who have minimal amounts of Aromatase because of much lower levels of estrogen, are left vulnerable to recession with the absence of the enzyme across the hairline/temples.
This made me very curious, because I myself have female Androgenetic Alopecia, but began to recede. I put 1 and 2 together and realised that my lack of estrogen from ovarian and pituitary abnormalities left ME without enough Aromatase to preserve the hairline under the susceptibility of genetic hairloss.
I wanted to dig further into this, and so found a study which detailed women suffering with breast cancer undergoing treatments to inhibit Aromatase and decrease estrogen levels. You can read that here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4864803/
This study found that, once again due to the inhibition of Aromatase and suppression of estrogen levels, these women developed a pattern of hairloss recession at the frontal and parietal hairlines, like men.
They were treated with minoxidil and variations of estrogenic anti androgens, but the study found that only moderate regrowth was accomplished. These were all POSTmenopausal women, not on any female hormone replacement.
Now here’s something where I am putting it all together. I lurk on all sorts of hairloss forums for info, and have been frequenting forums for hairloss related to polycystic ovarian syndrome more often, because my hormonal imbalances are in some ways similar, and an always interested to see what works for other women’s hairloss.
Now, through my reading of posts and threads on these forums, I have noticed that many of these women with elevated test levels and suppressed estrogen levels complain of hairline recession. Many do in fact. They try all sorts of dht blockers to remedy the issue on its own, but many find they have no success. However, there are also accounts of women stating “I have started on oral contraceptive XYZ, along with minoxidil, and antiandrogen XYZ 6 months ago and my hairline is filling in! This antiandrogen works!”. Wrong. All of these accounts include the initiation of estrogen/progesteron hrt, among with minoxidil. The ones who fail to restore their hairlines don’t.
Now my own experience comes into this too, because my hairline was my biggest problem area when I first began losing hair. I have been on Diane-35 hrt + minoxidil now since the end of 2015, and my hairline is fully restored, however the female pattern areas are still a problem, but that’s a seperate story.
You will also notice how many trans women find great success in partial hairline restoration. This is because of extreme HRT using intramuscular, subdemral and oral estrogens, because we now know thah estrogen = Aromatase = safer hairline.
Now it would be great if all men could just take some estrogen and have their hairline back, but clearly this is not a viable option if you want to remain male. So the question remains, how do we harness the Aromatase enzyme on its own to combat male hairline recession? Are there ways that we can alienate the enzyme and create a topical solution? Since you cannot systemically boost Aromatase (because it’s would mean taking estrogen), then will topical solutions Containing estrogen be more beneficial than dht blockers? Could we possibly find a way to find what boosts Aromatase via other sources, and use those ingredients in a topical? Well, there are many questions here and many studies needing to be done, but nevertheless I think that focusing on aromatase as a means of reversing hairline recession in men is higher overlooked, and holds great potential. I grew my hairline back after all and I basically had the hormones of a dude!
I hope you have found this enlightening and interesting
thanks for reading
I have a made separate post about this in one of the female forums, as well as having discussions with various male members. However since I find this personally very interesting, I think many of you male members shall also. Let me start from the beginning...
I am a female diagnosed with Androgenetic Alopecia. When my hairloss first started however, my pattern was odd. I was losing hair diffusely, but with rapid hairline recession with miniturisation identical to that which we see in typical male pattern baldness. For this reason, doctors failed to accurately diagnose my hairloss until a scalp biopsy confirmed Androgenetic Alopecia. Now, I’m that same year, it was discovered that I had underlying hormonal issues which caused this hairloss. These were: premature ovarian failure (ovaries no longer producing estrogen), and hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism (brain not producing luteinising hromone). Effectively, I was left with 0 female sex hormones, and higher end of normal male sex hormones. With this, I just accepted that I had a weird pattern of hairloss and took hormone replacement (Diane-35) and minoxidil when I was diagnosed.
Now let me skip forward to recently.
I’ve been researching many MANY things lately. I like to understand terminology and find myself often googling things so thah when I read studies or articles, I can make sense of it. As I was reading an article, I stumbled upon “Aromatase enzyme”, something I’d seen before in a few other things but didn’t know the real meaning of. So, for out of curiosity and further clarification, I googled what this enzyme was, and where it could be found. This is where things began to fall into place. Upon looking further into it, I discovered that this enzyme, “Aromatase”, is something which is directly connected to estrogen by means of production, and is found on the hair follicle sheath, and prevents loss of the hair, nourishing the follicle. I came across a study which discussed the role of Aromatase in the different patterns of hairloss in men and women. You can read it here: http://www.androgeneticalopecia.com/hair-loss-biology/hair-loss-aromatase.shtml
Essentially what it states is that, due to the exponentially higher levels of estrogen that females have compared to men, we therefore create more of this enzyme, which can be found most abundantly in the frontotemporal and parietal hairlines, meaning that women with Androgenetic Alopecia will generally have no hairline recession, and men who have minimal amounts of Aromatase because of much lower levels of estrogen, are left vulnerable to recession with the absence of the enzyme across the hairline/temples.
This made me very curious, because I myself have female Androgenetic Alopecia, but began to recede. I put 1 and 2 together and realised that my lack of estrogen from ovarian and pituitary abnormalities left ME without enough Aromatase to preserve the hairline under the susceptibility of genetic hairloss.
I wanted to dig further into this, and so found a study which detailed women suffering with breast cancer undergoing treatments to inhibit Aromatase and decrease estrogen levels. You can read that here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4864803/
This study found that, once again due to the inhibition of Aromatase and suppression of estrogen levels, these women developed a pattern of hairloss recession at the frontal and parietal hairlines, like men.
They were treated with minoxidil and variations of estrogenic anti androgens, but the study found that only moderate regrowth was accomplished. These were all POSTmenopausal women, not on any female hormone replacement.
Now here’s something where I am putting it all together. I lurk on all sorts of hairloss forums for info, and have been frequenting forums for hairloss related to polycystic ovarian syndrome more often, because my hormonal imbalances are in some ways similar, and an always interested to see what works for other women’s hairloss.
Now, through my reading of posts and threads on these forums, I have noticed that many of these women with elevated test levels and suppressed estrogen levels complain of hairline recession. Many do in fact. They try all sorts of dht blockers to remedy the issue on its own, but many find they have no success. However, there are also accounts of women stating “I have started on oral contraceptive XYZ, along with minoxidil, and antiandrogen XYZ 6 months ago and my hairline is filling in! This antiandrogen works!”. Wrong. All of these accounts include the initiation of estrogen/progesteron hrt, among with minoxidil. The ones who fail to restore their hairlines don’t.
Now my own experience comes into this too, because my hairline was my biggest problem area when I first began losing hair. I have been on Diane-35 hrt + minoxidil now since the end of 2015, and my hairline is fully restored, however the female pattern areas are still a problem, but that’s a seperate story.
You will also notice how many trans women find great success in partial hairline restoration. This is because of extreme HRT using intramuscular, subdemral and oral estrogens, because we now know thah estrogen = Aromatase = safer hairline.
Now it would be great if all men could just take some estrogen and have their hairline back, but clearly this is not a viable option if you want to remain male. So the question remains, how do we harness the Aromatase enzyme on its own to combat male hairline recession? Are there ways that we can alienate the enzyme and create a topical solution? Since you cannot systemically boost Aromatase (because it’s would mean taking estrogen), then will topical solutions Containing estrogen be more beneficial than dht blockers? Could we possibly find a way to find what boosts Aromatase via other sources, and use those ingredients in a topical? Well, there are many questions here and many studies needing to be done, but nevertheless I think that focusing on aromatase as a means of reversing hairline recession in men is higher overlooked, and holds great potential. I grew my hairline back after all and I basically had the hormones of a dude!
I hope you have found this enlightening and interesting
thanks for reading
