Hey Doctor, I just had a miniaturization study done the other day by Dr. Bernstein in New York (who I found out about thanks to this site) and he said I had about 50% miniaturization on the front of my head while the crown/back was all normal and prescribed me 5mg Propecia to cut it into 1/4s. I didn’t take the chance to ask him any questions about it, which I regret. So I was hoping I could ask you:
- Being 20 years old, would you consider 50% miniaturization a significant amount of hair thinning?
- Being that right now I just have hair thinning and there’s really no signs of balding to the untrained eye, am I at a better advantage to responding to Propecia?
- Also, could the propecia actually reverse the miniaturization, at least to a certain degree, or is it much more likely that it’ll just halt it/slow it down?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Could go either way, or none at all. I can’t predict how you’ll react to a medication.
50% miniaturization is a predictor or hair loss or balding in the area where the miniaturization is found (in your case, in the frontal area). Sooner or later, the balding will be evident to the naked eye, but with finasteride, it may slow it down or reverse it. You should repeat the miniaturization study in a year and see what has happened ,and then you will have a better idea of the hair loss progression and the speed of the process.
The article you’re referring to can be found 
Saw palmetto and Provillus are over the counter natural supplements, though Provillus now contains minoxidil along with saw palmetto. The use of saw palmetto may or may not work, but one of the problems is the dosage between different manufacturers and as it is an herbal remedy it is not covered by the FDA regulations for claims. I really don’t believe it works in treating hair loss, but I also see no harm in taking it. I would be careful not to take excessive dosages of any natural supplements, though. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what an excessive dose of saw palmetto would be.
Each volunteer was injected 900 times with the suspension containing the lab-grown DP cells in a large area which was photographed at the end of the study. Volunteers were also injected in a smaller area, divided into two halves – counts were obtained by shaving and photographing the two small halves of this small area of the scalp, injecting them multiple times (either 1 injection of 50 µl or 50 injections of 1 µl) with living DP cell suspension and then applying a specialized image analysis system to provide a total hair count. In these small sections, all 19 subjects in the trial were treated using a range of injection and scalp pre-stimulation techniques; the first 6 subjects were injected without stimulation of the scalp. In the remaining 13 subjects the resident hair producing (epithelial) cells were stimulated at the time of delivery of the DP cells in one of the two treatment sites. 13 subjects completed the 48-week trial with 6 subjects lost to follow-up. Of the 13 subjects completing the trial the data showed that: