Author: Dr. William Rassman

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Anti-Nuclear Antibodies (ANA) and DUPA

Doctor, when a patient have DUPA, his/her ANF (Anti-Nuclear Factor) is positive? I have no balding parents nor relatives (until the 4th generation above myself), but I think I’m suffering DUPA and it began just after a heavy stressing period

The diagnosis of DUPA (diffuse unpatterned alopecia) is made by mapping out your hair and scalp for miniaturization. A good examination is critical. Hair loss in men comes about for four reasons:

  1. Genes
  2. Male hormones
  3. Stress (you seem stressed)
  4. Time (the longer #1-3, the worse the problem will become)

To avoid confusion, ANF and ANA are the same thing (see Wikipedia for more info). I am not familiar with a positive ANA factor as a participating cause of DUPA. Conditions like DUPA can occur with a variety of autoimmune diseases of which some of them may have positive ANAs.


2008-05-29 15:29:48Anti-Nuclear Antibodies (ANA) and DUPA

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Antiandrogens may protect against covid

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32977363/

“Anti-androgens commonly used in the treatment of AGA such as finasteride, dutasteride, spironolactone, and bicalutamide could improve outcomes among men infected by SARS?CoV?2.”

We have known that men do worse than women when contracting Covid, with higher death rates. So this may help us understand the role of androgens in Covid

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Any Data for 2mg Finasteride Benefits?

I understand that a 1mg dose of Propecia is recommended. What I want to know, however, is how much more hair grew at a 2mg dose vis-a-vis the 1mg dose — 10% more? 15% more? I know these data exist. So, what incremental improvement might there be with a 2mg dose?

While it’s quite possible that the data for 2mg finasteride hair loss treatment benefits exists, I don’t have it, I don’t recall seeing it, and I’m not sure if it was ever made available to the public.

I do know that there were studies that looked at high dose and low dose finasteride (prior to Propecia becoming available) for treating hair loss. More is not better and I am not aware of a 2mg study showing any additional benefit. The stories that I do hear are anecdotal.


2011-01-28 09:19:26Any Data for 2mg Finasteride Benefits?

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Antioxidants and Free Radicals

Although this post isn’t hair loss related and it is about an article that is nearly 2 years old, this is an important read for those who buy into the antioxidant solution to anti-aging, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and the like. The question raised here is whether you can get these antioxidants from pills or do you have to get them from fresh fruits and vegetables?

Snippet from the article:

Cranberry capsules. Green tea extract. Effervescent vitamin C. Pomegranate concentrate. Beta carotene. Selenium. Grape seed extract. High-dose vitamin E. Pine bark extract. Bee spit.

You name it, if it’s an antioxidant, we’ll swallow it by the bucket-load. According to some estimates around half the adults in the US take antioxidant pills daily in the belief they promote good health and stave off disease. We have become antioxidant devotees. But are they doing us any good? Evidence gathered over the past few years shows that at best, antioxidant supplements do little or nothing to benefit our health. At worst, they may even have the opposite effect, promoting the very problems they are supposed to stamp out.

Full text at NewScientist — The antioxidant myth: a medical fairy tale

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Another patient with finasteride, minoxidil and microneedling 9 months (photo)

This man used finasteride, minoxidil and microneedling for 9 months and clearly increased the density of his forelock. His hairline did not return to normal so I wonder if he used the microneedling on the original hairline as well but that failed to regrow?


2020-08-13 10:01:15Another patient with finasteride, minoxidil and microneedling 9 months (photo)

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Any Adolescent Hairline Transplant Photos?

Can you post a before & after photo of someone who you’ve lowered their hairline to an “adolescent hairline”. I know you’ve said in the past you usually only do this procedure on someone who makes their living by their looks & I wanted to see how much of a difference it would make. Thanks, great blog!

These three patients had their central hairline brought down to the childhood hairline position:

Also, please take a look at the hundreds of patient before and after photos on my website in the Patient Photo Galleries.


2006-10-23 14:52:22Any Adolescent Hairline Transplant Photos?

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Are Antibiotics That We are Taking, Slowly Killing Us?

In a Denmark Study, people who “redeemed five or more antibiotic prescriptions over the course of a 15 year period were much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared with those who took antibiotics’ only noe or two times. Other diseases were also appearing that may be the result of altering the bacteria in our intestine finding associations with “obesity, inflammatory and autoimmune disorders and even depression”.

Since the 1940s with the discovery of antibiotics, the focus was to kill all of the bad ‘germs’ in our body, but maybe we just killed off the good ‘germs’ in the process and without these good ‘germs’, we found ourselves with many other diseases. Children may have been over-treated causing more asthma and a tendency to obesity.

I have read much about the value of our ‘gut’ to help our immune system function properly. The learning curve is very steep at this time and it seems that in almost every medical journal now appearing, we are learning that our intestine is really a functioning part of our immune system, something I never learned in medical school.

I found myself being asked many times by patients to give them an antibiotic for a flu. I know it did not work against a virus, but the patients would demand antibiotics and although I may have been one of the few doctors who resisted such calls for antibiotics, I could not always stand my ground. So what I am telling you here is not to demand Antibiotics when you are not feeling well, as you might be harming yourself if you took them unnecessarily.

This was discussed in New Scientist, April 8-13, Pages 39-41.


2017-04-09 20:32:36Are Antibiotics That We are Taking, Slowly Killing Us?

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Anti-Graying Pill — Go Away Gray

Hi,

I have recently come across with this product: Go Away Gray

Your remarks will be appreciated.

I have no experience with Go Away Gray (and this is the first I’ve read of it), but I invite my readers to comment if they do have experience with this pill that promises to make gray hair disappear. What I could find on it (aside from a ton of sites trying to sell it) was that the pill contains catalase, and a study from last year did find that gray hair was caused by the body’s lack of catalase production as we age. That isn’t enough to convince me just yet, but I am open to learning more about this and reading some actual reviews. You can read more about last year’s gray/catalase stories here and here.

CBS stations around the US picked up the story and ran it in their local markets, causing at least one TV critic to dig a little deeper into why the product is getting all this publicity (see here).


2010-05-14 06:40:20Anti-Graying Pill — Go Away Gray

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Any Miraculous Results from Unusual Hair Loss Cases?

Hi Dr.

What is the most unusual case you have come across during your time dealing with hair loss patients.

Has there been any miraculous results or otherwise unusual results that may give some of us extra hope?

The usual hair loss cause in men the vast majority of the time is genetics. There’s not much you can do to change what your mom and dad gave you. At times the hair loss is not uniform or symmetrical and this leads to some interesting patterns. In many patients, I have seen one side balding much faster than the other. Unusual hair loss patterns in men include a completely Norwood class 7 pattern except for the first 1/2inch of the hairline, which is completely intact. Many of these men grow out the frontal hair and use it as a strange looking comb-back hair style, and it works.

For men, we can postpone the inevitable with drugs such as Propecia (finasteride 1mg) or Rogaine (minoxidil 5% topical). I suspect in the coming years, there may be new drugs or other medical breakthroughs such as cloning, but that may take years just to get FDA clearance.

The hair transplantation methods of the past have created many interesting problems today. In the old days, plugs were put into the crown before the hair was lost, and then as the balding progressed, an island of plugs remained in the middle of a bald crown — a very weird look. Hair transplant surgery today provides awesome results. Not to toot our horn, but our patients seem to think they get miraculous results… which is a prejudice induced because of the life changing nature of the process! Look at our photo galleries to see for yourself.


2012-06-06 10:26:01Any Miraculous Results from Unusual Hair Loss Cases?

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Balding Blog – Hair Loss Information – Your hair loss questions, answered daily.

CDC recommends young women avoid alcohol unless they are using contraception

USA Today (2/2, Szabo) reports, “Women of childbearing age should avoid alcohol unless they’re using contraception, federal health officials said” yesterday. “‘Alcohol can permanently harm a developing baby before a woman knows she is pregnant,’ said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Schuchat pointed out, “About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won’t know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking.”

The Washington Post (2/2, Izadi) reports in “Health & Science” that “an estimated 3.3 million women who drink are sexually active but not on birth control,” according to a CDC report released yesterday. In addition, “three out of four women who want to get pregnant don’t stop drinking alcohol when they stop using” contraception. The agency “warns that consuming alcohol during pregnancy can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders,” and “there is no known amount of alcohol that’s safe to consume while pregnant.”

Hair transplant surgery, or in fact any surgical procedure has the potential to harm a fetus in the first trimester of pregnancy. For women who have such surgery and are not on birth control pills, they should get a pregnancy test BEFORE undergoing any such type of surgery to avoid miscarriages or other fetal problems.