Author: Dr. William Rassman

Could the obesity be contributing to the baldness? Has anyone noticed that some obese people tend to have lots of wiry body hair in places other than the chest such as the back, shoulders, and arms. And overweight women tend to grow lots of facial hair.. perhaps the same hormones increasing body hair increases the risk of baldness??? Just a thought..

It is a good thought, but it is not completely correct. Genetic factors cause hair loss. Hair loss is not related to obesity or vice versa. However, I believe there are genetic factors that contribute to obesity (unrelated to hair loss).

Overweight women who have facial hair reflect a term called hirsutism, which you can learn more about here. It is related to hormonal imbalance and an increased amount of androgens in the blood stream.

Yes, hair loss can come in waves separated by months at times or even years. It can be impacted by your stress and your genetic code

Some evidence suggests that taking Ozempic causes individuals to experience telogen effluvium. We see Telogen effluvium when there is rapid weight loss, particularly in people who are not balding; however, those individuals with genetic balding who undergo rapid weight loss can accelerate their hair loss, significantly impacting miniaturized hairs on the head. If it is just a telogen effluvium, then it probably will reverse when the rapid hair loss stops, but if it impacts miniaturized hairs, these hairs may not return. It is also known that rapid weight loss can impact thyroid function, another thing to worry about.

Minoxidil works almost any place you put it and sometimes where you don’t put it as women who use it on their hair find that they may develop increased facial hair. The FDA approved it for the crown and that is why it says that in the insert.

I believe that minoxidil rarely works on the transplanted hair but assuming that some of your residual native hair remains, it may help fill that hair out and retain it.

I am a 20 year old boy I have been noticing hair fall eveyday. I have read on the website progesterone cream for hair fall. Is this safe? What about PRP

While progesterone is generally considered a natural female hormone, biochemically it is an indirect precursor to testosterone much like testosterone is a a precursor to DHT. (Men produce progesterone naturally just like women produce testosterone in their body)

If you follow this logic you can argue that you should be taking more cholesterol for male pattern balding and all hormonal deficiencies (since cholesterol is a precursor to testosterone/ progesterone/ etc)

Without going into detailed biochemical / medical logic, there may be an academic reasoning behind the use of progesterone (of how progesterone can counter DHT levels) but it is not a standard treatment for male pattern balding.

Keep in mind, male pattern balding is a genetic condition for which there is no definite cure. Drugs such as Propecia and Rogaine can help but over the long run the genetic predisposition will manifest. The only FDA approved medication for the treatment of male pattern balding is Propecia and Rogaine.

There is nothing wrong with doctors promoting off label treatments such as progesterone, PRP, low level laser light therapy as they have a right to practice medicine within the bounds of their Hippocratic Oath. Likewise the consumers (patients) have a right to choose their doctors and treatment options based on their own research and free will. However, it is my opinion that the consumer take a “buyer beware” approach. For every success story behind these treatments, there are many disappointed consumers who have spent thousands of dollars with no benefit. I may be biased because in my 23+ years in the hair restoration field, I have met with thousands of these disappointed consumers.

I am a 30 years old male, I did a perm 5 years ago to make my fine hair look a bit curly, so that it did not look as limp as it used to
be, that was actually the suggestion from the hair stylist based on my soft fine hair, I initially wanted to make it volumized, so he
provided the service of perm to my hair.

After five years, the effect of perm has been already gone for a long time. However, I roughly felt my hair growing a little strange in
recent years as the perm changed the growing pattern or direction to my hair, the hair did not follow the normal straight way to grow, so I
am wondering does it cause some extent of damage to my hair root? Thank you.

Perming your hair does not cause hair loss in general. Sometimes you can harm the hair or irritate the scalp with harsh chemicals involved but hairs generally grow back. Especially after 5 years the correlation of a perm and hair loss/texture changes seem less of a correlation.