Category: Other

i am 36 and have been losing my hair over a span of about 12 years. it started after my pregnancy, but over the last 2-3 years it has gotten VERY, VERY worse. I’m getting a lot facial hair, and acne. I NEVER had an acne problem until having a baby. I’m afraid i’m going to wake up bald . any answers will be appreciated. Thank You, Michelle

There are a series of masculinizing disorders that should be checked out by your gynecologist. Rather than play doctor here or set you into an alarming process, just pay your doctor a visit and have him/her perform an examination and do the appropriate testing for these disorders.

Welcome New York Magazine readers!

I wasn’t told ahead of time that this blog would be mentioned in the October 17, 2005 issue of New York Magazine (and on nymetro.com), but what a nice surprise it was. The small article, “McConaughey’s Miracle Hair”, references a post I made several months back about Regenix and my speculation about the hairline of actor Matthew McConaughey. You can find my original post here.

For the benefit of our increased reader base, here’s a quick recap of what this blog is all about. BaldingBlog.com is updated multiple times every weekday (and sometimes on weekends) with questions submitted by the readers and answered by New Hair Institute founder, Dr. William Rassman. In just 6 months, this site already contains over 400 of your questions answered! If you have a hair loss / hair transplantation question you’d like answered on this site, please send me a note via the Contact page.

Thank you for visiting!

Can certain foods increase testosterone(dht)? In the last three months i have been consuming kefir mixed with acai. I have noticed that my hair loss has accelerated .Any correlation?

The Acai berry, from the Amazon Rainforest, is used as an anti-aging medication. Friendly bacteria in the intestines synthesize the majority of vitamin K in the intestine. The use of Acidophilus cultures in the form of yogurt or kefir serve as a food source and an anti-oxidant by some people who build muscle mass. I can not comment on the direct association of these medications with testosterone production, but these supplements are often taken with male hormones or other growth hormones which will then contribute to more DHT production and possibly more hair loss. Poor nutrition, will absolutely contribute to hair loss.

It has been long thought that we are a product of what we eat and what we eat will impact the overall personal state of our health. If you eat Broccoli, for example, the Vitamin B6 it contains will spur the tryptophan hydroxylase gene to produce L-tryptophan, an amino acid used in the synthesis of serotonin, a neurochemical mood stabilizer. Determining the effects of different nutrients on each gene variant is tricky and revolutionary because it would enable people to optimize their diet according to their particular genetics. High Blood Pressure, for example, has been linked to the antiotensinogen gene that increases a person’s sensitivity to salt. So the challenge for science it to identify which nutrients interact with genes and how they do so. Red wines (containing Resveratrol), grapes, berry and peanuts has been linked to some of the genes involved in longevity, but unfortunately, not proven in humans. The suggestion that red wine slows the aging process has been suggested by the French, who make the finest red wines. Should we believe them? Vitamin D, not only prevents rickets, but it may half the rate of certain cancers (colon cancer for example). But sunlight will do the same thing supplying high doses of Vitamin D.

Fergus Clydesdale, a food scientist at the University of Massachusetts predicts a day when we will visit an online supermarket, input a color coded genetic profile and buy one of 20 different lasagnas, all of which taste the same but each of which were made to fit a particular person’s health needs. In conclusion, your question was a good one and suggests that sometime in the future, I can be more precise in my answers as science and nutrition come more of age.

HI DR. RASSMAN, I have a question for you…. you say propecia slows the hairloss, but mphl still progresses. I would like to know why the radio show host Spencer Kobren (The Bald Truth) has been able to stop his hair loss for 11 yrs now. Is he from another planet, or someone very special because he say that DHT is scared of him???? I mean you say the studies on merck site show hairloss continues even on the drug but yet I know Spencer has stop his hairloss. I think you might be reading that propecia curve wrong. I believe that when you start taking propecia you ” SHOCK THE SYSTEM” and you hairs go into a angen phase so appears like more hair is growing in the first 2 yrs but are hair does not stay in that phase forever . The hair on our head is not all in sync at the same time. I would also like to point out that the graph shows hair that was grow from vellus hair and does not count the hair that was maintain.. like the the terminal hair. That means at 5 yrs you will have 277 more hairs then when you started but what about all the hair you maintained. There is a difference between maintenance and the growing of lost hair. He has kept his so I think that proves his point, don’t you? DO I make sense..

What you’re saying is speculation based upon little fact. You are confusing things like vellus hair and miniaturized hair. The vellus hair is in each follicular unit (with or without balding present) and miniaturized hair is hair that is impacted by the genetic balding process. All hair goes into anogen, the longest part of its growing cycle and it may last years. You are implying that vellus hairs grow into normal hair on Propcia, but that is not a fact that I am aware of. One can not put all of the pieces together the way you did. The fact that Spencer did not lose his hair may have been in his genetic cards, and certainly not because he “scared” his DHT away. I would not say that former President Bill Clinton “mastered” keeping his hair or that he “frightened” his DHT, even with the Pentagon behind him. Sorry, but I have little to add.

Dr. Rassman:
Do you use computer imaging with your patients, to manipulate a current patient picture into a “target goal” picture? I did not see any info about this on your website, but it certainly seems to me the best way to ensure both patient and doctor share the same vision. Thank you.

We have been offering open house events for 14 years so that prospective patients can see, first hand, what the actual results are from hair restoration surgery. The use of computer imaging is frequently misleading, just as photography can be, because it shows what the operator wants to show and does not take into account the real elements that make ‘coverage’ for hair replacement surgery. Things like hair thickness and hair character can not accurately be portrayed with computer imaging. The view can also be misleading. Frontal views, for example, are often better than top views for showing more fullness.

Setting patient expectations is at the core of what I do. I have written extensively on the artistic elements in the hair restoration process and published these observations in prestigious medical journals and text books. I do not believe that correct expectations can be set by the imaginary world created by computer images. As a side note, although many doctors do computer imaging, few will give the patient a picture of what they might look like from such imaging systems. The reason is simple: such a picture is like a contract, which can be used in court against the doctor if the result in that picture is not obtained. If the correlation between computer generated images poorly defines the differences between projected results and the actual results, then this tool does not set proper expectations for the bald buyer. It is clearly better when you examine a person up close, who has actually had a surgical hair restoration procedure and holds his ‘before’ picture for you to examine with his ‘after’ presence in person.

This computer imaging is vastly different for a nose job where a nose is altered in length, or taking out a bumb. A breast augmentation is also a simple computer image to demonstrate because size and location with support or poor support is easly altered on the computer as it would be in surgery. Most patients who show at the open house, will let you feel the thickness of their hair and then you can compare your thickness with theirs. In addition, the hair character (curly vs straight) will be evident. You can look from many views, even the worst view so that you absolutely know what will happen to you. What you see is going to be what you are going to get.

Hair is very different and that is why we rely on the open house format. I do not want to mislead anyone.

i have lost the hair on the front of my lower leg below my knee. the rest of my legs have hair except this part. can you tell me why this is and ways to get the hair to grow there again. i am a 35 year old male. thank you.

This is unusual. You should start by checking your Testosterone and DHT levels. Body hair is a ‘benefit’ of DHT. That includes leg hair (and the appropriate target genes), nose and ear hair, and body hair. Many men in our modern society do not look forward to the increase in these hairs!

Checking with a good dermatologist would be a start for leg hair loss. Is this a pattern in your family?

Just a reminder to those in the Los Angeles area —

We are having an Open House at the New Hair Institute office in LA tomorrow. This is a good chance to meet many past NHI patients and see a live procedure. Plus, attendees get a $200 discount off their procedure (please ask an NHI rep for full details).

Thursday, Sept 8 from 4pm – 7:30pm (TOMORROW)
9911 W. Pico Blvd, Suite 301, Los Angeles CA 90035
Click here for driving directions, courtesy of Yahoo Maps

Any questions, please feel free to call us at 1-800-NEW-HAIR. I hope to see you there.

If you aren’t going to be able to make it to this event, we have events like this every month in our Los Angeles and San Jose, California offices. The event list can be found here: Upcoming events.