Category: Other

I’ve been taking Propecia for around 6 months. Recently, I’ve noticed that there seems to be improvement in my diffuse crown thinning – however, this coincides with the recently colder weather. Would the less sweat from summer cause that big of a difference in perception of thinning? If I recall correctly, I don’t sweat that much from my scalp.

In some animals, the fur coats get thicker in the winter. We have never recognized that hair cycles change based upon seasons, so the official answer to your question is that no, it should not get thicker in cold weather. That being said, many patients have told me that their hair appears thicker in the winter, so that suggests that the scientists should get better data on human moulting.

Humans have an asynchronous hair cycle, which means that we grow and shed our hair in cycles. The shedding cycle for head hair (catogen) lasts 3-6 months and the growing cycle (anagen) lasts 2-4 years depending upon the age and sex of the person. In body hair, the catogen cycle is often the length of the anagen cycle, and I would expect that the anagen cycle should be longer in winter if the body hair cycle responded to cold weather.

So in conclusion, animal hairs respond to cold, but human hairs do not (officially) respond to cold weather. I don’t have any idea if you have more or less scalp sweat today than you did in the Summer months, or if it makes a difference in your crown’s appearance.

Snippet from the non-hair-loss article:

If you are a lady, and you think you might be pregnant, you can take an at-home test to find out. You simply pee on a stick. Whether the results are measured in pink lines, blue lines, plus and minus symbols, or a “pregnant”/”not pregnant” digital readout, all the home pregnancy tests on the market are really looking for the same thing — Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).

HCG is a pregnancy hormone. It’s produced by the placenta, a temporary organ that only forms in female bodies when an embryo has attached to the uterine lining. And so it was kind of weird when a male friend of a Reddit user known as CappnPoopDeck peed on a home pregnancy test and it came back positive.

Read the rest at BoingBoing — Positive pregnancy test diagnoses man’s cancer

Wow.

Your blog has stated Asians typically has an average of 80,000 hair while Caucasians have 100,000 hair on their head.

I am from North India quite fair skinned. What would I be classified as? Indians, I believe, are genetically classified as Caucasians.

Unless I am getting too old not to notice the continents drift apart, last time I checked India is part of the the Asian continent. In England, they refer to Indians as Asians. There is some debate about whether racial categorizations are medically valid, but if we measure race based upon hair count, we see groupings by geography. Asians cover Korea, Japanese, and all of China and points south. There, the average total count for hairs on the head measures 80,000 hairs.

Most Europeans average 100,000 hairs on their head. As our geographic tour takes us south into North Africa, the total hair counts start mixing between 80,000 – 100,000 total hair count. Moving more into Asia, the hair counts seem to move towards the 80,000 number.

Taking our tour south into the African continent and the dark skin, kinky hairs starts showing up, the hair counts drop further to the 60,000 range. One can rationalize that the African kinky hair type, reflects accommodations to the heat of the African savannah, where the scalp is a major heat loss organ, acting like a radiator which allows air flow through the hair to dissipate heat.

Hello, I have a question regarding finasteride. I have heard that there are correlations between intelligence (IQ) and testosterone. Now if I take finasteride, it will lower my dht, but apparently it will also increase the testosterone slightly. Now, which form of testosterone is related to intelligence and what would an increase/decrease do to the intelligence.

thank you in advance for any anwser.

This is a new one for me. I haven’t read anything about testosterone and intelligence being related, and I don’t know where you picked that up from. If you believe everything you read on the Internet, Elvis will be your neighbor and the world will come to an end shortly.

Sorry, but I wouldn’t be concerned about your testosterone affecting your intelligence.

Caleb Followill – the lead singer of popular band ‘Kings of Leon’ is showing signs of balding. He is a norwood 2.5, maybe even a norwood 3. Now, I’m not sure if you know this, but Kings of Leon consists of 3 brothers and 1 cousin. Caleb is the *only* one showing any signs of balding, and he isn’t even the oldest of the brothers (yes he is one of the brothers, not the cousin). Is it possible the rest of the family members escaped the balding gene? Or could they have had medical intervention to tackle balding?

There is also an interesting story of Caleb commenting on his baldness here.

Anything is possible, I suppose. He might be the unlucky one that has the balding gene, and his brothers were spared. Perhaps the rest of the family is taking medication and he isn’t. Maybe he does feel added stress, which has accelerated his genetic hair loss.

There’s no way for me to know with absolute certainty why the one brother is losing hair and the rest of the siblings aren’t, but I’d say it is just the genetic cards he was dealt.

Can Adderall increase testosterone in men? Thanks drs

To my knowledge, Adderall does not affect testosterone levels. Adderall is prescribed for patients with ADHD and its mechanism of action has to do with dopamine uptake.

Snippet from the article:

In a first of its kind case, Surat police arrested a doctor for allegedly stealing another doctor’s patented design of a hair transplant machine. The complaint was filed against the accused by another doctor under IPC sections 380, 196 and 120(B). The accused was allowed to go after his statement was recorded as he already had been given anticipatory bail by a local court.

Plastic surgeon Dr Pradipsinh Atodariya claims to have developed and designed a hair transplant machine through which multiple hair transplant is possible at a time.

Read the rest — Doctor held for theft of hair transplant machine’s design

Just when I think I’ve heard it all…

It sounds like one doctor is taking credit for another doctor’s invention. I’m not familiar with any of these doctors, nor am I familiar with the machine in question.

Hi,Dr. Rassman

i have 5-6 grey hairs at the side of my hairs. if i pluck out my hairs, Can i solve this problem? or you have any solution for grey hairs?

im very young and This grey hairs makes me feel old.

Thanks in advance.

If you continuously pluck out your grey hairs, it might cause them to eventually stop growing… but it’s not going to make them regrow as your regular hair color. In other words, I wouldn’t recommend going that route. I don’t know how old you are, but some people just go grey at a younger age than you might expect.

At this point, the way to solve the problem of grey hair is by using hair dye. There’s talk about a pill to prevent grey hair, but it’s apparently still years away (see here).

Snippet from the article:

A 21-year-old man has been diagnosed with cutis verticis gyrata, a rare condition that forms folds and furrows in the scalp.

The unidentified man first began noticing the changes 2 years ago.

That’s when his skin started to grow into thick, soft folds, resembling the ridges of the brain, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Read the rest — Rare Condition Causes ‘Brainy’ Scalp

Click to the link to see a photo of this, too. And for the curious, we wrote about this condition about 5 years ago here.

Here is a radio show where doctor George Cotsarelis showed up and talked about hair loss. Although nothing new was mentioned it is an interesting study of psychological affects that baldness can cause

Link: Hair and who we are

I haven’t had time to listen to the show, but I thought I’d post this for those that are interested (thanks for sending us the link).

The description of the radio show says they talked with Albert Mannes (the author of the “bald men are dominant” study), interviewed Dr. Cotsarelis (one of the doctors that is researching PGD2), and spoke to a salon manager that lost her hair from chemotherapy.