Category: Uncategorized

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What theories exist for the causes of male hair loss ?

You should know that Egpytians were a mix of Bantu, Arabs and even a bit of Caucasian so its not surprising that their would have hairloss. Even African Americans suffer hair-loss due to mixtures with the European gene pool even if they are not Bantu of San

The San bushmen are an isolated and relatively pure ethnic group, and they are of special interest because they share the direct lineage from the direct descendants of all humans. They give us a window to what humans might have originally looked like 60000 years ago

The history for genetic hair loss and its causes has perplexed doctors and other scientists for generations; however, one doctor did come up with a solution which I outlined in a post some years ago after reading his book. Here is the post: https://baldingblog.com/2008/01/23/evolutionary-reason-for-hair-loss/

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Graft Placement, FUE, and Body Hair Transplants

first:
i need your opinion concerning the placement technique of DHI Greece group.

Second:
i had a transplant with famous doctor in Australia, he is very good in FUE (body & head) but the placement is not good & transplant hair nature is changed. i think his way with washing hair not before one week of tranplantation is not good for hair, i need your opinion for that.

finally:
i think you are the best doctor in this field but i have 2 problems to proceed with you:
1- getting the VISA, my application was introduced from 18 months & there is no answer. i know this is not your fault, but this is the situation
2- i am Norwood 5 to 6, i prefer to use BODY HAIR & untill now you do not proceed with this option

finally thank you for this valuable website, i know everydetails of hair transplatation & made me have standard for quality procedure

Thank you for the faith that you expressed in my skills. To answer the first part of your email about DHI, please take a look at FUE / FIT — Minimally Invasive Hair Transplants.

It sounds like although you did your research, the “Buyer Beware” axiom still failed even after considerable research. If you are a Class 6 pattern balding patient,l the best and probably only real good source of donor hair is from the back and sides of your head and you need to exploit this first before you consider body hair transplants (most people never need them). You have clearly recognized that the art of placement is critical to the final result, which is something that many people do not differentiate from medical clinic to medical clinic. As the inventor of the Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) technique, I know that it is not always the best procedure for those who are extensively bald. I personally think that you must focus upon the quality of the transplanted hair, and body hair does not have that same quality or quantity as head and scalp hair. Performing body hair transplants will produce a poor quality hair transplant (when compared to a good transplant with scalp hair), which may be what you are observing and blaming on your shampoo and washing technique.

Please send photographs to the address on the Contact page as a starting point of a dialogue.

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Great Hairline, Thin Top and Crown, Low on Donor Hair (with Photos)

This patient had 4608 grafts. As you can see from his photos below, the frontal area is great, but the top and crown are lightly covered. He lost much of the original hair in the top and crown from the balding process and as the transplant process was going on over a 10 year period in three sessions.

I am posting these photos to show that frontal hair can go a long way to making a balding man look fuller. We will still do one more surgery on him to fill in areas that need more density and then offer him Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP) to finish the creation of the fullness he wants.

Click the photos to enlarge:

 

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Thinning All Over Scalp When Going from Adolescent to Adult?

Hi Doc,
I went to have a miniaturization study done, and the doctor noticed that I have miniaturization everywhere, even in the permanent hair zone of the scalp. He says that I am going through a thinning process as I go from an adolescent to an adult. How long can I expect this to go on?

If you are developing fine hair where it did not exist before as you go from an adolescent hair to an adult hair, then that is possibly your new norm. What did your doctor say about the cause, besides describing it to you?

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Guest Post — Popular Baldness Causes and the Lack of Evidence

This post comes from Dr. Richard Shiell:
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    Dr Masumi Inaba, who wrote a book on Androgenetic Alopecia (Springer 1996), was firmly convinced that the increase in Western style animal fats was causing an increase in baldness in young Japanese males. I am not sure that his statistical method would stand rigid scrutiny however.

    The same lack of good statistics applies to all the popularly believed “causes” of baldness. Forty years ago when I was a young HT surgeon, the patients all blamed the wearing of hats in the Army or Police Force as the cause of their baldness, when I am sure that it was just that they entered these institutions at the precise age that severe AGA usually kicks in (19-21 years old).

    I certainly believed throughout my career that “gym-jocks” lost hair more quickly than their “lay-about” brothers and cousins. The problem is that many were taking steroids and other “dietary supplements” so it was a very confusing issue to ascertain causality.

    I had one of a pair of 25 year old “identical” twins who had lost significantly more hair than the other. When I spoke to the more hirsute twin about it he laughed and said it was because his brother was married with a child and mortgage, and had more stress. So there you have undeniable evidence from a large series of ONE case!!

    Hair loss is the results of many complex things. For example, dietary supplements like whey and a variety of branched amino acids including creatine, push up men’s testosterone levels (and their DHT levels), which in turn accelerate hair loss. We are what we eat, I just wish I understood all of the complexities of diet as it impacts the hair loss we see.


2012-07-02 11:51:43Guest Post — Popular Baldness Causes and the Lack of Evidence

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Hair and self-confidence

I’m balding since i’m 23 and since then i never stopped looking at my hair in the mirror every time or looking at older pictures and my eyes goes to my hairs. Or also when i’m outside looking at peoples hair and comparing to mine or telling that guy has beautiful hair why not me.. Even now i’m 31 and i still do it it’s been more than 8 years that i do that. Fin saved me and got my hairline from 3 years ago (where my hair loss wasn’t so obvious) So i’m less sensitive to that but i’m still looking at other hairs and also mine every day

Your story is typical. Most men who see hair loss recognize for the first time that they are aging and nobody likes that reality. One of my sons noticed that his soccer skills have precipitously fallen down in the past few years and as he was always #1 in scoring, he now plays second class to the younger guys. We all, sooner or later, will recognize that we are getting older, sometimes it’s the hair, sometimes it’s the body’s performance, sometimes it is in the death of a friend way before his time. From the many celebrities (actors and musicians) I have worked with over the years, I found that their hair was critical to their art. Getting their hair back with drugs or a hair transplant gave them peace of mind so that they can focus on the things that are really important once their hair situation is a thing that they don’t have to deal with in the present.


2021-05-18 07:07:51Hair and self-confidence

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Thymuskin: Does the Thymus Gland Even Play a Role in Hair Growth?

I have been using thymuskin a topical shampoo and dropper solution made in Germany by Klett-Loch gmb. The company claims it reduces or inhibits DHT in the scalp, acting as a coating/membrane around the follicules. It is also a synthetic thymus extract/peptide originally from a baby calf, cow but is now synthetic due to cattle health, the German company claims. They say it also acts by boosting the level of thymosin and or boosting the thymus gland which normally shrinks in size. They say it was originally developed for chemotherapy patients that lost their hair after chemo, but soon they say the German doctors who were bald themselves started using the thymus product with success. It is extremely expensive to me @270.00 for a 2 month supply. Does thymosin and or the thymus gland play a role in hair follicule stimulation and or growth? Why did the chemo patients not lose hair when using it while under chemo? I ordered it because I thought with all the products out there, that surely a German company would not lie! It dosen’t suit them based on their history. haha funny. thanks Dr. Rassman

To my knowledge, nothing topical inhibits DHT production on the scalp, though there are some shampoos that claim to reduce scalp DHT. In my humble opinion, it is probably just marketing hype, but if it works as promised, the company can make a fortune selling it at any price worthy of putting in the effort. The Thymuskin North American distributor claims the product was sold for 20 years in Europe, but the amount of years a product is available in the European marketplace really doesn’t have any bearing on its effectiveness. The user reports online vary wildly, and with so many Thymuskin resellers and affiliate links out there looking to cash in, it really makes it hard to distinguish what is a real review and what is a disguised advertisement.

The thymus gland does not play a part in hair growth. There is an association between hair loss and the thymus gland in a special type of inherited disease, but that would not point to the use of any thymus extract in the treatment of the normal genetic hair loss that is common in the general population. I’m not sure what T-cells have to do with hair growth or hair loss, but these cells are in the critical path for autoimmune diseases. Again, in my humble opinion it is just marketing hype, but I will be glad to be proven wrong.

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Hair Coloring After Transplant

Hi Dr. Rassman.
First I would like to thank you and Dr. McClellan, for doing such a great job. It has only been a week since my surgery 1,700 grafts. 5 Years ago I had 1,100 grafts. Healing is occurring quite rapidly, and I feel the positive results around the corner.

I have somewhat fine, and curly hair age 38. Auburn brownish is my natural color. Redhead when I was younger. My father grayed heavily in his thirties, as did my brothers & I. I use either “Grecian Formula”, or “Just for Men” 5 minute hair coloring. (Light Brown to get as close to my natural color as possible). About a month prior to surgery, I had my hair highlighted bleach blonde, and the results were fantastic. I looked a lot less bald, with wonderful full blonde curls, and my brown underneath. It looks so natural and subtle that everyone thinks I have just been in the sun for a week. I am very pleased with this coloring. Because I only highlighted, the brown color treated area remains, its brown status.

The main question becomes at this point, is when can I use the “Grecian Formula”, or the “Just for Men 5 Minute Hair Coloring again as my base?

And, when can I “bleach” highlight again?
A) My regular area.
B) Donor, and Transplanted area.

Thanks again to Dr. McClellan for doing such a great job last week.

Thank you for your kind words! I am hesitant to post this for fear that readers may think this is a ‘planted’ question, but you do raise some issues that have not been addressed in this blog. You can begin to color or bleach your hair once there is no more scabbing present and the skin is smooth. This usually happens within the first after surgery (in some people in days). I generally advise people to dye their hair immediately prior to the surgery so that there is no significant disruption to their schedules.

You also bring up an important point on the value of hair coloring. Lightening the hair always adds the look of fullness. In a question posed to me on April 21st (see: Platinum Blonde Patients), the question of blonde hair came up in a different context. That question has bothered me since it came in and as I looked through hundreds and hundreds of patient photos, fewer blondes were in my hair transplant group than non-blondes. Then I realized that the lack of blondes in my database of photos came about for two reasons:

  1. There are fewer blondes in the population (estimated at less than 10%). We are led to believe that the actual number is higher because there are many, many blonde women. Could it be that because ‘Blondes have more fun” women are becoming blonde far more frequently than men are?
  2. A platinum blonde man can lose 85% of the hair on the front, top and crown without knowing that he is going bald. This is because of the low color contrast between hair and skin color and that the shiny hair platinum blondes have makes balding less prominent.

In conclusion, men who are balding should think more like you and consider taking charge of coloring like some of the women out there are doing regularly. Maybe, just maybe, coloring can solve the hair thinning problem without a hair transplant for those who are not quite bald yet.