Balding Blog

Snippet from the article:

If you dread trips to the barbershop and cringe every time you pass a mirror, there’s a pretty good chance you’re concerned about hair loss. Whether you’re starting to see strands of your hair at the bottom of your shower or are just worried that your thick head of hair won’t last forever, there are helpful foods that prevent hair loss. You may be, however, genetically predisposed to hair loss, and if that’s the case, there’s not much you can do but keep your fingers crossed. Making sure certain foods are in your diet will help keep your scalp healthy, happy and, hopefully, hairy. Here are some foods that prevent hair loss, which means you need to stock up.

Read the full article: AskMen.com – Foods That Prevent Hair Loss

I don’t expect to find much medical information on a site like AskMen.com, and after reading this article I’m more secure in my lack of expectations. That being said, I still managed to read through the article, which states that eating eggs, beans, raisins, seafood, and potatoes all prevent hair loss, and greasy foods cause your hair to fall out. The author gives his reasoning behind most of these theories, but I do remain skeptical that foods alone can solve the problem of hair loss. The reading is interesting, nonetheless.

Some doctors had lawsuits when someone claimed that they lost their sex drive permanently. The risk is far less than 1:1000 but some doctors put their fears in front of patient’s welfare. What I do is inform my patients of all of the risks then prescribe it. It is the patient’s decision to take or not to take the drug. My son took finasteride for 15 years so far, and he told me that his sex drive went up when he went on the medications. I take it with no problems. Of course, internet forums only want the bad news, so you rarely hear about the other side effects. Any doctor can prescribe it, even your family doctor.

Ashton Kutcher talking about Avodart/Dutasteride on national television from tressless

Ashton Kutcher everybody from tressless

The first picture is from Dr. Robert Haber’s magnified study of a hair scan of a single hair on one of Dr. Paul Cotterill’s female patients. It revealed that hair thickness and shape changes as the hair grows longer. The measurement scan below demonstrates the changes in this 21 cm long female single hair. Telogen is on the left (the end of the hair cycle) and the start of anagen on the right (where the new hair started to grow out from the scalp) showing how the shaft thickness and bulk builds as the hair starts growing and is widest at about 14-15 cm (about 15 months into the growth of the hair). It is clear that the hair thickness is greatest at the 14 -15 cm. length of the hair in this female patient. Dr. Haber told me that this was a normal female hair and she had no symptoms of a hair disorder. Clearly we need to understand the various conditions that this technology is capable of showing us as hairs are evaluated with regard to many different treatments.

In the second chart, a hair shaft thickness is shown over its length and the researchers, Dr. Michael Rabin and Dr. Robert Haber show the impact of an event that occurred in this particular patient’s hair (which had grown out for 22 months) but the event occurred 16 months into its growth cycle. The large arrow shows pointing down shows the timing of the event and it this case it was a PRP treatment 6 months ‘in time’ prior to the hair being cut off at its base at 22 months growth. Note this hair’s emergence from the scalp (beginning of anagen on the right) and the point where PRP was administered 16 months into its growth cycle (shown with large red arrow pointing down). It is easy to see the point where the event occurred, but interpreting it is another story. Is this a good result or a bad one? Was the hair ‘healthier’ after the PRP injection. The graph suggests it was less thick, but maybe it was a healthier hair?

This is exciting research to me because now after seeing it, I would want to know the impact of drugs like minoxidil on a normal terminal hair, (we now believe that there is no impact), the impact of finasteride on a miniaturizing hair (we now believe it increases the hair shaft thickness) and the growth of a single long hair with the patient on finasteride over time (does the benefit build slowly or is it a one time hit?). I just loved the creativity of these clinical researchers in producing a tool that can expand our knowledge in what is still, at times, a ‘Black Art’ for, the treatment of hair loss. . (Ref: http://neoangels.net/ishrsboston/hairscan.pdf)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969676/

We do know that there is a reduction in the quality of semen in many men who are taking Finasteride (it becomes water and the volume is reduced). This article explains it.

For men who have had this side effect, when they stopped the Finasteride, their semen returned to normal.