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.
“dietary supplements like whey and a variety of branched amino acids including creatine, push up men’s testosterone levels (and their DHT levels)”
– This is a bold statement. Is there any real scientific evidence for this?
There is quite a bit of scientific literature on the effects of creatine on testosterone levels that has been in the literature for over a decade. I would suggest typing in “creatine” and “testosterone” via The National Library of Medicine database to access the published scientific articles that you wish (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez). I feel the following is one of the better studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19741313
For clarity of my last post, the article that I cited did not show an increase in serum testosterone from creatine supplementation but, rather, an increased rate of conversion of T to DHT. My suggestion to look in the medical literature is that there have been many studies done over the last decade. In general, the notion that whey an creatine increase testosterone levels is not supported by the medical literature. But – with all topics – readers can go to the medical literature directly and evaluate things written in posts. Such literature is publicly available and free.
There’s actually one study published that shows a mild increase in DHT levels in creatine monohydrate users. It didn’t seem that well designed to me and it’s always hard to take into account other factors affecting athletic individuals but the study does exist. As far as I’m aware there is only the one published though.
Whey and aminos can contribute to normal hormone function and anabolism which may have some connection to increased testosterone but I’m not sure where the studies are on showing a direct causal relationship between consuming high grade whey protein and increased DHT above baseline can be found.
“dietary supplements like whey and a variety of branched amino acids including creatine, push up men’s testosterone levels (and their DHT levels)â€
Yeah, this is the first I’ve heard of this. Source of information please? I go the gym and sometimes take supplements with whey. More recently I’ve decided to just eating ‘natural’ food but I will cease the supplements immediately if this is the case.
I have worked out regularly since I was sixteen. I’m 35 now and my balding is exactly in line with my father’s, who never worked out a day in his life. We both started balding in late twenties, but at 35 we still only showed recession at our templates. Looking at pictures of him at my age, the recession looks identical. Otherwise, we’ve always had thick hair.
I fully expect to be bald by my early forties, since by that age he had accelerated hair loss. I’ve been hoping for a cure up to this point, but I feel I’ll just have to shave my head in the next 3-4 years.
Point is, I have been a body builder for 19 years (taking whey regularly, but never steroids or any other supplements besides a multivitamin), where my dad never set foot in a gym, and yet, we both have identical hair loss patterns that started at the same age.
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