I don’t know if you would have any insider information, but i figured this would be about the best place to direct my question:

Since the inception of companies like Follica and Intercytex, they’ve been remarkably silent about any progress they’ve made or are making. why do you think this is? Even attempts at
contacting them have been generally futile. Do you think it was alot of fluff when it comes to what these companies were purporting to do? just wanted your opinion?

I have no particular information on this, but silence usually means that they have nothing new to report.

I want to thank the person who wrote the material below. Good insights!

Reading all these studies about in vitro tests,I think a few things need to be made clear. Yes, the bottom line is that our body is not like a test tube or a petri dish,there are over a
billion processes going on in our amazing bodies.

In vitro results,although very attractive,do little to help in finding cures. To put forth an example, cancer has over 800 cures- all successful only in the lab. There is no sure-fire cure to cancer yet, even though some of these in vitro cures have been known for decades. Stuff that kills cancer in vitro includes edibles like oranges, garlic, and even saffron.

Hair loss, just like cancer, has such test tube cures too. Coffee is one. There are others too, but they hold no value because science has not found a way to supply ingested coffee into our dying hair follicles. What science has found is that coffee would rescue our follicles if it were to reach it, and that’s it. It’s the same when we know that soldiers would kill Osama bin Laden-if only they knew where he was!

I read the post about a man trying to grow his hair back by applying caffeine powder to the bald spot. These in vitro studies can be very misleading, and often lucrative too-a balding man can do anything to grow his hair back. Herbal remedy makers know this and have ripped us off for the past 20 years with ‘promising’ and ‘guaranteed’ products. I know I have been led on in the past by such promising people,and have forked out money for their hollow services. But where are the results?

We need to be careful and need to be able to differentiate between proven results and in vitro theories. It is great that man knows what substances work against cancer cells and what substances help our hair follicles out. But the fight still remains a long one- the closest answer to hair loss treatment seems like stem cells right now; only if researchers don’t figure out a way to get coffee to our follicles first!

For the record, sunlight kills the AIDS virus-now how we got that sunlight into an infected person’s system….Hmmm.

PS- I know it is not a pure hair loss post, but thought this might be interesting.

From the article:

Take Richard Lippa, a professor of psychology at California State University at Fullerton. His studies show that gay people are twice as likely to be left-handed. He also collects photos of hair whorls — those circular swirls you see atop a man’s head. He says about 10 percent of the general population have whorls that rotate counter-clockwise, but about 20 percent of gay men have counter-clockwise whorls.

Full text — Step by step, researcher looks for sexuality clues

This is almost a year old, but it got lost in the shuffle and was just rediscovered. Hair-whorls towards the backside of the head generally swirl either clockwise or counterclockwise. There is a connection between the direction of the swirl and the right or left handedness of an individual. It is interesting reading. Draw your own conclusions.

Today is the last day in our Pico Blvd office in Los Angeles. We’re moving to a beautiful and completely remodeled office space in a medical building in Century City (just a few blocks down the road). Starting April 28, 2008, our NHI Los Angeles office will be:

2080 Century Park East, Suite 607
Los Angeles, CA 90067

Our first Open House in the new office will be next Saturday, May 3rd from noon-2pm. If you’re able to attend, I welcome you to stop by to see the new place — and of course, to meet with patients, have a free consultation with myself or Dr. Pak, and to see a live hair transplant surgery.

Anyway, I’ll post some photos of our new place once things get settled. In the meantime, things have been busy with the move (anyone that has moved to a new home in the past can surely attest to that — and moving an office is just like moving a home, except with more computers and surgical equipment), but I’ll make a point to have the blog updated in the same frequency as you’ve come to expect!

I recently pulled out a few hairs at the front hairline and noticed some were thinner than others.I did the same at the back of my head where the hair meets the neck and found the same thing. Are there different thickness hairs all over your head or is this miniturization? I dont understand as i thought the hair that meets the neck could not be lost?? Is it normal to have some thinner hairs all the way round the head where the hairline starts??
Thanks for a great site, your help is much appreciated!

Generally, if there is no miniaturization (no balding) present, most hair on your scalp will have the same thickness except for:

1. the very front of the hairline
2. the nape of the neck
3. the temple prominences on the front-side of the scalp

Although this post isn’t hair loss related and it is about an article that is nearly 2 years old, this is an important read for those who buy into the antioxidant solution to anti-aging, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and the like. The question raised here is whether you can get these antioxidants from pills or do you have to get them from fresh fruits and vegetables?

Snippet from the article:

Cranberry capsules. Green tea extract. Effervescent vitamin C. Pomegranate concentrate. Beta carotene. Selenium. Grape seed extract. High-dose vitamin E. Pine bark extract. Bee spit.

You name it, if it’s an antioxidant, we’ll swallow it by the bucket-load. According to some estimates around half the adults in the US take antioxidant pills daily in the belief they promote good health and stave off disease. We have become antioxidant devotees. But are they doing us any good? Evidence gathered over the past few years shows that at best, antioxidant supplements do little or nothing to benefit our health. At worst, they may even have the opposite effect, promoting the very problems they are supposed to stamp out.

Full text at NewScientist — The antioxidant myth: a medical fairy tale