Is Inhibiting 5AR Type 1 Important to Treating Hair Loss?

dr.Rassman/Pak

is inhibiting type 1 alpha 5 reductase also important in combating hairloss?

Studies have shown only type 2 is the cause of hairloss, as the peusohermaphrodites had normal levels of type 1 and still had to hairloss or prostate problems. whats your thought on type 1 as well?

people say dutasteride block more DHT, and in my opinon thats becuase of its ability to block type 1 as well.

finasteride 5mg blocks about 70% of DHT. Dutasteride 0.5 mg blocks about 90% DHT. Merck did have an experimental drug called mk386 that inhibited type 1 as well. In the clinical trials in produced no benefits to hairloss. The only reason dutasteride block 90% at 0.5 mg is because of the type 1 inhibition as well. if dutasteride does not inhibit type 1 then it would block DHT just like finasteride.

You state the science as I also understand it. The value of dutasteride seems to be a more complete block of DHT than finasteride and that is probably why we see better response in some people who are resistant to finasteride.

The MK-386 study I remember was from the mid-1990s on macaques, and while it did lower serum DHT, it didn’t have much of an effect on hair weights. I found another study from 1997 involving MK-386 on humans, which concluded that: “The current findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an inhibitor of 5αR1 may benefit conditions associated with excess skin androgen activity, such as acne, androgenetic alopecia, and hirsutism.”

I don’t know if anything was published about MK-386 beyond that, but I’m hopeful that some readers out there can point us in the right direction if they’re familiar with more studies done.