Why Doesn’t Castration Regrow Lost Hair, But Propecia Does?

doctor Rassman/Pak I have a question.

I read that there are castrated men, who stop losing hair once they get castrated. There are castrated men who had mild thinning before castration(just like the some of the people who have mild thinning before taking propecia), and they never regrow some of the lost hair once they get castrated. all it does it just stop further balding.

But how come some of the people who take propecia regerow some of the lost hair. I have seen alot of before and after pictures from hair transplant websites and even the propecia trials showing what propecia can do, and alot of people regrew hair on propecia. since castration is 100 times better than propecia, why don’t castrated reverse the thinning like people on finasteride do?

Basically, castration stops further hair loss because the castrated man can’t make testosterone and therefore can’t make the DHT that his body normally produces. Propecia may slow or stop the hair loss in many cases, but there is still production of DHT by the metabolism of testosterone, as it is only about 70% effective at stopping DHT production. It is the testosterone production which takes its toll on men who still have testicles.

We have no experience with castration in men who are in the balding process, but I would suspect that if the hair had not died out, that castration would produce more hair regrowth than finasteride or dutasteride, because since these two drugs are not 100% effective at blocking DHT, castration would produce no significant systemic DHT and be close to 100% effective. That being said, I don’t know of any cases where castration caused regrowth of hair.

With that said, we know that some testosterone is produced in other parts of the body (e.g. adrenal glands), but probably not enough to produce hair loss. So yes, castration is more effective than Propecia, but I would not choose to have my testicles cut off to prevent balding The sexual side effects are very predictable with castration and I don’t know any men that want to give up sex for life.