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CONSUMER EDUCATION

EMERGING MODEL FOR PATTERN BALDING
BY DR. PROCTOR

Hormones do something to hair follicle which causes it to be read as "foreign body" by your immune system, which then mounts an attack. The main damage in balding is probably immunologically-mediated. Damage to lining of blood vessels, which produces hair growth-stimulatory factors, makes this worse.

•Hormonal factors:

Castration, lack of DHT-receptors/enzymes (testicular feminization) , feminine status block the progression of balding . However,women and castrated males have other sources of androgens and can still experience pattern loss. Also, androgen action may be related to generation of active oxygen species, as detailed here.


•Immunological factors:

Microscopically, balding looks like organ rejection. Cells of your immune system clustor round the follicle base. Further, immune system cells normally cluster around the hair follicle.They may have a role in the normal hair cycle.

Organ rejection drugs ( e.g., cyclosporin ) reverse balding better than antiandrogens. This gives a rough indication of the relative importance of hormonal verses immunological factors in maintaining the balding state. Conversely, cyclosporin and similar agents may also have a "phenytoin-like" action on follicles, separate from their immunosuppressive properties.

Antibodies to hair follicles are also present in blood.

•Blood Vessel Lining evidence

Minoxidil, other agents apparently imitate hair growth factors ( nitric oxide radical, etc. ) produced by vessel lining. In diseases involving damage to vessel lining (e.g., atherosclerosis) production of these factors decreases. Such diseases are associated epidemiologically with severe balding. Also, decreases in circulation reported in balding scalp may reflect local damage to vessel linings. Alternately, some deficit in both the blood vessel and the hair follicle produces coincidental deterioration in both organs. Again, a good candidate is the nitric oxide/superoxide system.

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