So What Explains Why Balding Men Have More Body Hair

[Kenny]

So conventional wisdom suggests that DHT is the cause of all genetic hair loss and that DHT is what causes facial and body hair to grow.

Its pretty well documented that men with more body hair are more likely to go bald/are more often bald. What is also well documented is that males who are balding do not in fact have higher DHT than men who show no signs of balding.

I know personally that my body hair has gotten thicker and thicker - especially as my hairline has worsened.

This in itself suggests that DHT cannot be the cause of baldness right? Unless it can all be chalked down to being 'sensitivity'. I have heard somebody say something about sensitivity being the same for all follicles and that it was tested by I haven't been able to find the source- I'd appreciate it if somebody could link it to me.

Does this mean it is a problem with SHBG not binding to free DHT? That seems far too simple to me so I was hoping more enlightened members can fill me in.

 

[lvysaur]

"sensitivity" is just an out-of-the-know idea to describe differential rates of PGD2 enzyme conversion, 5 alpha reducing activity, and all the tons of things going on within the tissue of a hair follicle that mainstream medicine pretends doesn't exist.

DHT probably causes hair loss. Guevedoces wouldn't exist otherwise. But it causes hair loss the same way that water from a dam floods a town. The solution to a flood isn't to remove all water from the town--it's to remove the dam water--and further down the line, it's dealing with that pesky guy who keeps planting explosives at the dam.

DHT = water, finasteride = drought, estrogen = explosives

People who are balding likely have excess DHT in their follicles. They also have excess PGD2 synthase, and many other things going on within the follicle. There's no gene that controls each one of these things, they're all downstream effects from something else.

It has recently been demonstrated that estrogen stimulates the adrenal glands, independently of the pituitary's ACTH. This can increase the production of adrenal androgens, leading to hirsutism, and other male traits, including anabolic effects. --Raymond Peat

Menopause and its causes

 

[gately]

I personally think there's multiple reasons for hairloss and the "high DHT male" is just one cause. My friends who are the high DHT type (super hairy bodies, rough skin, very early balding in their teens, responded well to traditional DHT blocking hairless drugs): they all masturbated like 6 times a day through their teens and twenties, too. I suspect their hormonal imbalance caused their overly high sex drive, especially in puberty, and I think over-ejaculating to that degree will speed up hairloss considerably. So even amongst the "high DHT" type, I suspect there's probably other variables to consider that people aren't talking about.

I know other guys with mild gynecomastia, baby soft skin, very submissive personalities, normal to low libidos, who had incredibly stressful childhoods, can barely grow a chest hair: and they went bald really fast in their late teens / early twenties as well. Propecia, etc. did not work for them. No chance they had high DHT, nor was it the cause for them, imo.

What? You guys don't feel your friend's skin and periodically ask them how often they masturbate, for science? You're weird not me.

 

[Kenny]

"sensitivity" is just an out-of-the-know idea to describe differential rates of PGD2 enzyme conversion, 5 alpha reducing activity, and all the tons of things going on within the tissue of a hair follicle that mainstream medicine pretends doesn't exist.

DHT probably causes hair loss. Guevedoces wouldn't exist otherwise. But it causes hair loss the same way that water from a dam floods a town. The solution to a flood isn't to remove all water from the town--it's to remove the dam water--and further down the line, it's dealing with that pesky guy who keeps planting explosives at the dam.

DHT = water, finasteride = drought, estrogen = explosives

People who are balding likely have excess DHT in their follicles. They also have excess PGD2 synthase, and many other things going on within the follicle. There's no gene that controls each one of these things, they're all downstream effects from something else.

Menopause and its causes

Folks like Danny Roddy would have you believe that genes are not relevant when it comes to hair loss - their reasoning with regards to the human genome project being a failure is quite sound. So far, however, I have only seen one person manage to recover using Ray peat inspired lifestyle(with clear progress photos). Frankly it seems like what was the most critical to that guy Jared's recovery was mending a massive Vitamin D deficit. The whole estrogen causes it theory seems a little far fetched to me as well.

It would be nice if it were not heredity but that just doesn't seem like the reality.

 

[lvysaur]

Folks like Danny Roddy would have you believe that genes are not relevant when it comes to hair loss - their reasoning with regards to the human genome project being a failure is quite sound.
It would be nice if it were not heredity but that just doesn't seem like the reality.

It would be nice if it were not heredity but that just doesn't seem like the reality.

It seems a little like you're contradicting yourself here. You think the human genome project is a failure, but you also think that hereditary genetics are a determinant of baldness? Or I am interpreting wrong

I personally think that some men are destined to become bald. However, I think that baldness in the 20s, or even 30s, is premature and caused by environmental factors. I even see women in their 20s who have male-like temple recession and less hair on the crown than on the sides--this is obviously due to adrenal androgens, and that process will be even stronger in men. And it's a new process of the last 40 or so years.

 

[orewashin]

What? You guys don't feel your friend's skin and periodically ask them how often they masturbate, for science? You're weird not me.

Do you feel their skins and ask them that at the same time?

I don’t really notice if men are balding and don’t ask them about it. I don’t think it matters much.

 

[Kenny]

It seems a little like you're contradicting yourself here. You think the human genome project is a failure, but you also think that hereditary genetics are a determinant of baldness? Or I am interpreting wrong

I personally think that some men are destined to become bald. However, I think that baldness in the 20s, or even 30s, is premature and caused by environmental factors. I even see women in their 20s who have male-like temple recession and less hair on the crown than on the sides--this is obviously due to adrenal androgens, and that process will be even stronger in men. And it's a new process of the last 40 or so years.

I guess I mean to say I understand I see their reasoning, but its not enough to convince me - sorry about that I should have been more careful with my words.

I think you are probably right that environmental factors contribute a lot to premature balding like in my case. Personally in my life I have lacked a lot of sun and have eaten a pretty standard home cooked diet. I can't help but feel like fixing those things are rather minuscule compared to the greater changes that have taken place like hormones in the food, pollution, exposure to all the technology that surrounds us, etc.

 

[gately]

Do you feel their skins and ask them that at the same time?

I don’t really notice if men are balding and don’t ask them about it. I don’t think it matters much.

It puts the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the hose again.

 

[orewashin]

It puts the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the hose again.

If you induce all that simulation, the skin won’t be delicate anymore like in those submissive men. So lotion can indeed keep the hose from getting rough and hyperpigmented with age.

I wonder if the same thing can happen in women. Hairy women are said to be more libidinous, but the areas typically exposed to stimulation are on the inside, rather than the outside.

This is never discussed in the context of baldness, but: Do hirsute women bald? I’d imagine it’s more common in hirsute women, but hirsute women aren’t exactly common to begin with.

It’d shed some light on the real cause behind male pattern baldness. Some people think it’s skull expansion. Maybe the feminine, delicate men with soft skin bald mostly due to skull expansion and other men bald due to DHT.

It’s a controversial concept and probably not studied officially, to segregate the masculine brutes from the other men. Researchers don’t consider that balding could be multicausal and search for one magic pill.

 

[Hevel]

Due to constricted blood vessels the hair that you should be growing on your scalp is now growing on your arms and shoulders.

 

[Kenny]

Due to constricted blood vessels the hair that you should be growing on your scalp is now growing on your arms and shoulders.

broscience

 

[meatbag]

adrenal hormones; Adrenal gland - Wikipedia

 

[Fidelio]

Higher androgen receptor content due to their mothers having an imbalanced T:EHT ratio during pregnancy.

 

[Kenny]

Higher androgen receptor content due to their mothers having an imbalanced T:EHT ratio during pregnancy.

I'm quite fascinated by this - normally we are prone to thinking that younger women would produce healthier offspring and that in their later years there are greater chances for birth defects etc. On my google search it suggested that younger mothers are associated with having significantly higher test during pregnancy

 

[GorillaHead]

broscience

The way that has made sense to me and is very likely to be at play is this. First the skin is an organ that is capable of steroid genesis.

In most men the skin has certain expressed balances of hormones in different areas of the skin. For example I would imagine that the androgen to estrogen ration is slightly skewed on the androgen side.

While on your body its slightly skewed to the estrogen side zero body hair.

As estrogen rises in serum overtime the adrenal gland drives the skin to Produce androgens to compensate and this then pushes the scalp hair balance to far to the androgen side causing apoptosis and then the body hair is now shifted enough to started making Androgenic hair


Total broscience but based on some solid logical thinking

 

[Kenny]

The way that has made sense to me and is very likely to be at play is this. First the skin is an organ that is capable of steroid genesis.

In most men the skin has certain expressed balances of hormones in different areas of the skin. For example I would imagine that the androgen to estrogen ration is slightly skewed on the androgen side.

While on your body its slightly skewed to the estrogen side zero body hair.

As estrogen rises in serum overtime the adrenal gland drives the skin to Produce androgens to compensate and this then pushes the scalp hair balance to far to the androgen side causing apoptosis and then the body hair is now shifted enough to started making Androgenic hair


Total broscience but based on some solid logical thinking

To a layman like me the logic looks sound. It doesn't seem like information that we can actually use safely though.

 

[GelatinGoblin]

I personally think there's multiple reasons for hairloss and the "high DHT male" is just one cause. My friends who are the high DHT type (super hairy bodies, rough skin, very early balding in their teens, responded well to traditional DHT blocking hairless drugs): they all masturbated like 6 times a day through their teens and twenties, too. I suspect their hormonal imbalance caused their overly high sex drive, especially in puberty, and I think over-ejaculating to that degree will speed up hairloss considerably. So even amongst the "high DHT" type, I suspect there's probably other variables to consider that people aren't talking about.

I know other guys with mild gynecomastia, baby soft skin, very submissive personalities, normal to low libidos, who had incredibly stressful childhoods, can barely grow a chest hair: and they went bald really fast in their late teens / early twenties as well. Propecia, etc. did not work for them. No chance they had high DHT, nor was it the cause for them, imo.

What? You guys don't feel your friend's skin and periodically ask them how often they masturbate, for science? You're weird not me.

"It's for RPF."
"What?"
"It's for a site called Ray Peat Forums."
"Why would you publish this kind of information on some forum?"
"BECAUSE TRADITIONALLY A HOROMONE CALLED DIHYDROTESTOSTERONE IS TO BLAME FOR THE MALE BALDING PHENOMENA AND THIS HORMONE ALSO MAKES PEOPLE MASCULINE AND INCREASES LIBIDO SO SEEING AS YOU ARE HAIRY AND ROUGH LOOKING I ASSUME YOU ARE VERY MASCULINE AND THUS PRODUCE OR PRODUCED A LOT OF DIHYDROTESTOSTERONE AND THUS MASTURBATED VERY OFTEN AS YOU TOLD ME A LONG TIME AGO IN THE HIGHSCHOOL LOCKER ROOM WHERE I ALSO NOTICED YOUR RECEDING HAIRLINE, SO PERHAPS THIS EXCESSIVE MASTURBATION CAUSED NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES OR HORMONAL SLASH METABOLIC IMBALANCES CAUSING MALE BALDING AND THE PEOPLE OF RPF NEED TO KNOW ALSO I FEEL SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN US LOOK AWAY PLEASE"

 

[rei]

Increased fascial tension increases DHT production as a protective method. This increases hair production and makes it thicker/more coarse. Only the area with critical fascial tension proceeds to become fibrotic, calcified, and unable to sustain hairs.

 

[gately]

"It's for RPF."
"What?"
"It's for a site called Ray Peat Forums."
"Why would you publish this kind of information on some forum?"
"BECAUSE TRADITIONALLY A HOROMONE CALLED DIHYDROTESTOSTERONE IS TO BLAME FOR THE MALE BALDING PHENOMENA AND THIS HORMONE ALSO MAKES PEOPLE MASCULINE AND INCREASES LIBIDO SO SEEING AS YOU ARE HAIRY AND ROUGH LOOKING I ASSUME YOU ARE VERY MASCULINE AND THUS PRODUCE OR PRODUCED A LOT OF DIHYDROTESTOSTERONE AND THUS MASTURBATED VERY OFTEN AS YOU TOLD ME A LONG TIME AGO IN THE HIGHSCHOOL LOCKER ROOM WHERE I ALSO NOTICED YOUR RECEDING HAIRLINE, SO PERHAPS THIS EXCESSIVE MASTURBATION CAUSED NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES OR HORMONAL SLASH METABOLIC IMBALANCES CAUSING MALE BALDING AND THE PEOPLE OF RPF NEED TO KNOW ALSO I FEEL SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN US LOOK AWAY PLEASE"

This guy gets it.

 

[SonOfEurope]

I'm 29, moderately hairy (Chest, legs and forearms) decent beard, typical of a Man of Southwestern European Ancestry (Spanish and French)

I always had excellent hair(that even women compliment with their usual "What shampoo do you use" ... ) I was shedding a bit at 25 during a stressful time in life , after 2 years of progesterone and a fixed thyroid/metabolism it's been corrected and my hair is incredibly dense and strong... I'm growing it long again, all while my body hair is still increasing as I mature further.

Winter takes a slight toll on growth rate, thyroid supplementation makes up for it.