Reversal of male-pattern baldness, hypertrichosis, and accelerated hair and nail

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
1

they mention some nasty side effects. but here’s something that cought my eye:

The density of new hair growth on the scalp was equal to that on the areas of his scal that were not subject to balding

they also mention that this was on areas that were completely bald.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1498062&pageindex=1

2

That’s interesting.

But the concept is nothing new.

It’s already known that heavily suppressing your immune system with Cyclosporine or something will cause absolutely unheard-of amounts of hair regrowth. The hair seems to basically ignore the DHT damage entirely and start to regrow in the ideal way we all wish it would.

But unfortunately the effect is only there as long as the immune system is suppressed. As soon as the drugs are stopped, the hairs get eaten away right back to their original balded condition again. I think even doing the full-boogie Fin/Dut and everything will not save the freshly-regrown hairs.

It all reinforces the idea that the DHT damage is clearly putting a permanent “signal” of some sort onto the follicles. Once the signal has been put onto a follicle telling the immune system to do X-amount of damage to it, the immune system is gonna keep the follicle that miniaturized no matter how much we reduce the androgens or receptors.

In layman’s terms, it’s another strong indication that MPB cannot be reversed with any amount of our hormone suppression or growth booster drugs. Once done, the current drugs can only slow or halt the damage from accumulating further. There’s no known reverse gear on that androgen-caused miniaturization signal.

Man, I just hope Folica’s deal works.

3

» That’s interesting.
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» It all reinforces the idea that the DHT damage is clearly putting a
» permanent “signal” of some sort onto the follicles. Once the signal has
» been put onto a follicle telling the immune system to do X-amount of damage
» to it, the immune system is gonna keep the follicle that miniaturized no
» matter how much we reduce the androgens or receptors. THe hairs lose a molecule called CD200 or some such at the base of the follicle that tell the immune system not to attack them over time in MPB…
» »

If someone could regrow alot of hair with cyclosporin and then get on finas plus something like RU58841, they might stand a shot of keeping the regrown hair for a long time…it would be interesting to see that tried.

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I find it very strange that even though immunosuppresants are known to cause hair regrowth, this hasn’t been looked into very much i.e. what benji said, regrow hair using Topical immunosuppresant and then get on DHT inhibitor to save the hair.

Btw, is there any study that specifically mentions hair regrowth on immunosuppresant and hairloss again after stopping it?

Also studies like these sort of kill the theories about fibrosis/follicle death etc.

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» It’s already known that heavily suppressing your immune system with
» Cyclosporine or something will cause absolutely unheard-of amounts of hair
» regrowth.

This is simply not true. This is a myth propogated by Spencer Kobren. Cyclosporine does NOT regrow any hair in the vast majority of patients who use it following solid organ transplants. I used Neoral topically in 2001 for about three months. It did NADA for me. I paid over $500 for it.

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Perhaps I’m incorrect about Cyclosporine.

But I know I’ve read more than once that immune system suppression regrows lots of hair, and Cyclosporine is an immune system crusher.

I would expect the necessary amount of suppression to be pretty drastic for a live human, though. It probably doesn’t take the normal human immune system very much effort just to fight the hair follicles. I suspect even a weakened immune system would probably still be able to hold them down and miniaturized. We might be talking about inducing an AIDS-patient kind of immune system to really get your Elvis locks regrowing again.

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topical cyclosporin wasn’t very effective…only grew hair about 20 percent of the time.

For immunosuppressants to be effective, they need to be internal because of how the immune system works. The immune system is a body-wide phenomenon with travelling cells that constantly look for foreign bodies to mark, while others go back and “tell” other immuno cells to come attack, etc. It simply can’t be just suppressed topically and be really effective.

According to Peter Proctor (look at his site), cyclosporin regrows more hair than any anti-androgen when used internally.

Here is what is on Proctor’s site about cyclosporin:

Emerging Model for Pattern Balding (after Kligman, others )
Balding begins when male sex hormones do "something " to the scalp hair follicle which causes it to be read as a “foreign body”. Your immune system then mounts an attack on the hair folllicle. The main damage in pattern hair loss is probably immunologically-mediated. Damage to lining of blood vessels, which produces hair growth factors, makes the balding process worse.

Hormonal factors:
Castration, lack of DHT-receptors/enzymes (testicular feminization) , feminine status block the progression of balding and hair loss. However, women and castrated males have other sources of androgens and can still experience pattern loss.

Immunological factors:
Microscopically, balding looks like organ rejection. That is, increased number of immune system cells clustor round the base of the scalp hair follicle. Interestingly, lessor numbers of immune system cells normally cluster around the hair follicle. These 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 which induces hair regrowth, separate from their immunosuppressive properties. Antibodies to hair follicles are also present in blood in some cases of pattern hair loss

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Benoxaprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. It was marketed by Eli Lilly and Company under the brand name Oraflex. Lilly suspended sales of Oraflex in 1982 after reports from the British government and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of adverse effects and deaths linked to the drug.

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» 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 which induces hair regrowth, separate from their
» immunosuppressive properties.

Neosil’s product inhibited NF-kB, which plays a role in inflammation if I remember, and stimulated hair growth after a short duration (according to their press release, although who knows how well). Is it just that cyclosporin and similar agents act on a particular pathway and they are just not as effective at suppressing/stimulating, and thus the lack of effectiveness and consistency? Would be nice if there was research into this. Theoretically could a wide spectrum of specific immuno-suppressants be an effective treatment? Any thoughts Benji?

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» I would expect the necessary amount of suppression to be pretty drastic
» for a live human, though.

I think that you are correct, Cal. I believe that you would have to take some serious doses of this stuff to have any observable effect on hair growth. You hear about occasional cases where cyclo patients received significant regrowth, but those are few and far between. Levels of cyclo necessary to result in regrowth might have some pretty serious adverse effects. Not to mention that it costs about $12,000 per year, or more, to take therapeutic doses.