I’m not sure I totally agree with you there, cal. Where has this been proven?
It may have been demonstrated in female-to-male transsexuals, who never underwent that “onslaught” of androgens in puberty, but who then receive androgens later on as adults when they decide to change their sex. Maybe if MPB has a high concordance in their families, even if they receive androgen therapy, they still never lose their hair. That would prove what you said.
That’s about the only scenario I can think of that would prove your statement that “follicles that aren’t subjected to the androgen onslaught during puberty never go bald even if exposed to androgens later”. What other follicles (apart from a transsexual’s) could prove this statement?
Beard hair? No. Body hair? No. ALL follicles in the body are subjected to the same androgen onslaught – they just respond in different ways depending on the genetic coding specific to their location. Females? You’re proving the obvious there, but even they aren’t subject to a big onslaught of androgens at puberty, but CAN still suffer from dramatic hairloss.
Person-to-person HT hasn’t really been done, or tested in this way.
Eunuchs (castrated men) wouldn’t prove it because if they were castrated after puberty, their follicles would have been subjected to the “androgen onslaught”, so you’re not trying to prove or disprove the same premise. They don’t grow new follicles after puberty, so we’ll never know. If they were castrated before puberty, sure, it proves that lack of androgens leads to a low incidence of baldness, but we also know that from women. And they’re not “exposed to androgens later”, so it doesn’t fit your point. Your point is not about androgens versus lack of androgens (all normal males undergo an androgen onslaught at puberty and those who aren’t predisposed to MPB can’t prove your point); it’s about the TIMING of follicles’ androgen exposure.
Your premise hasn’t been tested with neogenesis yet, because follicular neogenesis is brand new and hasn’t been tested in the way you say.
So, I would say, what you say hasn’t really been proven UNLESS there are studies of female-to-male transsexuals. I don’t know how else we could prove what you say and apply that directly to neogenesis, something which is as yet unknown.
As for older men who definitely were subjected to an androgen onslaught in puberty, we know that MANY don’t lose hair in their youth, but can start losing their hair much later on. MPB can begin in the mid or late 30s, or the 40s, or even in the 50s for many men. Although ususally, the later the onset, the better is the prognosis. But we know that it can wait many years, even decades, after puberty, to begin.
Hell, mine didn’t start until I was about 25-26, progressing very slowly until I was about 30.