Jarjar, I never said that hair loss can’t be treated via topical treatment, I said that there will be no CURE for hair loss or MPB via a topical treatment.
Actually my reasons for this are several and part of it has to do with negative side-effects.
In addition to topicals being generally too weak to provide a real cure (meaning, restoration of full thickness on a largely bald or balding scalp), the corollary of this is that if a topical were to be found that was potent enough to actually restore full thickness, its physiological side-effects on the tissues and on the body would be prohibitive. To achieve such a profound cosmetic result on a mostly bald scalp, the compound would have to be such a powerful biochemical agent that it would certainly have serious negative side effects which would automatically disqualify it.
Drugs like hard-core Wnt manipulators and wide-spectrum, potent anti-androgens come to mind. The hard-core Wnt manipulators would cause cancer, and the ultra-potent anti-androgens would cause female secondary sex characteristics and impotence that any non-transgender male in his right mind would never accept. The side effects of both would disqualify them for FDA approval. The few starry-eyed crazies, or people who want their hair back so much they would seriously risk their health, who might want to use these products would have to get them on the black market.
So, with topicals, you’re left with a double-bind – a Catch-22. The vast majority are naturally too weak to be able to cure MPB, but the few that are biochemically potent enough to do so, will harm you so seriously that they immediately disqualify themselves.
And I am saying that their very characteristic of “biochemical potency” is also their downfall – automatic intolerable (and harmful) side effects. The one leads to the other, and the two qualities are inseparable.
Ergo, in my view, there may be topical treatments, but NO TOPICAL CURE.
That leaves a cell-based treatment for a cure, and fortunately this is clearly on the horizon, now.