Hair Loss Chat

Hair Loss Chat is Restarting

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In 2014, I created a hair loss chat for this site (see bottom of this post). However, the free plugin that I used was not that great. Moreover, after a while, I lost patience in dealing with excessive spam and trying to commit myself to be present regularly.

Hair Loss Chat Screenshot
New Hair Loss Chat — Recent Screenshot.

New Hair Loss Chat

Recently, one of this blog’s readers encouraged me to create a hair loss chat on Discord. After a day of hesitation, I started the chat last week. So far, it has been going great with no spam. I initially only invited people who emailed me useful intelligent information at least a few times over the years.

I now want to invite other serious people so that we can get at least 50-100 regular participants. If you are interested in joining, please post a comment in this post under your existing username and hopefully legitimate email address. Thereafter, email me using the same email address and let me know your blog username and why you want to join the chat. If you do not post comments on here but have a solid posting history on any of the hair loss forums out there, let me know too for verification purposes. If all seems ok and I feel like you will not spam the chat, I will send you an invite link. My e-mail can be found in the contact us page. Make sure to check your spam folder for my reply in case it goes there.

Initial preference will be given to those who have made mostly useful comments on this blog in the past. These do not have to be scientific comments. As long as you have been courteous, I am okay with your participating in the new chat.

For the most part, this chat will help people looking to compare their existing hair loss treatment regimens with others and make improvements. I would not recommend joining the chat just to always vent. Nor just to always complain about delays in future hair cloning and hair multiplication prospects and trials. Some venting and complaining will be acceptable.

The moderation in the hair loss chat will be extremely strict. If anyone posts dozens of emotional comments in a day with nothing useful to say, they may get banned. It is unfair to have intelligent comments move out of the screen view due to one person posting lots of garbage daily and monopolizing the chat window.

If anyone looks like they are there as a hair transplant surgeon representative or are primarily there to promote specific products, they will be banned. If anyone keeps repeating that there will never be a hair loss cure, they will likely get banned. Any excessive cursing or insulting of other chat participants (or even doctors and surgeons) will be grounds for being booted. Any excessive political or religious discussions will also be frowned upon.

Of course 100 percent scientific discussions can get dull and dissuade those who are not interested in chemistry and biology. So I will give some leeway for off-topic comments. At least in the general chat section/channel.

In all likelihood, if we reach over 50 participants, I will hand over moderating duties to a regular chat participant. I will rarely have more than a few hours a week of time to devote to the chat.

Channels

In chats on Discord, you can break things into channels to separate key subjects of interest. Among the hair loss related subjects that most interest me at present include:

Please do not be disappointed if you are not invited immediately. I want to be selective initially and see how it goes. I do not want to waste my time again by accepting spammers, trolls and overly negative people.

October 31, 2014 — Hair Loss Chat

I recently installed chat functionality on this site. See hair loss chat for more details. I initially allowed anyone to post, but due to spam, you now have to register. If popular, I might pay to get a better chat on the site in the future. The current one is based on a free plug-in.

Also, if people are keen, I can arrange a once a week fixed chat time when many people show up at the same time. I cannot promise to be there each time. Please post recommendations on the time and day when you prefer to chat under the comments to this post. Try to post Eastern US time preferences to keep things easy for me.  I am located in the Pacific US time zone.

Dickkopf 1, DKK-1

DKK-1 Inhibition and Hair Growth

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Past hair loss research has concluded that Dickkopf 1 (DKK-1) inhibition promotes scalp hair growth. Dickkopf-related protein 1 is encoded by the DKK1 gene. The latter is the most up-regulated gene in androgenetic alopecia,

DKK-1 Hair Loss
DKK-1 and hair loss. Source: JID.

A South Korean team of researchers has written a number of papers for more than a decade on the connection between DKK-1 and hair loss. Their well known 2008 findings concluded that DHT-inducible DKK-1 is involved in DHT-driven balding. Their 2012 paper was titled Dickkopf 1 promotes regression of hair follicles.

More recently, a 2016 paper from Egypt found that levels of DKK-1 were higher than normal in humans with both androgenetic alopecia (AGA) and alopecia areata (AA) types of hair loss. It was also higher in AGA cases versus AA cases. DKK-1 was higher in males with AGA compared to females with AGA. Another 2019 paper from Egypt also reached similar conclusions.

A famous 2013 study from University of Pennsylvania found that by disrupting Wnt signaling in an animal model using the DKK-1 inhibitor, hair growth was prevented. However, stem cells were still maintained within the dormant hair follicles. When DKK-1 was subsequently removed, the Wnt/β-catenin pathway resumed normal function. i.e., stem cells reactivated and hair growth was restored. More here.

Interestingly, three of the co-authors of the above paper are also listed as co-inventors on a patent related to using DKK1 to reduce body hair growth.

New DKK-1 Hair Growth Patent

The reason I decided to write this post is due to a new DKK-1 related patent that was recently granted to a South Korean company called Bioneer (h/t reader “Andre”). On Bioneer’s website, I do not currently see anything related to hair loss products or research.

The patent has many pages with a lot of great information. My favorite sentence (with slight grammar modification) regarding the invention:

“A double-stranded oligonucleotide construct or the nanoparticle as an active ingredient according to the present invention. It highly efficiently suppresses the expression of DKK1, without side effects. And it is remarkably effective for preventing hair loss and promoting hair growth.”

DKK-1 Inhibition

There is significant interest in the treatment of hair loss via countering or inhibiting DKK-1. Studies have looked at existing natural (e.g., ginseng extract) and synthetic products.

Which brings me to my past post on creating the ultimate hair loss drug cocktail. The reader who sent me the lengthy and detailed spreadsheet that I pasted in that post had the following suggestions for inhibiting DKK-1:

  • Tianeptine.
  • L-Threonate.
  • Vitamin D3.

I have not done much research on this subject, so perhaps the knowledgeable readers can verify if the above makes sense.

Further Research

Forum threads such as this one on BTT also have many suggestions that I have not explored in any detail. As readers comment on this post, I will add more details about specific recommendations.

Interestingly, Dr. Cole’s Wnt Spray product on Amazon claims to reduce DKK1 activity by 21%.

Hair loss cure news blog. Hair cloning and multiplication for baldness. The latest news in hair regeneration treatments for androgenetic alopecia.