Intelligent Balding Men Post Their Theories

In the little over two years since the inception of this blog, I have covered a few people (e.g., Liu Xuewu and Swisstemples) who have been promoting untested and controversial theories and regimens. The reason I have mentioned such people and their theories is because my intuition has told me that they were making some very salient points and deserved to be heard.

All these people have especially impressed me with their hard work and intelligent forum posts. I have generally not taken the time to fully understand all the details of what these people are saying (it would take me way too many hours to do so), although I have tried to understand the gist of their theories. On hair loss forums, these people’s threads often get forgotten as they move into lower pages.

Interesting Theories on Baldness

This week, we have two examples of new arrivals who deserve to be heard, and one example of someone from the past that I should have discussed a while back:

  • First, username “FGF11” posted his theory on hacking baldness by making around 30 (!) comments in here. He was willing to write a post about this for this blog, but I am reluctant to take up a guest post offer for now. Later on, Mr. FGF11 started this thread after joining the Bald Truth hair loss forums, and it has garnered significant feedback. Mr. FGF11 claims to have had his papers published in official journals, but he has many errors in his English and seems to be a fairly emotional and outburst prone person (not at all typical of most journal article authors). In any case, he seems very bright and hard working (even if I doubt his self-proclaimed authorship credentials) and therefore worth at least a quick read. At some point, I hope to get the time to read his posts in detail while googling all the acronyms and pathway interactions that I have forgotten or never heard of before. Even though I write a hair loss blog, there are 100s of hair loss forum members with more scientific/technical knowledge than myself.
  • Second, username “Chemical” despite joining the Bald Truth forums in May 2014, only made his first post on there about a week ago, And boy was it an interesting one. His thread is worth a browse as are all his later posts. He covers a wide array of topics that yet again I am not qualified enough to analyze in any detail for now. He is far less emotional than FGF11 and comes across as very professional. I should have probably posted this paragraph first.
  • Finally, while going through “Hellouser”‘s Hairlosstalk forum thread on his interview with Dr. Gail Naughton, I noticed a rare new post from veteran senior member Stephen Foote. I should have covered Mr. Foote in a separate post on this blog before, just as I have done with many other hair loss forum legends (e.g., search this blog for posts on Arfy, Bryan, Desmond, Ernie, Hellouser, Jotronic and Spex). I have read posts by Mr. Stephen Foote for years, and it is worth your time to join the Hairlosstalk forum and go through some of those posts after clicking on his username. He has a very unusual theory (hydraulic pressure) behind the process of hair loss and I am somewhat skeptical about it, but I do take him seriously as he has actually been published in journals and generally makes sense. Pubmed Links to his papers can be found here (from 1995) and here (from 2002). Mr. Foote and Bryan Shelton used to get at it on various forums and Bryan raised some good points arguing against Mr. Foote’s hydraulic theory. Run some google searches to find these debate threads.

Typically, there are at least 50 highly childish or amateurish posters for every 1 genius level poster on hair loss forums. I think that I am glad for both of these types. The former gives all hair loss sites more traffic and therefore makes us and our cause much more visible. The latter works to help solve our problem and expand our intellect.

Encouraging Update on Polichem’s P-3074

In my popular post from last year regarding topical finasteride, I discussed Polichem’s P-3074 product. P-3074 is “vehicled” in Hydroxypropyl-Chitosan (HPCH) per the latest announcements. Past references state that it uses hydroxypropyl-chitosan (HPCH) as the “film-forming agent”.

Polichem: P-3074 Topical Finasteride Update

At this year’s just completed World Congress for Hair Research in Miami, one of the presentations pertained to this very product. The key quote from the abstract book:

“A pharmacokinetic phase I study, tested P-3074 b.i.d. [=twice per day] vs oral finasteride 1 mg o.d. [=once per day], revealing a finasteride systemic exposure 15 times lower in the topical formulation. A pharmacodynamic study compared P-3074 b.i.d. and o.d. vs oral finasteride 1 mg o.d. in DHT inhibition in scalp (vertex) and in serum. The results showed comparable serum/scalp DHT inhibitions across formulations, suggesting that the achievement of comparable levels of DHT inhibition vs the oral form could be attained by a lower dose of P-3074.”

My note: Their older report from the 7th World Congress for Hair Research from two years ago stated that the P-3074 product is composed of 0.25% finasteride. So the twice per day dose equals 0.50% per day. This is apparently lower than 1 mg/day oral finasteride per the implication of the last sentence in the above paragraph.

My note: They also state in the most recent abstract that at lower doses of 200 mcL, scalp DHT reduction remains unchanged. However, serum DHT reduction was much lower, potentially even further limiting systemic absorption. So 200mcL< 0.50% < 1mg. Currently, P-3074 is in Phase III clinical trials in Europe.

I called my local compounding pharmacy a few months ago to inquire about them making topical finasteride for me. They told me that while they do make topical finasteride in gel form, they only get several such requests each year. Moreover, at around $100 per month, it is much more expensive than the cost of generic oral finasteride.

What I am really looking forward to is a topical dutasteride product with very low systemic absorption. The results from oral dutasteride are clearly superior to those from oral finasteride. Make sure to read the comments to my dutasteride (Avodart) for hair loss user experiences post.

Unfortunately, oral dutasteride also results in significantly higher rates of side effects. We really need a topical version of dutasteride asap. Perhaps this will only happen after dutasteride is officially approved to treat hair loss.

Addendum

Dr. Antonella Tosti is listed as a consultant to both Polichem and Kythera in the abstract I mentioned earlier.