13 ms·

Do hair transplants debunk the scalp tension-hair loss hypothesis? (2021)

62 points by rzk 4y ago

stall84 4y ago
I need more news on things like this .. (help..)
- aszantu 4y ago
  there was something about mice growing their hair back with something, https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/in-surprise-finding-bald-mice-find-their-fur-again/ https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/1... also some facebook groups with keto and zero carb report that they're less stressed when eating that way. Some also reported that they lost all their hair first, but then it came back healthier and stronger over the course of 1-2 years.
  - aszantu 4y ago
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016377 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    It‘s a running gag in the hair loss community, that even pissing on mice probably makes their hair grow. Most "x causes hair growth" studies are worthless and lead to nothing.
- mancerayder 4y ago
  Like a Haircker News? That would be great.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  r/tressless theres some on r/moreplatesmoredates but thats more pharma oriented
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    Tressless is a very unhealthy place full of clueless beginners and the mentally ill. I don‘t recommend consuming it.
    - collegeburner 4y ago
      theres a lotta bullshit but also theres some interesting studies that get posted sometimes. like any other place it aint all good but kinda a good meta feed. probs not the best place to start tho ig
seibelj 4y ago
- nafix 4y ago
  Sure, but what if you have a good personality, fit body, stable career, _and_ good hair. I don’t think it’s particularly shallow to do a hair transplant.
  - apurtbapurt 4y ago
    Of course it is shallow. But it can be OK anyway. A bit of vanity is present in most of us. You don't need to fight it, it is fine to embrace vanity as a hobby or profession. If the baldness goes beyond being a minor nag in your vanity though, and you start believing that regrowing your hair is truly essential to your happiness and wellbeing, you should perhaps seek professional help for your mind rather than your scalp.
    - scrollaway 4y ago
      Define shallow? Is it shallow to get a haircut? To keep a well trimmed beard? To wear clothes without holes in them?
      - klipt 4y ago
        A lot of people draw the line at plastic surgery, which I guess hair transplants count as?
- freetime2 4y ago
  I think it’s possible to be all of those things, and to be in a healthy relationship, and still want to prevent/fix baldness.
  - seibelj 4y ago
    Sure but it’s healthier to try and accept things you can’t control. I think a lot of people who obsess over losing their hair see it as a reason their life isn’t going the way they want. You would do yourself a favor by accepting reality and moving on in healthier and more productive ways. You can control being a fat slob. You can’t control being bald in the vast majority of cases.
aschearer 4y ago
This is the sort of news that keeps me coming back to Hacker News...
- moffkalast 4y ago
  What, it's not the 27547th blog post about Rust being good at something?
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    Or a post that's about the cloud, and the follow up "You Don't Need The Cloud" post?
  - aschearer 4y ago
    I wish we were discusssing programming languages or technical problem solving! This is sub-Facebook level.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Discovering how organs work is sub-facebook?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
NonNefarious 4y ago
What is "tension hair?"
- mkl 4y ago
  Parse it like this: (scalp tension)-(hair loss). It's a hyphenated term but the two things being connected each have a space in the middle.
  - syspec 4y ago
    What's scalp tension
Narretz 4y ago
This article and website is very interesting. As far as laid out here, the DHT theory of hair loss doesn't actually say why DHT is overexpressed, it usually is explained with "genetics". If the scalp-tension theory is fundamental for hair loss, it might just be a level deeper: many men (and women) have a genetic disposition for scalp tension. But apparently this is something you can combat manually to a degree.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  i mean understanding the endocrine system is hard. theres a lot of reasons why diff ppl got diff levels of hormones. so everybody's like "genetics" but really it can also be lifestyle factors (diet sleep exercise alcohol whatever) with also genetics. btw antiandrogens also are good evidence against tension theory, they can legit restore some hair in places where it was lost, see ru58841.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    I take finasteride, have been for two years. I now have a very full beard, and I've never had hair on my chest before, despite being almost thirty. Only on 1mg per day. No sides.
- kaskakokos 4y ago
  The model explains DHT in the scalp. It is something like: Scalp tension>inflammation>DHT accumulation in scalp. I learned reading Rob work that you can find DHT accumulation in any inflamationn you have in your body (I.e. you receive a blow in the arm), and it includes scalp inflammation as well.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  DHT can‘t be "overexpressed", what you mean are the 5AR enzymes that convert Testosterone to DHT, their creation can theoretically be overexpressed, so can be the amount of androgen receptors. But androgenetic alopecia is less about abnormally high amounts of DHT and more about the hair follicles sensitivity to it and/or dysfunctional repairing/compensation mechanisms. Practically it makes no difference though: Nuke 5ar = keep the hair. If it‘s scalp tension, why doesn‘t it impact transplanted hair and why do fin and dut work wonders? It‘s a crackpot theory that doesn‘t need debunking.
drpgq 4y ago
Would Elon Musk have been as successful without a hair transplant?
- shawnz 4y ago
  well, Jeff Bezos didn't seem to need one
  - nickkell 4y ago
    Imagine what he could have done with a full head of hair.
  - meremortals 4y ago
    Or Marc Andreessen
- klyrs 4y ago
  Would Dwayne Johnson be half as appealing with a shaggy head?
- nichos 4y ago
  Isn't this just another step in evolution?
- chunkyguy 4y ago
  Whatever that boosts your confidence.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwaway378037 4y ago
It is a marketing website for a paid coaching/membership program
mauvehaus 4y ago
Shave your head and grow a goatee? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD-E2B5GfI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD-E2B5GfI8
bjourne 4y ago
Rob English is an interesting character. On one hand, he has a head full of hair, a sexier smile than Tom Cruise, and a membership website offering subscription-based anti-hairloss treatments. I.e all the traits of a snake oil salesman. On the other hand, he has published in peer-reviewed journals, his summaries of the science seem legit, and, despite their best efforts, none of his detractors have been able to convincingly debunk him. I really don't know what to think... If massaging your scalp is all it takes to keep your hair, sign me up.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Over the years I've heard people swear that microneedling helps regrow hair. If scalp tension really is a cause (doubt it is the only cause), perhaps the punctures created by microneedling alleviate the tension. For those who are losing hair due to other causes, microneedling wouldn't help and would lead those researching microneedling to get inconclusive results on effectiveness as the root cause wasn't accounted for.
stubybubs 4y ago
Meh. Scalp advancement works pretty well. That is removing a strip of skin on the forehead and then pulling the rest down. It's adding a massive amount of tension in a very short period of time. If this resulted in more hair loss, nobody would be doing this procedure. More evidence in favor of androgens being the cause is the ridiculous recovery that some transgender women experience in hair regrowth after starting HRT. Sometimes it's slick bald to nearly a full head of hair. There was also a guy who isn't trans on some hair loss forum who decided to take the strongest antiandrogens he could order plus some estrogen and had incredible regrowth. Utimately it's probably multifactorial. Minoxidil helps, and that seems to be more about blood flow than androgens, though it's not totally clear why it works.
- rantallion 4y ago
  > Minoxidil helps, and that seems to be more about blood flow than androgens, though it's not totally clear why it works. Isn't one of the causes of hair loss a build-up of dihydrotestosterone in the scalp? Improving blood flow possibly allows for more to be carried away instead of deposited.
  - stubybubs 4y ago
    Could be part of it. Minoxdil is just one kind of vasodilator. There hasn't been regrowth noticed with other classes like ACE inhibitors. And in general cardio training hasn't been shown to improve hair loss. Minoxidil might induce vascular endothelial growth factor as well. Maybe you need both? It also seems to work much better in combination with finasteride or dutasteride. All medicine is a little human experimentation. We don't even understand the complete mechanism of action of acetaminophen and that drug has been around for over 130 years. Generally if something works, we're happy.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Minoxidils modes of action are actually incredibly multifaceted. It‘s not limited at all to messing with the blood flow. The wikipedia article enumerates all the different things it does and how they could relate to hair growth.

62 points by rzk 4y ago

stall84 4y ago

I need more news on things like this .. (help..)

aszantu 4y ago
there was something about mice growing their hair back with something, https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/in-surprise-finding-bald-mice-find-their-fur-again/ https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/1... also some facebook groups with keto and zero carb report that they're less stressed when eating that way. Some also reported that they lost all their hair first, but then it came back healthier and stronger over the course of 1-2 years.
- aszantu 4y ago
  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016377 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  It‘s a running gag in the hair loss community, that even pissing on mice probably makes their hair grow. Most "x causes hair growth" studies are worthless and lead to nothing.
mancerayder 4y ago
Like a Haircker News? That would be great.
collegeburner 4y ago
r/tressless theres some on r/moreplatesmoredates but thats more pharma oriented
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Tressless is a very unhealthy place full of clueless beginners and the mentally ill. I don‘t recommend consuming it.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    theres a lotta bullshit but also theres some interesting studies that get posted sometimes. like any other place it aint all good but kinda a good meta feed. probs not the best place to start tho ig

seibelj 4y ago

nafix 4y ago
Sure, but what if you have a good personality, fit body, stable career, _and_ good hair. I don’t think it’s particularly shallow to do a hair transplant.
- apurtbapurt 4y ago
  Of course it is shallow. But it can be OK anyway. A bit of vanity is present in most of us. You don't need to fight it, it is fine to embrace vanity as a hobby or profession. If the baldness goes beyond being a minor nag in your vanity though, and you start believing that regrowing your hair is truly essential to your happiness and wellbeing, you should perhaps seek professional help for your mind rather than your scalp.
  - scrollaway 4y ago
    Define shallow? Is it shallow to get a haircut? To keep a well trimmed beard? To wear clothes without holes in them?
    - klipt 4y ago
      A lot of people draw the line at plastic surgery, which I guess hair transplants count as?
freetime2 4y ago
I think it’s possible to be all of those things, and to be in a healthy relationship, and still want to prevent/fix baldness.
- seibelj 4y ago
  Sure but it’s healthier to try and accept things you can’t control. I think a lot of people who obsess over losing their hair see it as a reason their life isn’t going the way they want. You would do yourself a favor by accepting reality and moving on in healthier and more productive ways. You can control being a fat slob. You can’t control being bald in the vast majority of cases.

aschearer 4y ago

This is the sort of news that keeps me coming back to Hacker News...

moffkalast 4y ago
What, it's not the 27547th blog post about Rust being good at something?
- fartcannon 4y ago
  Or a post that's about the cloud, and the follow up "You Don't Need The Cloud" post?
- aschearer 4y ago
  I wish we were discusssing programming languages or technical problem solving! This is sub-Facebook level.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Discovering how organs work is sub-facebook?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

NonNefarious 4y ago

What is "tension hair?"

mkl 4y ago
Parse it like this: (scalp tension)-(hair loss). It's a hyphenated term but the two things being connected each have a space in the middle.
- syspec 4y ago
  What's scalp tension

Narretz 4y ago

This article and website is very interesting. As far as laid out here, the DHT theory of hair loss doesn't actually say why DHT is overexpressed, it usually is explained with "genetics". If the scalp-tension theory is fundamental for hair loss, it might just be a level deeper: many men (and women) have a genetic disposition for scalp tension. But apparently this is something you can combat manually to a degree.

collegeburner 4y ago
i mean understanding the endocrine system is hard. theres a lot of reasons why diff ppl got diff levels of hormones. so everybody's like "genetics" but really it can also be lifestyle factors (diet sleep exercise alcohol whatever) with also genetics. btw antiandrogens also are good evidence against tension theory, they can legit restore some hair in places where it was lost, see ru58841.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  I take finasteride, have been for two years. I now have a very full beard, and I've never had hair on my chest before, despite being almost thirty. Only on 1mg per day. No sides.
kaskakokos 4y ago
The model explains DHT in the scalp. It is something like: Scalp tension>inflammation>DHT accumulation in scalp. I learned reading Rob work that you can find DHT accumulation in any inflamationn you have in your body (I.e. you receive a blow in the arm), and it includes scalp inflammation as well.
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
DHT can‘t be "overexpressed", what you mean are the 5AR enzymes that convert Testosterone to DHT, their creation can theoretically be overexpressed, so can be the amount of androgen receptors. But androgenetic alopecia is less about abnormally high amounts of DHT and more about the hair follicles sensitivity to it and/or dysfunctional repairing/compensation mechanisms. Practically it makes no difference though: Nuke 5ar = keep the hair. If it‘s scalp tension, why doesn‘t it impact transplanted hair and why do fin and dut work wonders? It‘s a crackpot theory that doesn‘t need debunking.

drpgq 4y ago

Would Elon Musk have been as successful without a hair transplant?

shawnz 4y ago
well, Jeff Bezos didn't seem to need one
- nickkell 4y ago
  Imagine what he could have done with a full head of hair.
- meremortals 4y ago
  Or Marc Andreessen
klyrs 4y ago
Would Dwayne Johnson be half as appealing with a shaggy head?
nichos 4y ago
Isn't this just another step in evolution?
chunkyguy 4y ago
Whatever that boosts your confidence.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwaway378037 4y ago

It is a marketing website for a paid coaching/membership program

mauvehaus 4y ago

Shave your head and grow a goatee? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD-E2B5GfI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD-E2B5GfI8

bjourne 4y ago

Rob English is an interesting character. On one hand, he has a head full of hair, a sexier smile than Tom Cruise, and a membership website offering subscription-based anti-hairloss treatments. I.e all the traits of a snake oil salesman. On the other hand, he has published in peer-reviewed journals, his summaries of the science seem legit, and, despite their best efforts, none of his detractors have been able to convincingly debunk him. I really don't know what to think... If massaging your scalp is all it takes to keep your hair, sign me up.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Over the years I've heard people swear that microneedling helps regrow hair. If scalp tension really is a cause (doubt it is the only cause), perhaps the punctures created by microneedling alleviate the tension. For those who are losing hair due to other causes, microneedling wouldn't help and would lead those researching microneedling to get inconclusive results on effectiveness as the root cause wasn't accounted for.

stubybubs 4y ago

Meh. Scalp advancement works pretty well. That is removing a strip of skin on the forehead and then pulling the rest down. It's adding a massive amount of tension in a very short period of time. If this resulted in more hair loss, nobody would be doing this procedure. More evidence in favor of androgens being the cause is the ridiculous recovery that some transgender women experience in hair regrowth after starting HRT. Sometimes it's slick bald to nearly a full head of hair. There was also a guy who isn't trans on some hair loss forum who decided to take the strongest antiandrogens he could order plus some estrogen and had incredible regrowth. Utimately it's probably multifactorial. Minoxidil helps, and that seems to be more about blood flow than androgens, though it's not totally clear why it works.

rantallion 4y ago
> Minoxidil helps, and that seems to be more about blood flow than androgens, though it's not totally clear why it works. Isn't one of the causes of hair loss a build-up of dihydrotestosterone in the scalp? Improving blood flow possibly allows for more to be carried away instead of deposited.
- stubybubs 4y ago
  Could be part of it. Minoxdil is just one kind of vasodilator. There hasn't been regrowth noticed with other classes like ACE inhibitors. And in general cardio training hasn't been shown to improve hair loss. Minoxidil might induce vascular endothelial growth factor as well. Maybe you need both? It also seems to work much better in combination with finasteride or dutasteride. All medicine is a little human experimentation. We don't even understand the complete mechanism of action of acetaminophen and that drug has been around for over 130 years. Generally if something works, we're happy.
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
Minoxidils modes of action are actually incredibly multifaceted. It‘s not limited at all to messing with the blood flow. The wikipedia article enumerates all the different things it does and how they could relate to hair growth.