4 Common Misconceptions About The Bioenergetic View of Pattern Hair Loss
"...Activation of the energy metabolism may be a new strategy to prevent and cure male-pattern alopecia." — Adachi, K., et al. (1999)
Hey, hey.
Below are some quick thoughts regarding four common misconceptions about the bioenergetic view of pattern hair loss.
The bioenergetic view has slowly evolved with the introduction of my free book, the organizing the panic video series, and a few ancillary articles on my website and videos on youtube.
The content is massively inspired by Ray Peat — whose work has been heavily influenced by Hans Selye, Broda Barnes, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Otto Warburg, William F. Koch, Bucky Fuller, Gilbert Ling, etc.
The basic idea is that the organizing power of real biological energy is hypothesized to be the origin of structural complexity and its decline as the basis of diseases (including baldness) and aging.
I see the genetic-androgen hypothesis — or the idea that “bad” genes and androgens, primarily dihydrotestosterone (DHT) — as an inadequate explanation for the genesis pattern baldness in men, post-menopausal women, neonates of both sexes, women taking birth control, and general old age.
Moreover, despite being risky, ineffective, and mechanistically crazy — therapies based on the genetic-androgen hypothesis have an aggressively loud cheerleading squad on virtually every corner of the Internet that makes interpreting different points of view difficult for newcomers.
I: The Genetic-Androgen Hypothesis: Divorced From the Health of the Individual
The easiest way to misunderstand the bioenergetic model of pattern hair loss is to simply be concerned with things that “promote growth” rather than promoting the individual’s health.
For example, if Merck funded a successful study on using toxic waste to stimulate the anagen phase of the hair follicle — proponents of the genetic-androgen hypothesis would likely proudly promote toxic waste as a cutting-edge hair loss treatment.
The bioenergetic view, however, invokes hysteresis, or the development of the person through time. Every stress a person encounters throughout their life could be thought of as ‘a small cut’ — and the development of baldness is death by a thousand cuts.
Since “stress” means many different things to many different people, we could define it here as the cellular deprivation of oxygen or sugar, causing proportionately more lactic acid to be produced than carbon dioxide. This shift leads to the generation of inflammatory messengers and an increased reliance on the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals that release adaptive stress hormones that cause scalp hair loss.
Working in the opposite direction of metabolic stress is the production of real biological energy, or the successful transfer of electrons through the cell to produce ATP, carbon dioxide, and water that is stimulated by thyroid hormone. With enough biological energy, inflammation is kept low, and the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals — that release adaptive stress hormones involved in scalp hair loss — are kept in a state of relative quiescence.
A good representation of health, or optimal thyroid function and low metabolic stress, might be a healthy 10-year-old. Regeneration is a common feature at that age, along with a high resting pulse rate and a warm underarm temperature. Also, baldness isn’t very common among 10-year-olds.
What makes a person ‘healthy’ in the genetic-androgen model of pattern hair loss? If this grounding isn’t established, which to my knowledge it never has been — it’s akin to playing a game of tennis with no net.
II: Nutrition is One Tool in The Toolbox
Every now and then, I’ll encounter a comment suggesting that the totality of the bioenergetic view of pattern hair loss relies exclusively on meticulously reorganizing a person’s nutrition.
My view is that our current environment (e.g., culture, food supply, pollution, water quality, etc.) is so murderous that we should employ every safe and physiological tool at our disposal to improve health. In addition to anti-inflammatory nutrition that digested well and was satisfying, I think some safe therapies include:
T3 and T4 (Cynoplus and Cynomel)
Progesterone (Progest-E) and DHEA
Vitamin D (made from lanolin topically in MCT or olive oil)
Vitamin K2 (topically in MCT or olive oil)
Aspirin (USP powder with no additives)
When presenting this information, I’m often asked for a psychic prediction of exactly what will happen when a person employs these various energetic therapies. I think the neonate overcoming pattern baldness is evidence that hair loss reversal is always possible. Although, the intervention has to be proportionally greater than the degeneration that has already taken place.
For example, a young person losing hair might remedy it by eating more calcium and supplementing vitamins D and K2. An older person might have to quit their job, get a divorce, change their nutrition, take an antibiotic, find the correct dose of thyroid, get their vitamin D level up, and move to Hawaii.
III: The Bioenergetic Model is Measurable
Finding out what your body needs at any given time can be challenging, but the resting pulse rate and underarm temperature are excellent proxies for thyroid function and metabolic stress. For instance, if the pulse and temperature are low, I think a person could safely assume the adaptive stress substances were functionally higher since they all tend to interfere with thyroid function, which regulates the resting pulse rate and temperature homeostasis.
In addition to measuring the resting pulse rate and underarm temperature upon waking and again in the afternoon for a few days to find the average (ala Broda Barnes), I think obtaining the tests below is worthwhile to help build an empirical foundation for one’s health:
Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH)
Total Cholesterol
Prolactin
Parathyroid Hormone
25-Hydroxy Vitamin D
Phosphorus
Lactic Acid
Reverse T3
The thing I enjoy about these tests is that they’re instructive. For example, if the prolactin or parathyroid hormone came back in the middle or elevated, a person could employ more calcium in their nutrition to quickly lower them.
Similarly, suppose the TSH and total cholesterol were elevated. In that case, a supplement of T3 (cynomel) could be used to drop the TSH and cholesterol, with a subsequent increase in the production of the “anti-stress” substances: pregnenolone, progesterone, and DHEA.
IV: The Bioenergetic Model is a Participatory Process of Discovery
Over the last several years, the totality of my work has been that scalp hair loss means that something is wrong. This idea, to some people, induces a type of mania as apparently subscribing to the genetic-androgen model and taking “the big 3” is sacrosanct.
If the bioenergetic model is accurate, these leading “therapies” for baldness collude with the bad environment and a person’s existing poor health, effectively blinding them to the actual cause of pattern baldness.
Making an effort to correct parts of the bad environment (e.g. renovating the nutrition, getting lab tests, engaging in self-metrics, supplementing thyroid, reading about physiology, etc.) for a stressed and likely overworked person can feel like beating a tired horse, and the easiest thing to do is nothing (or take a pill every day). However, I think exploring these factors is worthwhile as the bioenergetic model offers a lot in terms of promoting self maturation.
“Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.”
— G.I. Gurdjieff
“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.”
— William Blake
Identifying things a person can change, such as correcting a low vitamin D level, or using Ray’s carrot salad for constipation or diarrhea, or avoiding hard-to-digest grains, beans, and vegetables and replacing them with ripe sweet fruit juices, could be the first steps to improving the rate of metabolism, lowering scalp inflammation, and promoting the growth of hair.
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Selected References
"Discovery is simply seeing what everyone else has seen - but thinking what no-one else has thought." —Albert Szent-Györgyi
"As androgenic alopecia is a very common condition and displays a large variety in the rate of progression, apparently normal people may be in fact in the early stages of baldness." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8832948
"In general, ageing was reflected by a decline in the activity of hair follicles.” "Ageing did not appear to follow a perfectly regular course over time. Periods of stability, or even partial remission, alternated with periods of more marked evolution. Individual factors such as the subject's general health and life-style may well play an important role in this evolution." … "The attempt to combat ageing of scalp hair, and the search for 'anti-hair loss' or 're-growth' treatments are thus challenges with a great deal in common." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7756156
"This study adds evidence to the possibility that hyperadrenalism may be an important element in the complex biochemistry of male pattern baldness." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2950147
"A most interesting aspect of the investigation is the role of cortisol. Increased cortisol levels support the role of the [adrenal] glands and thus a possible stress component in hair loss. This finding may serve as starting point for systemic treatment approaches that aim at the suppression of increased adrenal function.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1832108
“No correlation was found between this condition and circulating serum androgen levels. Urinary steroid measurements, however, established a positive correlation between the degree of male pattern alopecia and levels of dehydroepiandrosterone or tetrahydrocortisone, and also indicated a large number of patients had mild hyperadrenal activity.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7273477
"The widespread assumption that androgen levels are in general elevated in bald-trait men must therefore be rejected." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1387290
“In 48% of the patients, we found either hypothyroidism or hyperprolactinemia.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2494810
"...Activation of the energy metabolism may be a new strategy to prevent and cure male-pattern alopecia." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10664855
“The second was a 23% incidence of unrecognized hypothyroidism in males over 30 years of age with typical pattern baldness.” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-81650-5_57
“…We may conclude that male pattern baldness is a significant cutaneous manifestation of the autistic group.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-3083.1997.tb00248.x
“It was seen that as age advanced the thyroid dysfunction associated with alopecia also increased and this was reflected in all types of alopecia.” … “In androgenetic alopecia multilayered interactions between thyroid hormones and androgens may contribute to the development of alopecia. In females, significant hypophyseal hypothyroidism may play a role in androgenetic alopecia." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23960405
"Recent years have witnessed a considerable progress in the research focused on treatment of hair disorders, but with limited success. Therefore, one of the prime challenges of modern hair research is a more profound understanding of the molecular controls of hair follicle cycling. Common diseases such as alopecia areata, telogen effluvium and AGA, until than will remain the unsolved medical problems.” Brajac, I. et al. Human Hair Follicle: An Update on Biology and Perspectives in Hair Growth Disorders Treatment. Hair Ther Transplant 2014.
"We found increased oxidative stress in younger patients with early-onset AGA. There is need for further molecular studies on the role of oxidative stress in the etiopathogenesis of AGA. We also think that topical or systemic antioxidants can be promising in treatment of AGA, especially for young patients." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27987270
"The estimated per capita consumption of soybean oil increased >1000-fold from 1909 to 1999." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21367944
“…The oxidized lipids are now understood to negatively influence the normal growth of hair: Naito et al. analyzed the effect of the lipid peroxides on hair follicles and observed that the topical application of linolein hydroperoxides, one of the lipid peroxides, leads to the early onset of the catagen phase in hair cycles. Furthermore, they found that lipid peroxides induced apoptosis of hair follicle cells. They also induced apoptosis in human epidermal keratinocytes by upregulating apoptosis-related genes. These results indicate that lipid peroxides, which can cause free radicals, induce the apoptosis of hair follicle cells, and this is followed by early onset of the catagen phase…” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30783333
"Lipids in the skin are the most diverse in the entire human body. Their bioactivity in health and disease is underexplored. Prostaglandin D2 has recently been identified as a factor which is elevated in the bald scalp of men with androgenetic alopecia (AGA) and has the capacity to decrease hair lengthening...” … “Lipid-based pathways are underexplored area of biology. Given that lipid biology is comparatively understudied to genes and proteins, it is possible that it has been over-looked in this very common condition. Current treatments are based on pathophysiological models, which have not significantly gone beyond Aristotle’s observation that ‘eunuchs do not go bald.’ This is partly because our knowledge of the pathogenesis is still meagre and offers few rationale targets for therapy." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24521203
“Thyroid hormones regulate mitochondrial function.” … “Thus, mitochondrial biology, energy metabolism, and redox state of human HFs are subject to profound (neuro-)endocrine regulation by HPT-axis hormones. The neuroendocrine control of mitochondrial biology in a complex human mini-organ revealed here may be therapeutically exploitable.” …“Therefore, regulatory hurdles to reposition these hormones [thyroid hormones] for novel ‘mitochondrial hair medicine’ approaches are relatively low.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23949722
“The role of mast cells in male-pattern baldness is unknown, but the large numbers often present is a striking feature.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/777055
“A higher prevalence of dyslipidemia in women and men with androgenic alopecia has been found.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20814623
“AGA is an independent predictor of mortality from diabetes mellitus and heart disease in both sexes. This finding may have significant implications for the identification of risk factors for diabetes mellitus and heart disease in patients with moderate or severe AGA, regardless of whether metabolic syndrome is present.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23677087
"We concluded that, AGA might be an indicator of arterial stiffness in asymptomatic young adults." "As a second matter, IR or metabolic syndrome may explain the link between arterial stiffness and AGA. Finally, the association between arterial stiffness and AGA could be established through hypertension. It is well-known that, arterial stiffness may precede and predict future development of hypertension." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24628808
"Our findings show a relation between moderate to extensive alopecia and low-grade inflammation--a predictor of a future CVD--especially combined with central obesity, among men younger than 35 years. " https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17341860
“…Male-pattern baldness is an age-associated disease…" … "I cannot forbear to mention that suppression of inflammation might decelerate the progress of male-pattern baldness. Long ago, Sabouraud believed that seborrheic alopecia (now called male-pattern baldness) was a kind of seborrheic dermatitis against which therapeutic measured should be taken. Bald persons often report scaling and itching in the early state, presumably reflecting the inflammatory process. The findings in this study warrant a fresh look at male-pattern baldness and its connection to seborrheic dermatitis and even dandruff." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3214816
"Our analysis indicates that frontal plus moderate vertex baldness at age 45 years is associated with an increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer and supports the possibility of common pathophysiologic mechanisms." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25225425
"We suggest that finasteride and dutasteride inhibit 5α-reductase activities and reduce the clearance of glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoids, potentiating insulin resistance, diabetes and vascular disease." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25460297
“However, a substantial body of evidence exists which points to serious and potentially ill-health effects of 5α-RIs’ therapy. These include loss or reduced libido, erectile dysfunction, orgasmic and ejaculatory dysfunction, development of high grade PCa tumors, potential negative cardiovascular events, and depression. The side effects are potentially harmful in some individuals and in young men may be persistent or irreversible. The argument that the benefits of these drugs outweighs the risks is slowly eroding in the face of new emerging scientific evidence from preclinical and clinical studies." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24955220
"As sexual function worsened (ie, as IIEF scores went down), there was increasing activity in the neural circuits corresponding to sexual arousal and decreasing activity in brain regions associated with higher level cognitive and motivational networks in symptomatic finasteride users in response to erotic stimuli. This dissociation in activity maybe a marker of neural changes post finasteride use." … "Furthermore, as men seeking treatment for alopecia have higher prevalence of depression and sexual dysfunction than the general population, it would be appropriate to ascertain history of depression or sexual dysfunction before starting treatment." … "The men reporting persistent sexual symptoms had depressed mood, negative affectivity balance, and patterns of brain activity that correlated specifically with sexual and negative affective symptoms, and included regions known to be involved in sexual functionand depression, respectively." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27662439
Dan The Man . Great Content