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So many clients come into the clinic to have treatment for thinning hair or hair loss without knowing what the cause of the change may be.
Popular belief is that when men have too much testosterone, they can lose their hair but the answer to. Is hair loss in men caused by increased testosterone? Well it is not as simple as that and can often be more easily understood with my analogy of cake baking! Stick with me a moment… So if we are baking a cake and in the ingredient list we need 3 eggs, an ounce of flour, a teaspoon of self-raising flour etc… (Can you tell I do not bake?!) What do you think will happen if we just decide to increase the eggs to 5… the cake will end up a sloppy mess.. but if we increase all the ingredients equally.. it will still work..
Let’s talk about DHT… or Dihydrotestosterone if we want the full title! This is a form of testosterone, essentially DHT converts to testosterone and it is in this conversion that we find hair loss apparent. In fact, a popular hair loss medication called Finasteride is approved for hair loss in men, not women and this drug blocks the conversion of Testosterone to DHT- it has been known to come with a few nasty side effects though such as hot flashes, nausea and depression to name a few!”
It is important to note that Testosterone is not the only hormone we need to look at where hair loss/thinning is concerned,., So let’s talk Thyroid for a moment… So we all know that the thyroid gland is important and it regulates vital processes like breathing!! Its pretty up there in its functional importance but when the gland isn’t happy.. Whether that be it is under pressure from the body in some way or it is not being looked after by its rightful owner it can start to use what little energy it has on key functions such as keeping the body alive so less important functions like hair growth will get kicked to the curb! So yes, that cheeky hormone is definitely one that needs some attention too if we are to dig deeper into what is causing any hair loss..
Let’s just take a moment to talk about insulin.. people know of this hormone when they think about those managing diabetes but it is important to understand what it is and what it does.. It releases each time we eat… so for the average joe it is a regular occurrence, and it allows our body to take the energy from food and use it as energy butttttt why we go back to our cake analogy lets consider those ingredients and the balance of them… If we overload it with flour, it will taste more like rock so again.. its all about balance.. If we eat too many foods that have a high glycemic index (the foods that are made with more sugar and refined flour!) our body cannot cope and too much insulin is released in the body which can end up in an overproduction of testosterone.. leading to more DHT conversion which as we already know can lead to hair loss…
Low Progesterone in men too has also been linked in some studies to hair loss, it is in fact a building block for testosterone and low levels of progesterone can lead patients subject to problems with sleeping, at risk of osteoporosis as well as at risk of losing their hair too… The point here is the body needs balance, too much of anything is often a recipe for disaster soooo whilst we can address hair loss/thinning with treatments like PRP… looking in to your hormone passport initially can really help rule out anything that may well be causing the hair loss in the first place! This allows us to not only treat the hair loss but hopefully identify and treat the root cause too!
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