Geez last two days I drank 2 l soya chocolatemilk ..

.. with the new circulation scalpmassage prorgam I thought it wouldnt matter - or just
slightly. Geez, my hair went totally the drain the following days - hope it will recover soon.

correlation is not causation.

chocolate soy milk wont make you lose your hair.

Oh really? Thats fantastic how sure you are of your oppinion.

It could be the sugar in there as well or a combination.

LawOfThelema wrote:correlation is not causation.

chocolate soy milk wont make you lose your hair.

Sugary food has never been found as a cause of balding in any of the science behind balding. If you want to believe eating sugar causes baldness by all means, needlessly compound your life anxieties

CS has some pretty interesting material on his blog concerning insulin and the hair follicle. Might imply an indirect relationship with sugar and hair loss, but insulin and resistance to it is also related to fat consumption also, so the diet as a whole has to be addressed.

Insulin increases IGF-1 which has been shown to increase androgen mediated inflammatory markers in the follicle.

Its more about how you handle sugar as an individual though. People are different and so are their metabolisms. If your metabolic type is oxidizing sugars too quickly, you are overworking the ETC and bombarding mitchondria and other cell structures with a too many oxidants, peroxides and superoxides. Insulin resistance tends to be a mechanism through which the body protects itself from further energy burden in the cell. Having insulin resistance is going to guarantee your circulating levels of insulin are too high. So if your metabolic type oxidizes sugars too quickly, you can argue it would hasten hair loss. Your body just doesn't need energy packaged that way. Its like throwing gasoline on a burning house.

anthonyspencer54 wrote:
Insulin increases IGF-1 which has been shown to increase androgen mediated inflammatory markers in the follicle.

Doesn't colostrum increase IGF-1 also? I should probably stop taking it then now I'm worried I've been doing damage since taking it

There are several possible causes but my best guess is that soy is causing intestinal distress (possibly you have exceeded your tolerance level); and I have found that my hair always suffers in some way when my digestion is not working well.

Hey Seeker,

It's one of those things. Testosterone can increase hair loss, but you want it for other reasons. Inflammation can increase hair loss, but you want it for other reasons. Same goes for IGF-1.

And I would look at it in terms of dosage. Having colostrum now and then, or in a therapeutic way, is going to expose you to a little bit of IGF-1 intermittently. You probably won't even absorb all of it through the gut. Its a ubiquitous signaling molecule, so then it might not even make it to your scalp hair as it could probably communicate with any number of tissues before that point.

I guess my point is, taking colostrum won't make or break your goals. Now on the other hand, having chronically high insulin all of the time due to insulin resistance could. Its the dose and the context that always counts.

I can see what you're saying anthonyspencer54 and it makes sense although i never thought testosterone itself was bad for hair? I've been taking a few supplements that help raise T levels and i haven't noticed any negative effect, well not yet anyway. Then again i guess that's why people with hair loss are too paranoid to do weight lifting then because of the raise in T levels?

Seeker,

I should have been more specific, you're right though. Androgen-dependent follicles display different active androgens depending on where they are in the body. Pubic hairs and armpit hairs (axillary) tend to have less 5AR and the active androgens are testosterone and androstenedione. In frontal scalp hairs of men with MPB there is more 5AR and the most active androgen is 5A-DHT.

So, while a man typically wants a high total testosterone level for his sense of well being and many other aspects of health, if your are susceptible to hair loss, it could indirectly promote those androgen-mediated ill effects in the hair follicle. But there is more at work than just testosterone = DHT = hair loss. Your free androgen index is important and is related to the amount of SHBG. This is one reason why thyroid is awfully important as adequate thyroid hormone is required for SHBG.

I'm just pointing out that a given hormone could have effects you desire and those you don't depending on the context. Its difficult to demonize one hormone for this reason because although it might be the crux of hair loss, its vital for so many other things. Just look at some of the effects of the anti-androgen drugs. IGF-1 is no different.

Imagine instead that there were a hormone other than testosterone that played a large part in your sex drive. Now imagine that we're comparing you and another person. That hormone has the same sexual effects in both of you, but in only you it also causes your ears to grow really big because you have an extra amount of a certain conversion enzyme in your ears. Yup, it sucks that that's the case. But you don't really want to get rid of the sexual effects either, they're a little more important.

yeah i agree with what you're saying and it makes sense.

makes me sad that during puberty/post puberty teenage years when my testosterone and i'm assuming dht were through the roof, i had no hair loss at all and it was as thick as it's ever been lol

I know that young people who experience hair loss have low shbg, i'm guessing my levels were optimal until now and somethings gone wrong, unless 25 is too old for low shbg to be considered the culprit.

I would seriously consider getting it checked out if you believe it is a possibility. Anytime I hear of a really young person losing hair quickly its almost the first thing that comes to mind, and immediately after that, thyroid issues. I would also see an educated doctor who is willing to test more than TSH. TSH shouldn't be above 4, some even suggest 3. I personally have lost hair extremely fast, extremely prematurely. Sure enough, TSH of almost 5. I am seeing an endocrinologist in about a week who is going to do further testing, but you can bet I will be testing SHBG, T3, T4, reverse T3, parathyroid, all of the steroid hormones, and gonadotropins.

For most, hair loss is going to be a slower process and results from a slow progressive infiltration of WBC's and their inflammatory products and also of keratinocytes. Fibrosis results but this can take a long time in a normal individual. Somebody who has chronic low-level inflammation (thyroid issues, food sensitivities, chronic infections, heavy metal problems, mold issues, hormonal imbalances, piss poor diet) will see the process speed up. So despite high levels of androgens during puberty, hair loss typically won't manifest that early unless the environment is already degraded severely. Mine began showing up around nineteen, well after puberty but still much too early. I've seen people younger than that losing hair already, which is concerning. Its probably going to continue to happen to younger and younger people as they are being born into a physiological hole, per se, the result of accumulating epigenetic derangement from past generations.

my hair loss started at 14... really sucked. 7 years later i am roughly a norwood 3/4.... i had my thyroid checked by 2 different doctors (both sucked) obviously, i didn't know anything at age 15 what thyroid levels are supposed to look like... i recently ordered some iodine tablets to possibly help if thats a factor. i honestly would have been ok if i just started losing my hair now but 14 was just cruel.

Absolutely, I think hair loss is much easier to deal with once you are of a certain age, secure with yourself and your lifestyle. At a certain age you tend to just say fuck everyone else. Not so as a child. Kids can be cruel. 14 had to have been tough, no doubt. Even in high school it was a big source of insecurity for me. You are just so worried about other people's opinions. Nowadays, I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the thought of losing my hair. There is a security that comes with getting a bit older I think and a confidence that comes with it, I'm more concerned about asserting other things besides my good looks now. That said, it doesn't make it easy for everyone. I think its about excelling in every other area of your life that it is possible to, and building confidence through that route. Get a hold of your body, pack on some muscle and build confidence by seeing your mental goals manifest in your physical body. I don't think there is a better way to build confidence, because at its heart, I feel its the idea of being potent, potent in the sense that what you see in your head, you bring into reality. The hurt that comes with losing hair is this sense of a loss of potency, and a shame due to that loss, shame because you feel like some critical aspect of your masculinity has been taken from you. Getting all of these other areas of your life under control, being potent in all of those areas, almost makes hair into a non-issue, the goal being to become so fucking potent that you exude that sense of entitlement and completely eliminate that tangible insecurity caused by your former shame. When you become fully secure, everyone becomes secure in you too.

Enough preaching, haha. But I would definitely recommend the iodine. There is a lecture by Dr. Brownstein floating around here somewhere that is really enlightening. I'm currently trying to work my way up to around 50 mg. I'm at about 25 mg. I had some bad symptoms of bromide detox at first, but vitamin c and salt loading, in addition to pulsing my doses, really helped.