Archive for December, 2009

Hair and hair loss

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Hair.

Ebling FJ.

….most of man’s hair follicles are vestigial. Three problems of hair regrowth remain to be solved: (1) how the growth of hair follicles in both animals and man is controlled; (2) how the male hormone alters the hair cycle in human skin; and (3) why larger hairs are produced by testosterone in some areas of the body when in some individuals the hair follicles in the scalp regress.snip.. Both sexual hair and male-pattern baldness depend on androgenic hormones. Target organs of testosterone convert the hormone to active metabolites,.. snip…. The androgenic steroids, the enzymes that convert them to their active metabolites, and the proteins that bind them are undoubtedly very important to the problems of the growth of sexual hair and male-pattern baldness.

Balding and redox signaling

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Free radicals and similar chemicals have a cellular messenger role now dubbed Redox signaling. This may play a key role in regulating the hair cycle, as well as in mediating pattern balding itself.