Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery • Hacker News Board

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#171

Post by scohesc » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 4:05 PM UTC

seethedeaduu wrote: post #168

scohesc wrote: post #145

I hope there's a cure for hair loss but it's too late for me. My doctor doesn't want to prescribe me finasteride or deuteroxide because of the negative health side effects, even though I was persistent. I was told by my doctor to "come to terms with it" because he's bald. Guess what, you're a doctor buddy, you'll be attractive to anybody you talk to. I'm just a lonely IT guy with no life and no social prospects, so a…

You know you don't have to let yourself be gatekept by a doctor, right?

It's either go through a doctor, get a prescription and have it covered in some capacity by insurance, or I go order from a third-party/online solution and pay hundreds of dollars for something I desperately want, but won't be able to sustain financially because insurance won't cover treatments without a prescription.

I've already depressedly resigned myself to going bald - my hair is too far gone to have any medication or treatment give any meaningful amount of restoration.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#172

Post by xenospn » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 4:23 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #147

Seanambers wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who started to loose his hair in the mid 20s and thinning until I buzzed it in my mid 30s. I will say that being bald sucks especially considering meeting people, sexual attraction and possibly your own perception of yourself. Having said that I don't think about it at all normally, but I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't matter. Loads of people take the 'high road' and say it doesn't matter but having hair i…

> I will say that being bald sucks especially considering meeting people, sexual attraction and possibly your own perception of yourself. Having said that I don't think about it at all normally, but I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't matter. There’s tonnes of research that show that bald men are considered more attractive but less good looking. Anecdotally, I’d say it doesn’t really affect your dating life. 90% of wome…

Bald guy who shaves his head here. Some women love it. Others don’t. But it’s the same as any other physical quality. Really no point in stressing over it.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#173

Post by jodrellblank » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

joegibbs wrote: post #11

reify wrote: post #3

Oi! Baldy Just accept that it is part of life and of being male. Its because we have testosterone. save yourself a small fortune in hair cuts Buy yourself some decent hair clippers No 1, job done If you want hair on your head grow a beard

Image is really a lot more important than conventional wisdom would say it is (and people would hope, since judging people subconsciously on appearance isn't very fair), and a lot of people get a long way based mostly on image. People who are perceived as more attractive really are treated better for no real reason apart from that, and there are negative stereotypes associated with baldness. In fiction there are tons…

> “not that many bald heroes - you've got The Rock, Jason Statham, who else?”

Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Patrick Stewart (Picard, X-Men), Bruce Willis (Unbreakable), Tilda Swinton in character as the Ancient One, James Avery (Uncle Phil), David Suchet (detective Poirot), Thing (Fantastic Four), Draxx (Guardians of the Galaxy), Dr Manhattan (Watchmen), Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus, The Matrix), Vin Diesel (Riddick, Fast and Furious), Kratos (game God of War),

> when the heroic character is bald, it's almost always combined with being jacked and tough

When a heroic character has hair they’re also often jacked and tough; that’s part of the hero type not the hairy type; plenty of characters are haired and wimpy losers.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#174

Post by loeg » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

seethedeaduu wrote: post #88

loeg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The side effect profile isn't great, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finasteride#Adverse_effects

Some of these are just the effects of having low DHT, which is in reality not a negative, as this is the point of finasteride.

For reducing hair loss, you theoretically only need to lower DHT levels in the scalp. But finasteride lowers it systemically (as well as inhibiting a bunch of other metabolic pathways systemically).

> Some of these are just the effects of having low DHT, which is in reality not a negative,

Sexual disfunction, depression, and gynecomastia are not desired effects for most people.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#175

Post by illiac786 » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #164

illiac786 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but they are also encouraging to instead invest in other parts of your body which can more than compensate for this negative effect on female humans. Muscles…

....and money, and not being a douche.

Let’s not forget smelling like a dog (or having a strong body smell) ;)

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#176

Post by d13 » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

Male pattern baldness has been sexually selected for as a preference for millennia and is a positive body feature. I find the assertion that it is medical ailment that requires a cure shocking and offensive.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#177

Post by mlyle » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #59

whatnotests2 wrote: post #2

Please, please let this be real.

Quick google brings a bunch of articles clearly establishing that 2dDR stimulates angiogenesis (through increased production of VEGF), ie. the angiogenesis effect seems to be real. Whether angiogenesis will always produce hairgrowth effect and to what extent is not clear, yet it seems that in many cases it should. Anyway, i don't see how better vascularization of the head skin can be anything but a good thing (i'm no…

> Anyway, i don't see how better vascularization of the head skin can be anything but a good thing (i'm not a doctor, just speculating)

It's always important to test and measure carefully. It could be a net positive, but angiogenesis factors also promote tumor growth (and the head is a common, and less survivable skin cancer spot in balding people).

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#178

Post by francisofascii » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 6:07 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #151

drumhead wrote: post #47

A cure for baldness is one of those holy grail drugs like a drug to treat obesity, or a drug to de-age your skin. The profit on this is potentially vast and Im assuming the 10 year patent limit wont apply to it.

It’s worth mentioning that we actually did get the holy grail drugs for treating obesity - Ozempic and it’s generic versions…

It is a huge step forward, but there still are side effects, just like there are with finasteride.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#179

Post by hnarn » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 6:38 PM UTC

d13 wrote: post #176

Male pattern baldness has been sexually selected for as a preference for millennia and is a positive body feature. I find the assertion that it is medical ailment that requires a cure shocking and offensive.

Your armchair evolutionary science presumes that baldness is present at the moment of "selection" which is very unlikely to be the case, considering the fact that the majority of male pattern hair loss occurs around or after the age of 35.

Re: Cure for male pattern baldness given boost by sugar discovery

#180

Post by ninininino » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

tarsinge wrote: post #169

birriel wrote: post #148

Those encouraging folks to "just shave it off" fail to realize that it's so much more than a vanity issue. From an evolutionary standpoint, baldness is perceived in the female brain as a sign of poor sperm quality [0]. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S102781171...

I don’t find any mention of this on the study. But even if there was you realize how insignificant that signal is compared to everything else right? From personal anecdotes to any married bald man it’s trivial to show it’s irrelevant. Like others have said work on what you can improve, like getting fit, and obviously confidence and empathy first by getting female friends and in the process realizing they are not cave…

It's totally possible to both acknowledge its something that can be surmounted or is only a single factor in attraction while also acknowledging it's almost always a negative, the same way being short, being stupid, being poor, having bad style, being fat, being awkward etc. would be.