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Looking for the solution to common baldness
In order to be able to beat the enemy it is essential to define in the best possible way the targets. In the case of baldness, the real enemy has not been found, has not been located nowadays. In fact multimillionaire rewards have been promised, but it has been in vain, there is more and more affected people of common baldness or alopecia in today’s civilized world. What has happened? Just that it has not been possible to define exactly which is the initial and triggering process of this disease. This situation is maybe due to the fact that medical science efforts have focused in trying to recover hair once it has been lost, instead of trying to find solutions so that it is not lost, maybe irremissibly. As many say prevention is better than cure, that’s why we should work on the initial cause, but this has not been the case, maybe because this is an special illness, it does not kill the person.
In my opinion, the triggering cause of the process of alopecia is the detention in the sebum flow that addresses towards the root of hair. Such a simple fact brings with it an alteration of all the biological, hormonal, immune, circulatory, neuronal systems, making the process more and more irreversible.
I have approached to the problem by paying attention to which is the reason why certain hairs are never lost, i.e. the hairs located at the sides and back of the head. I found an important difference: such hairs which are not lost stay several hours leaning on an absorbent surface, all the days of our life. That is, we all rest the non-alopecic area for hours while we are sleeping. In such areas it is impossible to have a detention of the sebum flow, as there is a close contact of hair with an absorbent surface.
Now we need to know something about hair biology. The human hair is unique in nature, we have evolved eliminating body hair, promoting and lengthening at the same time the hair on the head. We have developed the unique quality of hair asynchrony, that is, we shed our hair without realizing, keeping our image. Each hair is independent from the next one, which demands that each of them has all the biologic mechanisms of control, therefore it becomes a very complex machinery.
The hair is created in a pilosebaceous follicle, a kind of small well in the skin and at the bottom the dermal papilla is located, which can be considered the engine of hair growth. The part of hair that we cannot see is surrounded by impermeable sheaths and just where they finish it is located the channel of the sebaceous gland and the area of creation of the stem cells. In order to keep a healthy hair it is as necessary the cellular renovation at the dermal papilla as the sebum (heterogeneous mixture of fats and waxes) released by the sebaceous gland. Sebum is an essential element for hair, for its external part as well as for its inner part, since it is a physical part of the hair itself. Furthermore, it is vital that sebum is made and eliminated in a continuous way, since as the time goes by it gets oxidized and becomes a kind of poison. The detention of the sebum or fat flow becomes the first enemy in the cases of common baldness.
Sebum has two ways to be eliminated:
- A great part towards the outside, sliding in a longitudinal way through the hair shaft or in a transversal way among the hairs till it reaches the scalp and/or an absorbent surface, for example the pillow.
- The rest towards the inside, entering as physical part of the hair.
What can the theory explain?
In the first place, it explains such a characteristic pattern of fall, which appears in common baldness.
In the second place, it can explain in a clear way the miniaturization process observed in the cases of common baldness. This must be most probably due to the fact that the stem cells will be carried along with sebum in its way towards the most inner part of hair. A detention or slow down in such transport will bring a thinner and shorter hair. The dermal papilla needs a high cellular renovation, we must just think about the treatments with chemotherapy which cause the temporary lost of hair, since the drugs destroy the cells with a high metabolism and regeneration in a selective way.
In a third approach the theory would clearly explain why the incidence of common baldness is different in both sexes, and it is due to the fact that women usually wear longer hair than men. However it must be mentioned that nature provides both sexes with the capacity to have long hair, it is not something exclusive of female genre. Long hair allows the elimination of sebum, even of the hair located at the top of head, since sebum can move in a longitudinal way along its surface till it reaches the absorbent surface. Similarly, it can be explained why there is less repercussion in people with a high hair density, or with thicker or curly hair, since these physical characteristics of hair influence in the favouring or impediment of the sebum flow. The theory explains why certain ethnos or cultures such as Native Americans, rastafaris, gypsies, etc, do not suffer from common baldness. It also explains why it is so easy to induce a located alopecia at the crown area called tonsure, practice made by certain religious orders, since they isolate certain hairs stopping in such way the sebum flow. This technique could be considered an experimental trial in order to verify the theory.
In a fourth point the theory would explain why other parallel processes occur, such as the increase of hormones, the reaction of the immune system, apoptosis processes, or cellular death in the hair bulb, or even neuronal destruction. All these processes start due to a physical, chemical and biological alteration of the stopped components of sebum. The sebaceous gland has the ability of changing the testosterone hormone into a more powerful hormone, the dihydrotestosterone (DHT) which along with sebum moves towards the root of hair. If there are transportation problems it may get accumulated on the way, increasing the hormonal component (especially when these same substances activate the sebaceous secretion). This explains why in most of the cases there has been an alteration in the amount of fat. With an increase of the stopped sebum, there is also an increase of the number of micro-organisms which live in sebum, therefore reactions of rejection of the immune system can appear.
With the oxidation of sebum, there are variations in the acidity of the environment, which will cause inflammatory reactions which will worsen even more the sebum flow. The stem cells cannot reach their destiny, so their task may be altered, which favours fibrosis processes. Finally the oxidation of sebum produces neurotoxics which destroy the neuronal net which surrounds the root of hair. It is no wonder that all these processes turn common baldness into a degenerative process which becomes more irreversible as the time goes by.
Due to all these facts, it is logical to think that it is important to take action from the beginning, which justifies that the best treatment for baldness is the preventive one and it must try to avoid that the sebum flow stops. The first remedy, passive and also the cheapest one would be to allow hair to grow, a small bob would be enough, and also avoid practices which prevent a normal discharge of sebum, as it could be the continuous cutting of the fringe (which would lead to the famous receding hairlines), to wear very short hair for a long time (for example in the military service), especially if one used to wear it long before, the excessive use of permanent wavings, etc. If there is already an alteration of sebum, then active action should be taken, such as favouring the mobilization of sebum by massages or by the use of fluidifying agents. If what you wish is to invert the process, then multifactorial treatments must be used in order to beat, not only the sebum problem, but also all the processes. As we allow baldness to advance, it will be more difficult to go backwards.
Undoubtedly there is also a genetic component in baldness, since the colour, type of hair, hair density, etc is determined by genes, but these at the same time are changed during evolution, what has led us towards the naked ape, but not towards the bald ape. The problem of common baldness is, in my opinion, more the result of an error in the cultural evolution. This would explain why certain people that in their original country do not suffer from baldness, start suffering from it at the countries where they emigrate, since they adopt the culture and fashions of the place where they live, while their genes continue being the same ones. Such is the same case of twin brothers, when only one of them suffers from baldness, maybe due to the fact that they have adopted different fashion styles. This theory can explain many mysteries, but it also requires certain things, it demands the equality of the hairs on the scalp and to have the same control mechanisms, independently from the sex.
This new theory is simple and can explain many of the mysteries about common baldness, but it also requires that all the hair that grows on the scalp is the same regarding its regulation, independently of the area and the sex. This theory becomes a unifying theory, which means that the initial cause of common alopecia is the same in men as well as in women. On the other hand this theory does not distinguish the so called alopecia areata (the one produced at the crown area) from common baldness, since the hairs which are lost are in the same area of the head.
To sum up I will point out that if the triggering cause of the process of common baldness is identified, then a real solution will be found, that is, a preventive solution, for men as well as for women. It is extremely important to find a preventive remedy, since it has been remarked that when a person realizes that he/she suffers from baldness, he/she has usually already lost half of the hairs in the affected area.
This is my idea, my theory, which I can use to help all those people who are sensitive to suffering from common baldness. Any other person can develop his/her own theory, it is just necessary to have an open mind. There are many drugs, products, or even the deficiency of nutrients, which can trigger the lost of hair, but they usually affect to all the hairs on the scalp, and such hairs can be recovered later on, once such elements stop their incidence, due to the existence of the hair cycle. Due to this fact we should carry a kind of compass that could show us the path to be followed. The basics of such compass would be to ask ourselves if there is a simple and easy explanation that can tell us why the process affects only certain hairs and not others.
In order to conclude I will introduce Occam’s Razor, which is a method to be able to compare similar theories. It shows that it is much more interesting to study in depth the simplest of the theories. My theory, in this case, can be considered very simple.
Armando J. Yañez
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