How does minoxidil stop hair loss without lowering DHT?

sup Chums how y'all Living Hope viic is Nova and you're all having a preme week so one of the most misunderstood drugs in the Hair Cafe Cinematic Universe is minoxidil we all know that minoxidil Works to stop hair loss that's no secret it is after all the very first drug that was FDA approved for the treatment of hair loss but despite all that it seems like nobody can agree on how minoxidil works exactly so let's clear up some misunderstandings about minoxidil the most common misunderstanding by far are is that minoxidil works by increasing B flu

this is of course completely wrong but I can still understand why some people think this after all minoxidil was originally developed as a drug to treat high blood pressure minoxidil is a vasodilator which means it expands blood vessels so minoxidil actually does increase blood flow however that is not the reason why minoxidil Works to stimulate hair growth it turns out that almost all blood pressure medications increase blood flow that includes calcium channel blockers like dotm alpha blockers like doxaz oian ACE inhibitors like Lucen opral and direct vasodilators like hydrazine but despite the fact that all

these classes of drugs increase blood flow guess what none of them do that's right none of them actually cause hair growth only minoxidil does so how is it possible that we have all these drugs that increase blue flow yet monoidal is the only one that actually works to promote hair growth well there is a simple answer to that one Chun it's because decreased blit flow is not what causes hair loss and believe me I have a lot to say about that topic far more than I could possibly explain in just one simple video fortunately though

I have an entire playlist on why blit flow has nothing to do with hair loss and why products and programs that market themselves as being effective at stopping hair loss by improving blood circulation of the scalp are all universally scam full so please make sure you check out that list if you're not convinced yet but getting back on subject how is it that minoxidil works I mean we know it works that's without question but since Brit flow has nothing to do with hair loss the mino's mechanism of action has got to be something besides its

effects on blood flow so what is it then and how does minoxidil actually work well interestingly enough some people think that it might be because minoxidil is an anti-androgen some people in my comment section recently mentioned this article here that claims that minox works as an anti-androgen that would be especially interesting because if that were true that would mean that minoxidil would work similarly to most hair loss drugs that work by lowering DHT levels on the scalp like finasteride and dutasteride but as interesting as this Theory may be it is actually a false Theory it

is a better explanation than the blood flu Theory I'll admit but it is still wrong and I'll explain why so let me go over the article in question and then I'll tell you why I don't think this is really how minoxidil Works afterwards I'll go ahead and show you another paper that shows that minoxidil works by complet completely different mechanism that doesn't involve androgens or blood flow so this paper is from our research team in China this study is divided into two parts the first part is very theoretical it was done totally on computers and

utilized a new technique called Network pharmacology Network pharmacology it uses databases and artificial intelligence to predict what effects drugs will have on different proteins it looks at the 3D structure of the drugs and sees how it fits into the 3D structure of many different kinds of proteins in order to see which proteins could be affected by the drug it is a technique to rapidly develop new drugs without having to do a lot of testing in vitro or in Vivo so in other words it sounds like something that would come out of China so using this

technique the investigators found that minoxidil can possibly react with hundreds of proteins in the protein database they then cross reference this result with a database of over 400 genes that have been associated with anagenic alopecia from this they were a ble to identify the most likely proteins that are associated with anic alopecia that minoxidil interacts with they then looked more closely at the way mon oxidal could dock with these proteins in three dimensions for example here is an image of an oxidal docking with the and receptor protein after all this computer processing the investigators concluded

that the three most likely protein targets of an oxidal were the Anin receptor and two enzymes called cyp17 A1 and cyp19a A1 cyp17 A1 is an enzyme that is involved in the synthesis of testosterone cyp19 A1 is the aromatase enzyme now I've got to be honest here Chums I don't know whether this computer analysis is legitimate or if it is all just complete [ __ ] I mean I've seen less complicated research on how to fabricate wormholes and stabilize them in order to facilitate faster than like Interstellar travel fortunately though the investigators did some actual

experiments with living tissue too instead of just trolling on their computers all day what the investigators looked at in these experiments was how minoxidil affected the gene expression of the angre receptor and of cyp17 A1 and cyp19 A1 in some cultured human dermal papilla cells the investigators found that minoxidil decreased the gene expression and synthesis of the Anin receptor minoxidil also decreased the gene expression of cyp17 A1 but minoxidil increase the gene expression of cyp1 19 A1 though for some reason the synthesis of the cyp19 A1 protein was not increased finally the investigators found that

in the dermal Papa cells treated with Minoxidil estradi levels increase and DHT levels decrease cyp19 A1 activity increase which like I said before is another name for the aromatase enzyme so the investigators concluded from these computers and in vitro studies that minoxidil might alter some hormonal Pathways in the cells and end up affecting DHT and estrogen Lev levels as well as decreasing Anin receptors those effects would theoretically benefit hair growth in people with antigenic alopecia specifically monoxido low cyp17 A1 which is involved in synthesizing testosterone and in synthesizing DHT from testosterone as well as from

the so-called backd door pathway which I talked about a few times in addition the noxid will increase cyp19 A1 enzyme activity which is the aromatase enzyme and so it increased estrogen levels finally will decrease the expression of the ancient receptor so this is all really interesting and complicated of course but it actually is not the first time someone has proposed the notion that minoxidil has an effect on androgens in fact since the mechanism of minoxidil is still unknown there have been many different theories about how it works exactly as you can see from this review

article on minoxidil there have been many proposals about the mechanism of minoxidil these mechanisms include its vasodilator effects also known as the blutu theory which we've already debunked many times in nobody takes seriously anymore but there are some other proposed mechanisms which include anti-inflammatory effects effects on the WT wind pathway and possibly anti- andrin effects like in this article we just saw however there are many things that contradict the anti- andrin theory of monoidal first of all there are studies that go against the anti- anren theory for example even though the study we just went

over showed that minoxidil could theoretically decrease testosterone and DHT levels and culture dermal Papa cells this study here shows the opposite effect in this study like in the other study minoxidil was given to cultured human dermal Papa cells this time from areas of balding and non-balding scalp in dermal Papa cells from the balding scalp minoxidil increase the enzyme 3 beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase which is an enzyme involved in testosterone synthesis and it even increase the 5 enzyme somewhat both those effects would actually increase DHD in the hair fals not decrease it like was seen in the

previous study there are also some an studies that suggest that minoxidil has no antigenic effect I won't go over them here because they're not as valuable as human data obviously but I'll put them in the description below if you're interested in reading them anyways however even putting science aside for a moment and just using pure intuition there are some logical Common Sense reasons that explain why minoxidil can have any significant anti-androgenic activity for example we know that minoxidil Works in other hair loss conditions that aren't related to androgens like telogen aium or alopecia AR drugs

that lower DHT like finasteride and dutasteride don't treat these conditions at all and that's because they are not due to an excess of DHT on the scalp so minoxidil shouldn't work either if its mechanism of actions was related to something like lowering DHT an anti-androgenic effect wouldn't explain why minoxidil works for nonandrogenic causes of hair loss also minoxidil causes increased hair growth even in people with normal hair it even stimulates body hair and beard hair growth both of which are stimul ated by androgens paradoxically enough including DHT if minoxidil were an anti-androgen it would decrease

body hair and beard growth but it doesn't it promotes hair growth in both of those regions of the body the truth is is that there is a much better explanation for monoxido hair growth stimulating effects that is much more likely than its effects on androgens inflammation the wind pathway or blute flow the reason why minoxidil works is because it has a direct effect on a specific pottassium channel that is present in the hair fogal the theory is explained very well in this paper here so you guys may remember earlier that I mentioned that minoxidil is

unique amongst blood pressure medications that it causes hair growth well to be honest that isn't completely true because there are two other obscure and rarely used blood pressure medications that cause hair growth besides B oxidal they are diazoxide and penl all three drugs work by opening a specific potassium Channel called the katp Channel opening this channel is actually what causes the Vaso Di effects of all three of these medications so I know what some of you thinking right now but given if opening the katp chadel causes phas of dilation then doesn't that prove that the

brid flu theory is actually true well the investigators ask themselves that question too if these drugs cause hair growth because the effect on the potassium Channel causes vasod dilation does that prove that the B flu theory is actually true or is it possible that this effect on the potassium Channel directly increases hair growth completely independent of the brute flu Theory well the investigators point out that while 5% topical minoxidil increases brute flu in the scalp 3% minoxidil doesn't but even 2% minoxidil is still effective in causing hair growth in fact when the drug was first

approved back in the 1980s that was the only concentration of topical minoxidil that was actually available so when minoxidil is applied at a low enough dose it doesn't actually influence blue flu at all but despite that it still works so this is yet another reason why minoxidil boot flu effect is not the cause of its effects on hair growth but most importantly like I pointed out at the very beginning of this video quote not all vasodilators stimulate hair growth so follicular responses seem more probable unquote so to resolve this the investigators did experiments with cultured

human hair foggles keep in mind that cultured human hair fogles have no blood supply at all so boef flow obviously has no effect at all in this particular environment what the investigator showed us is that the specific potassium channel that minoxidil opens which is called the sr2 channel is present in the bulb of the human hair folle since hair fals have this potassium channel that means that they can be directly influenced by a drug like minoxidil that opens up the channel next the investigator showed that minoxidil prolong the amount of time the cultured her FAL

spent in the antigen growth phase of the hair cycle you can see that in this figure here where the green squares show the highest concentration of an oxidal finally the researchers gave a drug called tolbutamide tolbutamide actually closes down the potassium channel that minoxidil opens so you can kind of think of toide as being a reverse minoxidil giving tol buide shortened the anent growth phase of the her focals and minox will reverse that effect as you can see in this figure here where the red triangles are tolbutamide as the investigators say these results are very

exciting clearly the pottassium channel plays a role in triggering the ancient growth phase of the hair cycle the investigators proposed that quote potassium ATP channels may play a role in regulating transfer of messages between the dermal papula and Matrix unquote so this is all pretty complicated research we're talking about here Chum so let me summarize what I've gone over so far I'm skeptical that minoxidil has any anti-androgenic effect for the reasons I already gave if it does have any anti-androgenic effects they must be very minor far too minor to influence hair growth one way or

the other especially given the fact that minoxidil is a general growth stimulant that works in all four forms of hair loss not just androgenic alopecia and it even promotes hair growth in regions of the body where androgens are beneficial like facial and body hair even if minoxidil causes a very small decrease in DHT levels in the hair follicles you need more than a small amount of DHT suppression if you're going to treat androgenic alopecia there are plenty of natural substances out there like mushrooms green tea Sal petto nettle root etc etc that have a small

amount of five a blocking effect but they don't do anything for hair loss because they are far far too weak secondly out of all the theories I think the effect on the potassium channel is the most likely one on how minoxidil Works since that is a mechanism that has been well validated experimentally finally for the millionth time hair growth from Min oxidal has nothing to do with blood flow the only reason why people like to say minox works by improving blood flow to the scalp is because they're [ __ ] scammers who are trying to

convince you that you could stop hair loss with scalp massages or with overpriced blood pressure cuffs that have been modified to fit the head but I hope this information is helpful to you Chums in better understanding how Min oxidal works like I said before we don't have absolute proof on how it works but it is clear that minoxidil mechanism of action has nothing to do with DHT and since DHT is the hormone that accelerates antigenic alopecia anyone who wants to stop hair loss cannot rely on Min oxidal alone for the long term out of all

the theories that have ever been proposed though the potassium Channel theory is the best one we have by far but no matter how Min oxal work Works what is most important of all is that it does work and anyone who wants to get more hair growth than what they're getting from finasteride or dutasteride alone should definitely add Min oxidal because it is still the best hair growth stimulant on the market by far okay that should do it for today thank you so much for watching hair loss witchers I'll see you all next time God bless