Best Antiandrogen

[Bryan]

The only study I've ever seen that tested topical CA found no effect at all on sebum output.

There are several studies indexed on pubmed showing that topical CA reduces acne lesions.

Which may or may not be related to reducing sebum production.

Not all of these studies measured sebum levels. Here's one that did: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...nel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum Perhaps the vehicle is important.

But they don't say anything in that abstract about measuring sebum levels after topical application of cyproterone acetate! Just oral administration.

I also have a small problem with the fact that their study was with women exclusively. Several times I've cited Kligman's early study that found that giving external androgens to men had no effect on their sebum production, whereas it had a variable effect on women. His tentative explanation for that was that in men, their sebum production is already "maxed-out", so further androgenic stumulation doesn't cause any more sebum production (but it can do that in women). If that theory is correct, it may also take a more potent ANTI-androgenic effect in men to force their glands to make measurably less sebum.

As I pointed out on another site, I don't think there's even a SINGLE "study" (something published in a medical journal) that ever made such a claim. That odd statement about a "regression" with RU58841 apparently is just something written in some book, it's not something that Hideo Uno or any other researcher ever wrote about in an RU58841 study.

It's a small world. Yeah, you replied to my post (as Chris) on HLH with the same reference to Uno (1996).

Hey, Chris! So that's YOU!

I won't copy and paste my HLH reply here, but take another look at that thread if you get a chance. I'll try to clear up a few things for you here. Chang (2002), summarizing several RU studies, including Uno (1996b) and Obana, observed that early gains seen on RU treatment merely maintained or actually reversed in some cases after one year. I agree that his observations are hard to reconcile with Uno's. I'm inclined to value Chang's report over Uno's because (1) it was more recent than Uno's; (2) it's extremely unlikely that Chang misread Uno's or Obana's findings re Ru effects beyond one year -- especially since Chang actually worked with Uno AND Obana on RU58841 in 1997!! I included a reference to their joint work on RU58841 on HLH.

Yeah, I read your reply on HLH, I just didn't have any particular urge to say any more about it. Personally, I'm inclined to value Uno's report over Chang's. I think Chang went a bit off the deep end in all this, with this talk about "regression".

By the way, both Chang's (2002) and Uno's (1996) findings were published as books. Not sure why you're hung-up on format. And both are research scientists at reasonably well-regarded American universities.

Uno's quotation that I provided from that book was literally the first one I found when I went to search through my Study Stack. I can assure you that I have other studies of his (from medical journals), and NONE of them say or even hint that there is any "regression" of RU58841's effects after a short period of time. I'm going to attribute Chang's odd remark as just something unique to him, not the other RU58841 researchers.

 

[but What about Today]

Where does it say RU558841 is unstable? and has to be kept away from light and in a freezer? I wonder if its something people came up with on their own.

 

[Jonathan Strange]

Hey Bryan,

Is it just me, or were both of our last messages cut off at the right margin?

You're right about the CA study. I had bookmarked that study as showing "topical CA decreases sebum and acne". Here's a link to a report that references a study (ref #18) on page 2621 re CA sebum reduction. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=2218699&blobtype=pdf BTW, I still think that should be the take-home from the study I posted before, but you're right that they didn't bother to measure sebum after topical administration. They assume, like I do, that since CA is not a keratolytic, it works by reducing sebum. Not sure how else it would work.

Re Chang vs. Uno. It was hard to understand your take on the discrepancy because the forum cut off the right margin of your text. I'll assume you prefer Uno's 1996 findings to Chang's 2002 findings. I'd be glad if your preference is sound BTW; RU is tempting to try.

 

[Bryan]

Where does it say RU558841 is unstable? and has to be kept away from light and in a freezer?

Nowhere that I'm aware of, and I've read almost all of the RU58841 studies and articles.

I wonder if its something people came up with on their own.

It is.

 

[Rework24]

Hi Jonathan Strange,

Rework,

I currently use Genhair's flutamide (at 4 months) and have seen reduced hair loss. I'm curious; how long were you on Sinere's Flutagel? How long were you on Genhair's flutamide?

I was on flutagel for 5 months. I was unable to re-order so switched genhairs 'Genhair Minoxidil 5% with G.A.F.F' and I got 6 months worth of stuff. As I entered month 5, it became evident that I was going backwards again. Several of my friends started passing comments about how thin my hair looked
'thinner than jewish bacon' was a popular one.
After begging sinere to make me some flutagel I decided to switch to spironolactone and I intend to monitor the situation of the next 6 months.

 

[Bryan]

Hey Bryan,

Is it just me, or were both of our last messages cut off at the right margin?

Nope, neither one of our messages was cut off for _me_. It expanded the WIDTH of the page when you posted that big-*** link, but as usual when that happens, it also introduced a scroll-bar at the bottom of the page. I had to scroll to the right to see the hidden parts of the messages. Didn't YOU get a scroll-bar??

You're right about the CA study. I had bookmarked that study as showing "topical CA decreases sebum and acne". Here's a link to a report that references a study (ref #18) on page 2621 re CA sebum reduction.

Wonderful. Dontcha just LOVE these conflicting studies?

Re Chang vs. Uno. It was hard to understand your take on the discrepancy because the forum cut off the right margin of your text. I'll assume you prefer Uno's 1996 findings to Chang's 2002 findings. I'd be glad if your preference is sound BTW; RU is tempting to try.

Exactly. I just said that I prefer Uno to Chang. Here's a copy/paste (in bold) of what I said in my previous post, and I hope it doesn't get cut off for you this time:

Yeah, I read your reply on HLH, I just didn't have any particular urge to say any more about it. Personally, I'm inclined to value Uno's report over Chang's. I think Chang went a bit off the deep end in all this, with this talk about "regression".

Uno's quotation that I provided from that book was literally the first one I found when I went to search through my Study Stack. I can assure you that I have other studies of his (from medical journals), and NONE of them say or even hint that there is any "regression" of RU58841's effects after a short period of time. I'm going to attribute Chang's odd remark as just something unique to him, not the other RU58841 researchers.

 

[Jonathan Strange]

Hey Bryan,

Is it just me, or were both of our last messages cut off at the right margin?

Nope, neither one of our messages was cut off for _me_. It expanded the WIDTH of the page when you posted that big-*** link, but as usual when that happens, it also introduced a scroll-bar at the bottom of the page. I had to scroll to the right to see the hidden parts of the messages. Didn't YOU get a scroll-bar??

No scroll bar for me. :sobbing: I loaded up both Explorer and Google's browser to check if that made a difference. I use Vista 64. It can be picky about website animation/cookies, but I didn't even get a pop-up warning. Frustrating.

Wonderful. Dontcha just LOVE these conflicting studies?

I looked at this issue a little more last night. The preponderance of the studies measuring sebum secretion after topical CA administration found no effect. Still, I'm not sure on what basis we can dismiss the studies that did find an effect. Possibly the vehicle is crucial ...

Similarly, I still don't know how Chang/Uno/Obana's findings re long-term RU usage can be squared. BTW -- are you aware of any super long term RU studies? Like, up to 2 years or longer?

 

[Bryan]

No scroll bar for me. :sobbing: I loaded up both Explorer and Google's browser to check if that made a difference. I use Vista 64. It can be picky about website animation/cookies, but I didn't even get a pop-up warning. Frustrating.

Why don't you PM Admin and tell him that something in the display is working screwy for you? Give him all the details...

I looked at this issue a little more last night. The preponderance of the studies measuring sebum secretion after topical CA administration found no effect. Still, I'm not sure on what basis we can dismiss the studies that did find an effect. Possibly the vehicle is crucial ...

That study you cited seemed to be saying that they just used a simple alcohol vehicle. I believe that's the same thing that mine used (the one that found no effect on sebum).

Similarly, I still don't know how Chang/Uno/Obana's findings re long-term RU usage can be squared. BTW -- are you aware of any super long term RU studies? Like, up to 2 years or longer?

Not that I recall. I think the 17 months (?) I quoted before is the longest I've seen.

 

[treadstone]

How would topical finasteride compare to topical spironolactone?

 

[CCS]

How would topical finasteride compare to topical spironolactone?

two completely different types of drugs. Maybe use them together for synergistic effect.

 

[but What about Today]

About ru58841, you think hairs become become RU dependent, like minoxidil hairs do?

 

[CCS]

hairs don't become dependent on either drug. When you stop using them, you lose what you gained, and end up where you would have been without them.

 

[but What about Today]

hairs don't become dependent on either drug. When you stop using them, you lose what you gained, and end up where you would have been without them.

Are you sure, there's women who have no DHT problems and wont use rogain in fear of having hairs be dependent on the minoxidil.

 

[Jonathan Strange]

hairs don't become dependent on either drug. When you stop using them, you lose what you gained, and end up where you would have been without them.

Are you sure, there's women who have no DHT problems and wont use rogain in fear of having hairs be dependent on the minoxidil.

Bryan, if you're following this thread, can you chime in on this? Is it true that, after quitting minoxidil, you can lose MORE hair than you would have lost over the same period of time if you had never used it? In other words, can discontinuation of minoxidil cause greater than 'normal' hair loss? I've seen this theory bandied about quite a bit. Is there any support for it? (I seem to think you've argued against it, but can't find the post.)

It concerns me a bit because I started taking minoxidil yeeears ago. Would love to wean myself off it because I don't think it's doing me much good anymore.

 

[Bryan]

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/quitting-minoxidil.htm[/url]

When they quit using Rogaine after 96 weeks, their haircounts and hairweights dropped rather precipitously immediately afterwards, but then they eventually rebounded back to "normal" (the level of the placebo group) after that.

It concerns me a bit because I started taking minoxidil yeeears ago. Would love to wean myself off it because I don't think it's doing me much good anymore.

Try dropping it, and see what happens. It _may_ turn out that it's doing you more good than you think it is.

 

[CCS]

hairs don't become dependent on either drug. When you stop using them, you lose what you gained, and end up where you would have been without them.

Are you sure, there's women who have no DHT problems and wont use rogain in fear of having hairs be dependent on the minoxidil.

Who cares if some people are afraid? Does that prove anything? Base your views off the studies, not individual people's guesses and fears.

 

[Jonathan Strange]

Sure. Look at the following graphs from Vera Price's 1999 topical minoxidil study:

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/quitting-minoxidil.htm

When they quit using Rogaine after 96 weeks, their haircounts and hairweights dropped rather precipitously immediately afterwards, but then they eventually rebounded back to "normal" (the level of the placebo group) after that.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. BTW, do you know if the subjects in this study were taking anything else (e.g., finasteride) to treat hair loss? I assume the subjects were suffering from Androgenetic Alopecia. If they were, it's strange that the untreated group saw a more or less consistent increase in hair counts over the course of 120 weeks--that's 2.5 years! (I noticed that hair weight declined slightly over the same period. Perhaps the researchers counted miniaturized hair?)

It concerns me a bit because I started taking minoxidil yeeears ago. Would love to wean myself off it because I don't think it's doing me much good anymore.

Try dropping it, and see what happens. It _may_ turn out that it's doing you more good than you think it is.

I'm going to postpone dropping minoxidil. I'm making some other changes to my regimen (looking for a replacement for topical flut, which has helped but has definitely produced side effects) and I don't want to have too many moving parts at once.

BTW, one more question re minoxidil generally: Do you think it's possible that minoxidil-dependent hairs can become minoxidil-independent as a result of AA treatment? I wonder if Price would have noticed the same decrease in hair counts following minoxidil stoppage if the subjects were also taking finasteride (or anything else that might arrest the fundamental androgenetic side of Androgenetic Alopecia).

 

[Bryan]

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for. BTW, do you know if the subjects in this study were taking anything else (e.g., finasteride) to treat hair loss? I assume the subjects were suffering from Androgenetic Alopecia.

No, heavens no. They wouldn't allow any test-subjects in a study like that who were using anything else to treat their hairloss. Yes, they were suffering from Androgenetic Alopecia.

If they were, it's strange that the untreated group saw a more or less consistent increase in hair counts over the course of 120 weeks--that's 2.5 years! (I noticed that hair weight declined slightly over the same period. Perhaps the researchers counted miniaturized hair?)

Yeah, the so-called "placebo effect" (it even occurred in the "no-treatment" group) has been noticed before in studies like that. Dr. Price mentioned it in the text of the study, although she had no explanation for it. One theory I've seen mentioned as a possible explanation is that the people who do the haircounts in such studies get better and better at it (better able to notice really fine hairs), so the actual counts themselves gradually get higher as time goes by, even if there isn't any real change in the number of hairs.

BTW, one more question re minoxidil generally: Do you think it's possible that minoxidil-dependent hairs can become minoxidil-independent as a result of AA treatment? I wonder if Price would have noticed the same decrease in hair counts following minoxidil stoppage if the subjects were also taking finasteride (or anything else that might arrest the fundamental androgenetic side of Androgenetic Alopecia).

It's been widely reported that finasteride alone usually can't maintain minoxidil-grown hairs (there was even a case history of that phenomenon reported in a medical journal a while back), so it seems likely that the same thing would have occurred, even if the test subjects had been using finasteride along with the minoxidil.