Fool-proof Techniques that Reverse Hair Loss Permanently: Genetic Testing, AI, Red Light Therapy, Copper Peptides & Other Natural Biohacks

Nick Urban [00:00:07]:
Are you a high performer secrets to unlocking the full potential of your mind, body, and spirit. We’ll learn from some of the world’s leading minds, from ancient wisdom to cutting edge tools and everything in between. This is your host, Nick Urban. Enjoy the episode. Are you concerned about hair loss and or hair graying? If so, you’re in the right place. In this episode, we’re digging into the world and science of hair restoration. We explore the factors, the myriad different root causes of these hair issues, the differences between hair loss in men and women, the biggest mistakes people make when working on restoring their hair, the role of supplements, peptides, and other designer molecules, and then the ancient Ayurvedic hair remedies to improve the look, the texture, the lusciousness, the feel, and overall hair health, then also why hair matters in general beyond the aesthetic purposes. We also touch on the future of biohacking hair, the role of chronobiological clocks and jet lag and how those impact hair follicles.

Nick Urban [00:01:41]:
Then we discuss the controversial topic, and that is the endocrine system and specifically dihydrotestosterone or DHT. And that whole category of medications that block it known as DHT inhibitors. Although our guest this week uses them in his practice and is a fan, I’ve heard enough third party testimonials and reports from close friends that I would not touch those because while they may improve your hair, blocking any of the sex hormones, including DHT, have lots of other deleterious effects, often cases permanent. And, actually, after I recorded this episode of him, I had 2 people reach out to me on Instagram serendipitously about asking what they can do from their now long term, quite unpleasant side effects of using these drugs. And even after they stopped, the side effects have persisted. So if you have issues with the sex hormones and particularly DHT, before rushing off and using a powerful inhibitor medication, I would look into,

Alan Bauman [00:03:00]:
first of

Nick Urban [00:03:01]:
all, making sure you understand your baseline, where you currently are, get multiple readings. And then after that, I’d look into some of the more natural and potential remedies and approaches that may not have long term consequences. But in general, playing with the endocrine system and inhibiting hormones and particularly sex hormones is risky, so it requires a delicate touch. But overall, regardless of your stance on DHT inhibitors and the other controversial topics, I’m sure that you’ll leave this conversation with lots of ideas and things to implement into your own routine. Our guest this week is doctor Alan Baumann. He is a board certified hair restoration physician who founded Baumann Medical in 1997. He has treated over 33,000 patients and performed more than 12,000 hair transplants and PRP procedures. As a pioneer in hair restoration, doctor Baumann has also introduced a number of new technologies and procedures into the industry.

Nick Urban [00:04:08]:
He has been recognized as the number one top hair restoration surgeon in North America by Aesthetic Everything for 7 consecutive years. He’s also been named the top hair restoration surgeon of the decade and received the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award in hair restoration. Forbes even listed him as among the 10 CEOs transforming health care in America. So suffice to say, you are in good company here. You can find the resources and show notes and time stamps and topics and everything we discuss in the show notes for this episode, which will be at mindbodypeak.com/thenumber170. And if you want to schedule a consult with our guest, simply click the link to their website in the description. I am also working on an ultimate guide to reversing hair loss and hair graying. I’ve been researching for it for a while, and it is nearing the final stages of completion.

Nick Urban [00:05:13]:
When it is ready, I will pop a link to that in the description of this as well, and I will continue to update it as I see new research and stumble upon the most effective hair biohacks. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode with doctor Alan Baumann. Doctor Baumann, welcome to the podcast.

Alan Bauman [00:05:35]:
Hey. Thank you so much for having me. Great to be with you.

Nick Urban [00:05:38]:
Today, we’re discussing a topic that I get a lot of questions about and is very important beyond just aesthetics because it translates into the way you view yourself in the world and personality and so much more, and that is all things hair. We’re gonna talk about hair loss, hair restoration, hair technologies, hair graying, and a whole lot more today.

Alan Bauman [00:06:03]:
Awesome. Well, you picked the right guest. That’s been my life’s work for over almost 30 years.

Nick Urban [00:06:08]:
What a coincidence. We’ll start off today with the unusual nonnegotiables you’ve done for your hair. Usually, I ask about your health performance and bio harmony, but because we’re discussing all things hair today, perhaps you have some tricks up your sleeve.

Alan Bauman [00:06:25]:
Well, most people say, well, you know, you’re probably not on anything. You’re you have a good head of hair. You’re not at you know, you look great. But what I what they don’t realize is that my dad had total baldness and my mom’s dad had extreme hair loss before he passed. And so from both sides of the family, I’ve always been, cognizant and basically paranoid that I was gonna lose my hair at some point. And, I I fight like hell. The bottom line is that I fight like hell every day to keep my hair. I like my hair.

Alan Bauman [00:06:53]:
When I was in college and medical school, I grew my hair long. I had I had very long hair, a ponytail in, in medical school. And so I’ve always liked my hair, and I wanted to keep it. I was just it was always a part of me. And so, the fighting like hell part includes just about every kind of, treatment known to man because I’m a bit of a hair junkie. And, but starting with first, the measurements. It’s really important if, you know, if you think you’re having hair loss or you’re at risk for hair loss to do measurements. And I’ve done measurements for many, many years over time.

Alan Bauman [00:07:22]:
And so what I have learned is that I’ve lost nearly 40% of my hair density in the crown area. And although it looks thick and full from the naked eye, I know that mathematically it’s been depleted. So I know I’m at risk. And I always wonder if I hadn’t done all of these things, you know, for for the past, let’s say, number of years, you know, almost 20 years, would I be completely bald like my dad was when he was in his thirties or forties? And, and of course, I’m in I’m in my mid fifties now. So what have I done? So, you know, I certainly have designed my own nutritional products. I try to tune my lifestyle as best as I possibly can to minimize stress and be mindful and do some meditation, exercise, you know, try to keep everything in balance so that, first of all, I can not just have the energy to take care of my patients and and be with my family and present for them, but also, you know, so I could basically maintain good metabolic function for the hair follicles which are super highly metabolic. And I’ve designed my own, line of, nutritional supplementation which includes, vitamins and minerals, includes protein peptide powders and as well as, probiotics and and things such as that. Even to the point of using, Ashwagandha as a stress adaptogen.

Nick Urban [00:08:30]:
When did you get started on all this?

Alan Bauman [00:08:33]:
So my journey into the realm of medicine, if you ask my grandmother when she was alive, she probably would have said, you know, if you ask her, like, when did Alan decide he wanted to go to medical school? She probably would have said something like the day he was born. And it was just kind of, you know, a preordained thing in in in my, in my family. You know, there were many physicians and and my dad’s a dentist. My my grandfather is a PhD. My uncle is a gastroenterologist. And, you know, it was a good thing I was, pretty good at biology and and science and and I was interested in medicine. So I did go to, originally, you know, in that path towards medicine, medical school obviously premed and all of that. But the interesting thing that happened to me when I was a teenager, even before I could drive a car, is I was introduced to the world of plastic surgery.

Alan Bauman [00:09:15]:
And this is through a friend of the family who said, well, if you’re interested in medicine, you should come and watch me operate. And I didn’t even know what plastic surgery was at that time. You know, I I said, are you operating on plastic? He’s like, no. No. No. People. And so, you know, that was an eye opening situation, obviously. He took me to the OR, threw me on some threw some scrubs.

Alan Bauman [00:09:33]:
I was standing on a little stool behind him looking over his shoulder in an in an OR, you know, sterile field. I was looking right over his shoulder watching him do these different procedures and, of course, meeting with the patients that he operated on later that afternoon in his clinic. And I had that opportunity many, many, many times over the course when I was a teenager and then again in college and medical school and even in my internship and residency programs. I always maintained close contact with him. At that moment, I didn’t know anything about hair. And it wasn’t until many years later when I was in my internship and residency program that I actually meet a hair transplant patient. I had never met one before. And I the only thing I had heard about hair transplants, and I assumed that everything was like that back in the 19 nineties, said it was pluggy and probably painful and, like, why would you ever have that done or perform that? I just didn’t, you know, I didn’t think that hair transplant was a thing.

Alan Bauman [00:10:21]:
And this patient kind of opened my eyes to a whole new world. And so it was a turning point and I didn’t know at that moment that that was gonna, you know, change my whole life forever. But what I did realize when I spoke to him is that a hair transplant could be natural. It looked undetectable to me as a physician, a cosmetic, you know, interested in cosmetic procedures and treatments. His hair looked normal, and it looked amazing. And the only way I knew that he had had a hair transplant was in his medical history. So we had a little chat about it, and he was super excited to have fooled me that his hairline had been transplanted. And, you know, we spent the next, you know, 20 minutes, half hour talking about how he chose a surgeon, the layman’s point of view, and how he had the procedure done with single follicle implantation.

Alan Bauman [00:11:01]:
And, I came away with the idea that, oh, man. This is actually, like, a viable thing. It actually looks good and, could be undetectable and was not pluggy, and he seemed to have a good experience with it. And the other thing I came away with was just like those plastic surgery patients that I was meeting in my mentor’s office, many, many, many years before is that he had a huge change of life. Like, his his whole outlook changed dramatically after he got the hair. He talked to me about his professional life, his social life, and how it made a complete 180 after the time that he grew his hair back. And so then that kind of solidified in me that this is something that, you know, is a very, very powerful, life changing procedure that could potentially be done for people. And I had teamed up with a mentor.

Alan Bauman [00:11:46]:
I did a preceptorship with him after my general surgery years at Beth Israel, Mount Sinai, Manhattan. Manhattan. This is after I went to New York Medical College. And, I basically spent the year with him learning the ins and outs of hair transplant surgery and the hair transplant practice. And then eventually opened up my practice here in Boca Raton back in 1997 when I moved down to Florida from New York.

Nick Urban [00:12:07]:
How big of an issue is hair? How many people have a desire for more hair? Like, I’ve seen some stats about the percentage of men with male pattern baldness. But in general, I think that there’s a much bigger audience for hair, all hair things than just that.

Alan Bauman [00:12:28]:
Sure. So, I mean, hair is important to a lot of people. Right? I mean, why is hair important? You certainly don’t need hair to survive. But we do know that hair is an important barometer. It’s a very strong indicator of your health and wellness and also your youth and vitality. And so evolutionarily, I think, first of all, the desire to have or maintain a good and healthy head of hair is kinda buried in our lizard brain, you know, from evolution. And the reason for that is, you know, if you’re in a prehistoric cave, right, with a with a with a campfire going, you need to make a snap judgment call about the man or woman on the opposite side of the cave, whether he or she is a good fit to propagate the species. And evolutionarily, you know, if someone is of advanced age or is not doing well physiologically, you know, their hair is suffering.

Alan Bauman [00:13:15]:
And so I think that’s why hair is kind of important, you know, just evolutionarily that with us, there’s an innate desire for us to want to keep our hair. The recent statistics are anywhere from 80 to a 100000000 Americans out there that are struggling with some kind of hair loss or thinning hair. I do believe there’s many, many, many more that are dealing with hair problems that, you know, the hair losing its aesthetic value as you mentioned. It could be color, texture, or curl. It could be hair breakage or some other, you know, dulling effect. For me, the way that we treat our hair, the way that we treat our bodies. They they say about 50,000,000 men and 30,000,000 women. But, again, I I believe that the data, is a little bit conservative on that.

Alan Bauman [00:13:54]:
And so how many people want to have a thicker, fuller, healthier hair? Well, sometimes it’s just based on their knowledge, whether they think that they could or not. You know, most people don’t realize that if they start early, they can help protect their existing hair for the long run. That, in the world of hair restoration, we often say time equals follicles. And what we mean by that is that hair hair loss, especially the genetic type, which is basically the most common type, is chronic and progressive. It gets worse with time without treatment. And so if you’re like, for me, if I was experiencing some gradual thinning and I didn’t take care of it or address it, I could’ve I would probably be much worse today than I am. Meaning that I have a big bald spot in the crown or much more deeper seated hairline, maybe looking more like my dad at a younger age. Getting on therapies and treatments and so forth today, and especially even just getting an evaluation, just getting measurements so you know what’s going on is critically important.

Alan Bauman [00:14:47]:
So just like today, we’re recommending, for patients in the world of functional medicine longevity to get a a calcium score because it’s cheap and easy. Get calcium scores so you know what’s going on at the level of your heart. You know? Cardiovascular health, critically important. Obviously, it’s a big killer. So if you can get a calcium score in an early stage, you might be able to take action on. And the same is true with a hair score. Right? So a hair check measurement a hair check measurement is really, really important so that you can know are there any changes that have been subtle that you may not even have realized that are happening to the nonpermanent areas of your scalp? And so what I mean by that is that let’s just say male pattern hair loss. It spares the hair around the sides and the back.

Alan Bauman [00:15:27]:
So those areas are permanent. They’re not gonna be affected by your body’s hormones or genetics, but the rest of the hair is at risk. You could lose the hairline. You can thin in the crown. So let’s take a measurement of the hair density and caliber at the back of the scalp. Let’s compare that to the crown, the front, the temples, and see if there’s any percentage change in time.

Nick Urban [00:15:44]:
Is that an at home thing or is that only in clinic?

Alan Bauman [00:15:47]:
So we don’t have a home device to really make that density measurement really feasible. There are microscopes that you can use, to look at the density at the level of your scalp. You know, you could buy a USB microscope essentially. But in order to get really an AI powered evaluation or assessment or even just a hair count of that area, you’ve gotta be in the office. I mean, that’s a pretty expensive tool that we have here called HairMetrix. The other thing that we do is called cross sectional bundle measurement. And that’s another sophisticated way and a very sensitive way to track your hair over time. If you have at least an inch or so of hair, you can make a 2 by 2 centimeter, marking on the scalp that’s temporary, clear all the hair out of that way, take that hair that’s in that 2 by 2 centimeter bundle and measure the cross sectional area of it.

Alan Bauman [00:16:34]:
And that’s gonna give you a combination measurement of the numbers of hairs as well as the thickness of the hairs in one fell swoop. And if you go back to that area again and again or compare that to other locations, you can make a detailed assessment as to what exactly is going on. First of all, at that moment, what’s happened so far. And then if you repeat that measurement in 90 days or 6 months or even annually, you’re gonna notice a trend.

Nick Urban [00:16:57]:
What are some of the big factors that cause hair issues, whether that’s loss or thinning or graying? Are there any, like, agreed upon list of factors that people can look at and hopefully identify if they’re having issues, which one they need the most work on? For sure.

Alan Bauman [00:17:15]:
So, I mean, the main cause of hair loss that we see in the clinic is obviously genetics. Right? Male and female pattern hair loss. So that that that kinda underlies the bulk of everything that we see. Now there are other conditions that can trigger hair loss. There’s autoimmune conditions. There’s, you know, trauma to the body, physiologically or mentally, can cause a shedding phase to occur. Decreases in your nutritional intake or absorption is going to affect that most highly metabolic cell population in your body, which are the hair follicles. I mean, literally, while we’re talking today for an hour, if you have a 150,000 hair follicles on your scalp, which is the average that you’re born with, and you have a decently full head of hair, you’re gonna actually grow a rate of about a third of a millimeter a day, which is about a half, let’s say, quarter to a half inch a month.

Alan Bauman [00:18:04]:
You’re gonna grow about 6 feet of hair total on your scalp while you’re listening to this podcast if you’re listening at real time speed, which is about an hour. So that’s a very highly metabolic, cell population that demands a lot of energy. So if you’re protein deficient, which is what, you know, hair is made of, literally, dried keratinized protein fiber. Hair fat hair, by the way, whether you see and feel on your scalp is dead like your fingernails. It doesn’t hurt when you cut it. The follicles under the skin, like your nail bed, that’s what creates the nail, and your follicle creates the hair hair fiber. To produce those fibers requires a lot of energy. So if you’re protein deficient, caloric deficient, if you’re iron deficient, your your your circulation is deficient, you’re not gonna grow good hair.

Alan Bauman [00:18:45]:
If there’s inflammation at the level of the scalp, that’s gonna interrupt the hair follicle function. Things like stress and cortisol, even though those are great survival mechanisms, obviously, overexposure to those things can shut down the hair follicle. So perceived stress, like even just daily work life issues. You know, it doesn’t have to be like, you know, you’re in danger driving down the highway. It could be just, you know, your perceived stress, your boss or whatever, your, you know, your your your spouse or your kids or whatever is stressing you out, causing you to lack sleep and other other factors has huge effects on the body. And, you know, you know as a biohacker that that that can have detrimental effects on almost all organ systems and especially the hair. Autoimmune issues can cause alopecia areata. Like, for example, you could have the body attack a small patch of hair that for men, sometimes this happens on the beard due to stressful situations or allergies.

Alan Bauman [00:19:36]:
You could have a scar. So trauma, you get hit in the head when you’re a kid, you fall off the the playground and you and you bump your head on a rock. You know, maybe you needed a stitch or 2, you’re gonna have a scar there. That’s not gonna grow hair by itself. You’re gonna need a hair transplant to fix that. Women and men get face lifts, brow lifts, things like that that invade the hair bearing areas and create scar tissue. So very often, we’re asked to to do that, to fix that. A real big problem these days we see in some of our female patients is a condition that causes scarring alopecia due to a reaction to moisturizers and sunscreens over time.

Alan Bauman [00:20:13]:
So women in their fifties sixties who have used moisturizers and sun screens containing nanoparticles like, titanium dioxide, these kinds of ingredients in some patients can cause a severe skin reaction and basically obliterate the follicles and degrade, the skin. So that’s a big problem because it’s a permanent destruction of the hair follicle, whereas male and female pattern hair loss is more of a gradual diminishment of the quality of the hair until you get to the end point.

Nick Urban [00:20:44]:
If you look at it through a different lens, how much of this would be an issue with either blood flow to the scalp or energy production in the mitochondria within hair follicles or also too much oxidative stress, too much metabolic waste accumulation that the hair follicles cannot clear effectively.

Alan Bauman [00:21:04]:
Yeah. You’re truly speaking my language because we we love to address all of those things. You know, as you continue to age, for example, beyond just male and female pattern hair loss, men and women can lose some of the hair around the sides and the back even though it was permanent forever. You know, it seemed like it’s supposed to be permanent and forever. You know, they get to be 70 years old, 80 years old, and all of a sudden, this hair starts to thin out. So is it stem cell escape? Is it some of the issues that you mentioned, oxidative stress that’s building up? Are are there some senescence cells that are just causing havoc, zombie cells in that area? Blood flow restriction, is kind of an outdated, concept. Now it’s, for me, I think it’s kind of a chicken or the egg bit of business. Right? If you don’t have good microcirculation, you’re certainly not gonna grow good hair.

Alan Bauman [00:21:47]:
You may have other symptoms. For example, men may have AD, you may have cardiovascular disease. Microcirculation is really important. And keeping the microcirculation happy, so to speak, with nitric oxide intake and things like that, or even, around the time of a hair transplant, adding, nitric oxide gel to the scalp has been very helpful for healing and for for further hair growth later on. But the interesting thing is that if you have a bare or balding area, what we’ll notice is that the amount of adipose tissue declines in that area, the circulation declines in that area. But I don’t think that that’s a, that was the trigger for the loss. I think that’s a consequence of the lack of metabolic activity in that area. And the reason why I say that is because if you transplant someone who has been bald or bare for quite a long time and then you monitor the thickness and the health of the skin, you will notice that it improves.

Alan Bauman [00:22:37]:
And so like my dad, for example, had been bald for, you know, 20, 30 years before we transplanted him. His skin was exceptionally thin. But over time, with the transplants in place, we noticed that the fat layer got thicker, that the blood flow got stronger. And so it’s almost like the follicle demands that blood flow from the local area because of its metabolic activity. It’s sending out maybe the waste products and says, hey. You know, send me another blood vessel over here, or let’s thicken this one up because I need more nutrients and fuel because I’ve got now I’ve got healthy follicles to support in that area.

Nick Urban [00:23:13]:
Speaking of those, what role do heavy metals and other toxicants have? Do those impact hair?

Alan Bauman [00:23:23]:
Yeah. So, actually, there’s a lot of toxins, that could dysregulate the hair follicle. And I would say, you know, heavy metals, of course, you know, through the body, we do a lot of, heavy metal toxicity testing in our functional medicine department. I wouldn’t say that’s a first line diagnostic for, you know, male or female pattern hair loss, but something that we’re eventually gonna get to, in those patients. Certainly, it’s a first line approach for those who are coming in specifically for functional medicine reasons. Maybe they’re looking for health and wellness or longevity or increasing their health span, lifespan, those types of things. But I think more importantly is the exposure that women and men have to chemicals that are more common at the level of the scalp. So let’s call it like for color and for curl or perms.

Alan Bauman [00:24:05]:
Those are very harsh chemicals. And we know that certain populations like African American populations, for example, who do perming starting at a very, very young age to help manage the the coarseness and the curliness of their hair, can have severe detrimental impact. That can have severe detrimental impact on the health of the scalp as well as the follicles in those specific areas. And years ago, it was called hot comb alopecia. Today, it’s called CCCA, central centrifugal sin cicatricial alopecia. The long word, but the bottom line is that it completely obliterates the follicles in those areas, and it it will continue to progress if they continue to have exposure to those harsh chemicals over time. It’s almost like a burn of the scalp, chemical burn that occurs. And so people often ask, well, hey, can I color my hair? Can I straighten my hair? And we say, yes.

Alan Bauman [00:24:56]:
It’s okay. But just be be mindful that if you if you’re are experiencing some kind of a pain while you have chemicals sitting on your scalp, that’s probably not good. You know, you’re probably doing some kind of damage and that damage is gonna, you know, build up over time. Same as with hair extensions. You know, that’s another thing. It’s not necessarily a chemical toxin, but hair extensions pull on the follicle. It creates another signal, tension or traction on the follicle which can degrade the the follicle’s health and impair its ability to grow good healthy hair. And so people who wear tight braids, hair extensions, wigs or weaves that are attached to the existing hair are often at risk for severe hair loss in those attachment locations over time.

Nick Urban [00:25:41]:
Yeah. I could think of so many, like, also endocrine disrupting chemicals and personal care products, those could pose an issue. And that’s gonna be rampant even in some of the cleaner products that if you actually look at the back label and see what the ingredients are, sometimes there’s some pretty crazy ones in there. If you look them up on EWGs, Think Dirty, or other apps like that, you can figure out the level of cleanliness. Do you think that plays an important role?

Alan Bauman [00:26:06]:
I think ingredients play a critical role, because it’s chronic exposure over time. If they’re small enough, they can pass right through the skin, obviously. A transdermal application of Minoxidil, for example, is a chemical that you’re applying to your scalp potentially twice a day. It’s getting into the system. And I’ve had patients have systemic issues, even though it’s rare, it can happen. Also, we know that chemicals can pass through the follicle itself. So seeping down into the follicle is another route of getting past the moisture barrier, which is stratum corneum. So ingredients in shampoos are critical are important.

Alan Bauman [00:26:37]:
I like to have good hair growth ingredients in a shampoo. So whether it’s caffeine, green tea, salt palmetto, And there’s a lot of newer ingredients as well that are out there that that have a little bit of data. Maybe, some ink you know, giving us some inkling that maybe it’d be helpful for the scalp, you know, whether it’s pumpkin seed or rosemary oil perhaps. You know, sometimes the hype is not worth the squeeze as I said or some something like that. So, it’s may maybe those are overhyped and the juice is not worth the squeeze on some of those. But, but there are certainly some good ingredients that are out there, to help mitigate the hair loss problem. You know, if you think about, for example, saw palmetto, it’s a potent anti androgen, and androgens are the really main trigger for male pattern hair loss. So I I want to have a a safe and, potentially effective herbal treatment inside that hair care product that it’s gonna be putting on my scalp, twice a day.

Nick Urban [00:27:30]:
And then what about medications? Are there any medications that have the cause issues with hair?

Alan Bauman [00:27:35]:
Oh, man. Well, this is pretty long. So, let’s just wipe the high points. So, most people that are in the modern age are on some kind of cholesterol medication like a statin that degrades hair quality and also can impair the moisturization at the level of the scalp through the sebum, which is the natural scalp oils. Blood pressure medications, so antihypertensives also fall into the category that’s gonna knock your hair out. Most people, once they start antihypertensive medications notice that their hair changes and may, may may change in terms of its aesthetic value. Mood modulators like antidepressants and so forth are notorious for hurting your hair over time. Hormone optimization is a big category.

Alan Bauman [00:28:15]:
Now, of course, as we may or may not have mentioned that hormone imbalance can dysregulate your hair follicles. We know that thyroid imbalance can affect your hair as well as your eyebrows. You know, in as women enter into menopause, those hormonal changes can exacerbate the hair loss situation. We know that during pregnancy, for example, women have raging hormones and that could be an, you know, one of the triggers for improved hair growth on the scalp that we see during pregnancy where more follicles are in a growing phase than normally. In men, we see hormone optimization therapy, you know, or let’s just say around midlife and onward. When they go on testosterone therapy, they might notice a correlation with an aggressive hair loss process. So if they are prone to or let’s say sensitive to the androgens in their body which is specifically DHT, dihydrotestosterone is really the main trigger for male pattern hair loss. If their testosterone levels, let’s say, have been declining a little bit, their may maybe their DHT has been declining a little bit, and then all of a sudden, you know, they’re 40 or 50 years old and then they’re going on hormone optimization treatment, They’re backing into a more, regular level of testosterone that feels good, and also, you know, works well for their body in terms of lean muscle mass and all the other great benefits that you can imagine.

Alan Bauman [00:29:30]:
They might notice that their hair loss is accelerating. They’ve got a deeper receding hairline or they’re losing hair in the crown of their scalp faster. And that’s a very, very common problem. We also see that in postmenopausal women who are on testosterone therapy. And a lot of, practitioners don’t necessarily think that testosterone is a big risk for women, but cosmetically, it can knock their hair right out if they’re super sensitive to it. It needs to be watched carefully, especially, depending on how they are applying the testosterone. I’ve seen women who have had hormone optimization with pellets, who have had, a terrible exacerbation of female pattern hair loss due to that, situation where the testosterone was spiking for months months months, and the hair loss happened all the way through the frontal frame of the face.

Nick Urban [00:30:15]:
What are the main differences in those factors for men and women? Do you see, obviously, like, some of the hormone ones are gonna be male or female dominant?

Alan Bauman [00:30:24]:
I guess the best way to kind of, you know, explain that is that, like, in men, when you see the receding hairline bending in the crown and progressive baldness, you know, we know that’s primarily genetic, and we know that DHT is the main factor. Now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at your metabolic health and all those other things that we talked about. We would do if you’re here in the office or even on a on a consultation virtually, you’re gonna have a detailed discussion with me or my team members about what your your total health picture is, not just your hair loss history in your family, what you’ve experienced and what you’re trying to accomplish, but also, you know, your those lifestyle factors, nutrition, things like that. I would say that in women, it plays a much more stronger role. Like, all those other factors are a little bit more important. And the only reason I would say that is because it seems to be that the female hair follicles are a lot more sensitive to all of those things that you just mentioned and the things that we previously discussed. Right? It’s just that there’s it just seems like they they have more of an impact. And so how do we know that? I mean that it’s not just like let’s say DHT.

Alan Bauman [00:31:25]:
Well, there’s actually some interesting clinical trial work that’s been done in postmenopausal women who’ve taken medications like finasteride, which lowers DHT, inhibits the DHT production in the body. And only about 50% of women postmenopausally had a substantial effect from doing that. And that’s far different than our male cohorts. Male cohorts on finasteride, for example, have a 90% success rate. You know, that means that 5 out of 6 are gonna stop losing hair, 2 out of 3 are gonna regrow. So why is that there’s such a discrepancy? It’s DHT is the main trigger and let’s just say gender is the same, you know, you know, male, female is the same effect. You know, why is this same treatment so much more effective in men and not as effective in women? It’s because the women have all of these other factors going on that are degrading the function of the hair follicle. There’s just much more many more things can go wrong, it seems, or the follicles are just more sensitive to those things that are happening in the body.

Nick Urban [00:32:20]:
How would you then stack rank some of the things that men and women can do to work on their hair at home? Are there any therapies or drugs or supplements or ingredients that you find either the most promising from data or from anecdotes?

Alan Bauman [00:32:39]:
Yeah. For sure. So, well, first of all, I would say that if, you know, if you’re at home and you’re listening to this and you’re wondering, oh, I think I’ve got some thinning or receding or I know somebody who’s concerned about changes in their hair quality or quantity, the first thing I would say, and this is the most important thing to do, is just get an evaluation by a board certified hair restoration physician. Get a measurement, not just a picture from across the room, please, but just get somebody to look at your scalp and count the hairs. You know, get some kind of metrics going so that you know your baseline. Because, you know, you don’t wanna wake up in, like, 2 or 3 years having tried the latest TikTok trend, rosemary oil, and be like, oh, jeez. It didn’t work. You know? What happened? Because you had so many of these other issues or that was not the effective treatment for you.

Alan Bauman [00:33:23]:
Your hair is a very strong barometer of your health and so you wanna make sure that nothing else sinister is going on and you wanna make sure that you get on the right treatments. And so, for example, one of the things that we do before we get into any kind of therapeutic regimen is we do some genetic testing. Why would we do that? Well, the genetic test can actually tell us what metabolic pathways could be influencing your hair, and it can also guide us to what treatments will work best for you. So, many times patients come in and they say this, I’ve seen this for 20 years or more. Oh, I tried Rogaine but it didn’t work for me. Well, let’s figure out first if you’re using it correctly, if you’re using it often enough, if you used it long enough to try to see the results. But if what we know now is that genetically, about 30% of folks don’t have enough enzyme activity in their scalp to convert minoxidil to minoxidil sulfate in the skin, which is the active the active metabolite. And so if you didn’t know that ahead of time, then you just wasted, you know, 6 months or a year on Rogaine, which you’re not likely to respond to.

Alan Bauman [00:34:24]:
So you could have cut that time all the way down if you had had a a genetic test.

Nick Urban [00:34:28]:
Are there any genes or snips in particular that you like to look at?

Alan Bauman [00:34:33]:
Oh, absolutely. So the SNP that the one I just mentioned is a SNP that looks at Sulfotransferase activity. So Sulfotransferase is an enzyme in the skin and in the body that converts minoxidil to minoxidil sulfate. And about like I said, about 20, 30% of folks have low or prone to low Sulfotransferase activity. And that’s why many people do not get a response from the typical over the counter Minoxidil or even some of these online cloud pharmacies. God knows if you’re even getting Minoxidil when you order it that way, but, you know, that’s a whole another story. Like, what exactly is the quality of the product you’re getting when you’re, you know, signing up online at a website? Anyway, the point is is that if you know in advance that you have low or prone to or you’re prone to have a propensity for low Sulfotransferase activity, then what you would what you would do is you would get a prescription version of minoxidil that contains a booster. And the most common booster, the one that we’ve had the most success with is tretinoin.

Alan Bauman [00:35:30]:
So, retinoic acid or tretinoin is a common skin care ingredient. And what we know now is that tretinoin ramps up your sopoletransferase activity. So if you’re thinking maybe I’ll just do a topical, it would be a good idea to get that test and also determine whether you need tretinoin or not. We know that tretinoin enhances the penetration of the minoxidil and it also increases that, sulfotransferase activity. So that would be one thing that we’d certainly wanna look at. The other thing that I look at in the SNPs are the enzymes the enzyme pathways that convert testosterone to DHT. So we know now that there’s actually 3 enzymes, but there’s 2 main ones, type 1 and type 2, 5 alpha reductase. And that’s the enzyme pathway where whereby you get you start with testosterone and you make DHT.

Alan Bauman [00:36:18]:
And we know that finasteride, as we previously discussed, knocks out or inhibits the type 2 5 alpha reductase enzyme. And the reason why it has a 90% success rate when you take it systemically is that the vast majority of DHT is produced from that type 2 enzyme. However, there are genetic variability there. There’s some genetic variability in the type 1 and type 2 activities. And so some people have a very aggressive type 1 activity. And so what would that mean? Think of it like, you’ve got the main road, the superhighway that gets you from testosterone to DHT and that’s the type 2. But then there’s also a smaller service road. Everybody’s gone around the serve on the service road.

Alan Bauman [00:37:02]:
If the main road is backed up with traffic or there’s an accident. Right? You can still get through. And so normally, type 1 is just this little service road. There’s a little squeaky bit of DHT coming through. I think the numbers are something like on the general population, let’s say with the finasteride, you get about a 70% 70 to 75% reduction in DHT when you’re on, finasteride. Now there is a medication called dutasteride, which blocks both type 1 and type 2. And if you go on that medication, again, general population, large cohort, you’re gonna get almost a 95% reduction in DHT. And that’s super helpful, obviously, to help protect the existing hair.

Alan Bauman [00:37:43]:
But a lot of folks don’t wanna go from finasteride, which has about a 2% chance of sexual side effects to dutasteride, which has about a 4 or 5% risk of sexual side effects unless they absolutely need to. But what we learned from the genetic test is that if you have a a high activity in that type 1 5 alpha reductase, that means that even with finasteride, you’re still producing quite a bit of DHT, and therefore, you might do better with the dutasteride.

Nick Urban [00:38:10]:
Okay. So you get the genetic test done. What’s the role of blood work here? Like, if you’re suspecting that there’s an issue, say, with high cortisol, chronic stress, or a deficiency of some kind, are you running blood labs at the same time to get a current snapshot of where they are?

Alan Bauman [00:38:26]:
We’ve indicated, absolutely, we will. I mean, I can’t say every single patient needs blood work. I mean, if if you have a young guy in his twenties with obvious milk pattern hair loss, he’s got a pretty clean medical history, and you trust his, you know, his his history, so to speak, in terms of what he’s saying and what he’s been through. But let’s say, you know, for women, our tolerance is very low. We get blood work and biomarkers right away and put them into our functional medicine department and and get things evaluated. Because, again, remember for women, the hair follicle dysfunction could be a sign that something else dastardly is going on, metabolically. Oh, you know, when you asked me about the other medications that that are triggering hair loss, it’s important that we cover Ozempic, the GLP 1 inhibitor, you know, GLP 1 agonists. And so the the GLP one agonists like Ozempic, Manjaro, Wegovy, those are going to create a situation in the body where there’s a decreased caloric intake, decreased desire for food, decreased absorption of nutrients and fuel, and that’s what’s gonna basically cause that rapid weight loss.

Alan Bauman [00:39:32]:
And so that’s a very, very powerful medication to make you lose weight, but, of course, as we know, the data is very clear. You’re losing muscle mass, you’re losing bone density, and guess what? You’re gonna lose a boatload of hair too at the same time. You can maintain muscle mass, and still lose weight, but you’ve gotta work at it. That requires some work. And so, you know, people are looking for a quick fix.

Nick Urban [00:39:55]:
And that’s a good factor that we didn’t even touch on that makes a lot of sense to include right now. If you are not getting enough of certain macros or total caloric needs per day or you’re over fasting, these all increase, like, the stress burden, the allostatic load in the body, and are gonna set you up for hair issues. Even if you’ve heard every influencer saying that you should be fasting 18 hours a day, 20 hours a day, one meal a day, do that 7 days a week for the rest of your life. Like, there are consequences and the body responds best to everything in cycles. If you can handle extra stress, sure. But if you’re already stressed by work and other things, it could just take a much bigger toll than it would otherwise.

Alan Bauman [00:40:38]:
Absolutely. And there’s no one size fits all for that kinda those fasting regimens.

Nick Urban [00:40:43]:
So what are some of the other things that people should consider looking into? Again, now we’ve talked about saw saw, palmetto for that’s men only. But then are there other nutrients that I know that I’ve seen, like, skin and hair formulas that have particular things in them? What are the ones that, again, have the best data behind them and also the ones that seem the most promising?

Alan Bauman [00:41:04]:
Yeah. So, unfortunately, there’s not a huge amount of data on, you know, nutritional supplementation and hair. But I think we all kinda born with the idea that, you know, biotin is helpful for skin and for hair and for nails. And there’s some data shows that the keratin production from your fingernails, which is a little bit easier to measure or years ago was easier to measure than hair which shows that biotin supplementation can help with that, and rectify some of those keratinization problems that we often see not just in hair or not just in in nails but also in hair. I would say if you’re looking for those ingredients, Saw Palmetto you mentioned, we have a lot of, patients on Saw Palmetto, who are postmenopausal women because there’s no, significant risk there. A lot of our men are taking Saupalmetto products. But I always wonder, like, you know, what what’s the source? You know? Are they getting good quality sources and things like that? One of the one of the, product lines and companies that I particularly like, and I’m not affiliated with Nutrafol in any way, shape, or form, but I do know how they started the company. I know the folks that, initiated that and and and did the research.

Alan Bauman [00:42:05]:
I also know the, they have a lot of data in the peer reviewed clinical literature for Nutrafol. And even though it’s been becoming more of, like,

Nick Urban [00:42:13]:
a consumer item because you’re seeing the ads

Alan Bauman [00:42:13]:
here and there, I do have a lot of faith that that item because you’re seeing the ads here and there, I do have a lot of faith that that the folks who started the company are still involved and still have their hand on the tiller in terms of the quality control. So just as an example, Nutrafol contains, saw palmetto. It contains, turmeric and curcumin for inflammation in the body. It contains ashwagandha as a stress adaptogen. It contains some, marine protein. So there’s there’s a lot of different components in the Nutrafol that kind of act as a as a herbal salad, if you will, a one stop shop to kinda get a, hitting the follicle on a couple of different ways at the same time, which is kinda nice. But as I mentioned earlier, you know, in our talk, I’ve got specific items in our, BalminenMD Wellness System for Hair for people who are specifically deficient in certain nutrients. And so if you’re deficient in protein, collagen, things like that, you know, let’s let’s bump that up a little bit.

Alan Bauman [00:43:08]:
Let’s throw a couple of scoops of of collagen into your coffee or tea in the morning. You know, let’s get it into the juice or whatever. And then let’s make sure you’re on a good, you know, multivitamin that contains a good b complex, zinc, and so forth. That’s gonna be very, very helpful. And a lot of these things, we also combine in our pharmaceutical treatments as well. So for example, like when we put patients on finasteride, it’s not some generic finasteride made in China or India or whatever. We’re gonna put you on a compounded medication or dosage that’s gonna contain the finasteride plus the nutritionals in there as well all in one fell swoop. And the same is true even if we do, let’s say, an oral minoxidil.

Alan Bauman [00:43:44]:
That’s another really nice pharmaceutical intervention, that also contains in our hands, we put in a couple of different nutrients into that MSM, biotin, zinc, and so forth to kinda make things work a little bit better. But other things that people can do at home, I know you’re asking about that, red light therapy is a nice treatment that they can do at home. The, you know, the laser cap is a great treatment. It’s one of the least costly treatments over time because it’s a one time investment and if you buy a good device, it has a lifetime warranty, you’ll have it forever. And that’s just 5 minutes a day. That’s non chemical, non invasive. You’re not putting anything in your body except photons. And those photons of light activate the mitochondria.

Alan Bauman [00:44:21]:
They increase the blood circulation. They decrease inflammation. And red light over time on the scalp is very helpful. I mean, that’s part of my regimen that I do every night.

Nick Urban [00:44:30]:
I like what you’re saying about the state of your hair being a an indicator of your overall level of health When you mentioned the example of turmeric and curcumin and other things like that, yes, those work on systemic body wide inflammation, and that goes to show that if you improve other parts of your physiology that sometimes that there’s no glaring issues with your head and your scalp and your hair follicles specifically, then you could start to see improvements there as well.

Alan Bauman [00:45:00]:
Oh, absolutely.

Nick Urban [00:45:02]:
You mentioned collagen peptides earlier. Do you think that has efficacy in helping hair?

Alan Bauman [00:45:08]:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, some of the proprietary collagen blends that we’ve added to the, what we call the builder, which is our nickname for the collagen protein peptide complex that we use for hair growth, has specific evidence and data on hair regrowth as well as skin and and nails and and and other parts of the body. You know? But, yeah, that there’s, I think it’s called Portagel is is like one of the, proprietary mixtures, that we use inside this triple protein complex, essential triple peptide, protein powder. And, the nice thing about that powder in particular is that it dissolves very easily. And, as I mentioned previously, easily added to your your coffee or tea or whatever beverage you like to drink in the morning, cold or warm. You know, it goes in very easily. It’s take completely tasteless.

Alan Bauman [00:45:53]:
And, you know, with each scoop, you’re getting another, you know, 15 to 20 grams, which is nice. If you feel like you’re a little caloric restricted, you’re on that diet or something like that, you know, you know, it’d be a good idea. Or if you’re if you’re on a weight loss program, maybe you should supplement with a little bit of gilder, you know, peptide as we say.

Nick Urban [00:46:10]:
Speaking of peptides, do you have thoughts on GHKCU copper peptide and or c 60? Because I find both of those to be pretty fascinating when it comes to hair, and I know there’s not as much data on them as some of the other stuff. But what have you seen or heard?

Alan Bauman [00:46:26]:
Yeah. I’m I’m a huge fan and advocate of copper tripeptide. Copper GHK has been a part of my practice since 19 nineties. We use actually copper infused wound healing kits for, all of our hair transplant patients. We actually every single patient got a copper peptide wound healing kit back in those days when we did the large incisions to harvest the hair. And, of course, we don’t do it that way anymore. The less invasive transplants require less, time for healing, much less discomfort, much, quicker healing, with today’s processes and procedures. But the copper peptide was super helpful and there was all manners and methods of getting copper onto the scalp.

Alan Bauman [00:47:03]:
There was also copper solutions that people used if they could not tolerate back in the day, topical medications like over the counter or prescription. So we still have a lot of folks that do use those copper peptide solutions. But the newest, latest and greatest way to get copper peptide into the skin is through sonopheresis. Sonopheresis is the use of ultrasonic sound waves to break up the stratum corneum, and this is done in an in office treatment, with a device called TED. TED stands for trans epidermal delivery. So it’s it’s a, you know, it’s a big tall device with a, you know, with a handheld unit. And that that metal tip, which is disposable, creates an ultrasonic sound wave that’s extremely powerful to break up the stratum corneum temporarily. And then you put up, infuse this, peptide and and growth serum into, yeah, a growth factor serum growth factor and peptide serum onto the skin.

Alan Bauman [00:47:54]:
So you prime the skin with the sonopheresis tool. You apply the serum, and then you drive it in with this acoustic pressure. And so what’s in that serum is really important for your listeners to know. Yeah. It contains a copper peptide. It also contains FGF and VEGF, which are important growth factors stimulating hair growth and angiogenesis at the level of the scalp and skin. And it also contains the thymosin Beta 4 Derivative, which is called Prohair and B4. And so that those would be my, top ones for hair regrowth.

Alan Bauman [00:48:25]:
The c sixty is interesting. I’m still waiting for a little bit more safety data on those nanoparticles. You know? You may remember that I mentioned earlier that certain nanoparticles are not so friendly to the skin, and we know that chronic exposure to for example, titanium dioxide, has wreaked some havoc in some women. So I’m just a little bit more cautious on on some of those nanoparticles maybe than other folks would be. But, you know, the the word on the street so far is that anecdotally, they haven’t seen any real big issues with the C60. It is a very interesting molecule. No question about it. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a beautiful work of mother nature’s art as we say.

Nick Urban [00:49:03]:
Yes. Do you have thoughts on using properly a derma roller to enhance delivery through the skin into

Alan Bauman [00:49:12]:
Absolutely. And I’m glad you asked about that because a derma roller or, microneedling is something that can go very, very well for a patient struggling with hair loss, but it’s also something that can go very, very wrong. And unfortunately, you know, when you’re left on your own at home with, something that creates, you know, 100 and 100 of needle punctures in your scalp, you know, you you wanna make sure that you’re doing it carefully and that you’re not creating havoc and you’re not creating too much scar tissue or wound healing. Remember we talked about hormetic stress. Hormetic stress is a signal to the body to rejuvenate and repair and to become more resilient. Well, that’s where microneedling comes into play. A derma roller kit, which I developed, it’s called the Preppy Sweet, and it can be used with topicals or by itself, has, gold plated needles, which are easier to clean, easier to sterilize, and tend to last a lot longer than the other titanium versions which you might see out there. So this is not some cheap Chinese, you know, roller.

Alan Bauman [00:50:10]:
The the Baumann MD Preppy Suite is a really nice kit. And it comes with a variety of different rollers and stamps and also different depths because everybody’s skin is different as well. So what works for one person in terms of making a nice little increase in blood flow, for the next person, they’re bleeding all over the place, and that’s just not a good thing. And you’ve seen all the crazy YouTube videos with these guys using the doctor pen or whatever, like they’re resurfacing some kitchen table, you know, creating a big bloody mess on their scalp. And I do not recommend that you do that at home. Number 1, those pens that you can purchase on Amazon, are not approved by the FDA. They leak the body fluids into the mechanism, which is a disaster. You cannot clean it.

Alan Bauman [00:50:55]:
The disposable tips, are not necessarily sterile because we don’t know where they’re coming from, China, India, whatever. Are they gas sterilized? Were they gas sterilized a decade ago, 10 days ago, 10 months ago? How long does it last? Nobody really knows if those are actually even truly sterilized. So why would you wanna buy, like, an Amazon or eBay microneedling device and use that on your head? That’s crazy. I find that a lot of patients have come in come to me, and they say, yeah. I’m doing microneedling. It seemed to work in the beginning for the first couple of months, and now my hair has gotten much worse. Well, they probably overdid that hormetic stress big time, and they just didn’t realize it. So if they didn’t measure it, they didn’t know, and they just kept on doing the damage and the damage and the damage was done.

Alan Bauman [00:51:37]:
Too bad. And that’s not a good thing. You don’t wanna create scar tissue. Remember, scar tissue is the enemy of hair. That’s the endpoint that we wanna avoid. And so if you’re creating scar tissue, you know, that’s excessive collagen production, you’re gonna decrease blood flow and it’s gonna be a big disaster. So, you know, this is one of the DIY segments that I would say use caution. And just because there’s some YouTuber doing it, you know, creating big bloody mess up there, I would say, you know, woah.

Alan Bauman [00:52:04]:
Be careful on that. You know? You don’t wanna be doing that at home. So not without some guidance, you know, not without sterilizing your equipment, not without tossing it out after 3 or 4 months. I mean, you don’t wanna be using the same derma roller for a year. You know? I mean, that’s that’s insane. There’s no way those needles are still sharp enough to, to do what they need to do. So that’s my that’s my spiel on, on on dermarolling and microneedling, but I do love a good microneedling treatment in conjunction with platelet rich plasma. So when we do our treatments in the office with regenerative medicine, we can apply PRP, platelet rich plasma, using a ring block which numbs the skin just like we do in a hair transplant.

Alan Bauman [00:52:45]:
We can inject that PRP right at the level of the follicle where it’s gonna have a great effect. And we’re gonna trigger its release, those platelet the platelet release of the growth factors and and the other, important components by doing microneedling and also injecting some calcium chloride into the skin at the same time. And, today you can also do microneedling with exosomes which is the, you know, the rising star in stem cell therapy. You can apply those topically.

Nick Urban [00:53:08]:
Have you come across or heard anything about some of the traditional remedies, like the Ayurvedic coconut oil in the hair, like, letting it soak for a while. So oh, soaks the right word. But, like, using a an oil like that to help the hair and potentially make it rejuvenated and have other, like, hydrating other properties?

Alan Bauman [00:53:32]:
Here’s the thing. There are many cultures in the world that use oils specifically on the scalp, African content continent, Asian continent. Oiling is very, very common and typical. You know, when I traveled to India, I was in Delhi last year for a conference. I got an oil treatment for the scalp, and it felt amazing. Right? Was it therapeutic or not? I I couldn’t tell. Are there ingredients that could potentially have a therapeutic effect on the follicle that we just don’t know about today? Yeah, maybe. I mean, you know, we talk about TikTok trends and social media and and rosemary oil is the one that’s making the rounds.

Alan Bauman [00:54:08]:
I mean, there’s one small, underpowered, really weak scientific study that talks about rosemary oil. And all of a sudden, everybody thinks it’s the latest, greatest thing since sliced bread. And, in the clinic, it really doesn’t hold water. Like, we haven’t been able to measure any improvements from folks that are using rosemary oil. So, you know, regardless of what the photos look like on your latest, Instagram coconut oil, rosemary oil, pumpkin seed oil, I mean, these things may have a a beneficial effect for some folks, but maybe not others. And we just have to figure out, you know, what really works. I’m not opposed to natural treatments. Of course, we use them.

Alan Bauman [00:54:43]:
The most ancient Ayurvedic herb is ashwagandha. And I’ve taken it personally. I know what it does in our patients. I know how, you know, it’s helped my wife travel on airplanes. I mean, I I get it. I know that it works. It makes our body more resilient to stress. And that’s one of the most ancient, you know, far eastern herbs that exists on the planet.

Alan Bauman [00:55:02]:
Right? The, fo tea, which is basically like it is literally like almost like a tea. It’s darker from from China. They use for, for hair growth and for repigmentation. Now whether they’re soaking their hair in that tea and it’s making the white look more dark, I’m not so sure. But, you know, maybe there’s something to it and we just have to look a little bit more closely and we have to have good scientists to design good studies to figure this out. The main problem is that these cheap readily available herbs are not gonna earn big pharma any money.

Nick Urban [00:55:32]:
No one’s gonna run the studies.

Alan Bauman [00:55:34]:
No one’s gonna invest, you know, tens of 1,000,000 of dollars into a double blind randomized clinical trial, multicenter trial, you know, on rosemary oil because big pharma is not gonna be able to benefit from that.

Nick Urban [00:55:45]:
And I don’t see much harm to a lot of these things like rosemary oil done properly, not used in excess to go alongside with other things. Perhaps they can potentiate them, obviously, make sure there’s no interactions, check with your primary health care practitioner first. The other way issue with these is most of the times when they become popular, the people showing them on TikTok haven’t read the Ayurvedic or traditional Chinese texts. They don’t know how it’s used, the duration, constituents. They don’t know any of the actual protocol. So it’s, like, how do you even know that you’re doing anything remotely close to what they were doing? I have a couple more questions for you before we wrap this one up. Of course. And the first one is gonna be a rapid fire yay or nay to several different things I’ve come across in my own research for this.

Nick Urban [00:56:34]:
The practice first of all, the practice of massaging the scalp for hair.

Alan Bauman [00:56:39]:
Massage feels great. We do scalp treatments in the office that are therapeutic. We say do good, feel good. If you’re stressed out and the scalp massage is helping you, if the scalp makeover is also applying some kind of therapeutic protocol to your scalp at the same time, then it’s a yay.

Nick Urban [00:56:56]:
Fish oil and or odd chain lipids like c 15 or fatty 15, those types of things for the the hair and scalp.

Alan Bauman [00:57:05]:
Yeah. I’m a huge advocate for c 15. You know, I think that their science is amazing. I mean, every week, I get a new something in my inbox about the research that they’re doing. I know Eric personally. Met him here at at Great Team where we take care of our military vets, and I think that there’s huge benefits health wise. How much of that is related to hair? Difficult to say. We’ve gotta do some detailed studies on that.

Alan Bauman [00:57:29]:
You know, lipids are kind of important if you think about the moisturization of the hair. So if we just take a big step back, you know, sometimes part of the problems with, for example, statin medications is that it basically dries you out. Right? I mean, that’s the idea of it. And even Accutane for acne, right, can mess up your hair. Why does that happen? Well, sometimes when I when I feel like when those patients are on a statin medication or have been taking Accutane or something like that, their scalp is excessively dry and the sebaceous glands are basically miniaturizing faster than the follicles are. And that can cause some havoc. There’s a symbiotic relationship between that oil gland that the sebocytes or the sebaceous glands and the hair follicle. They’re paired together.

Alan Bauman [00:58:10]:
And so it’s really, really important to know that the oil that your scalp produces is there for a reason. Not only does it support the microbiome in a healthy way, and there’s a specific microbiome that’s good for healthy hair growth and scalp. And we’re doing a lot of research on that here in Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and elsewhere around the world it’s being researched. But even just even more simple than that, sebum is your mother nature’s conditioner. And so if you don’t shampoo your hair and you have long enough hair, you can distribute that sebum by brushing your hair and your hair will look shinier. It wasn’t the brush that did that. It was the distribution of the sebum. So if you lack sebum, let’s say you you something is dysregulated in your lipid metabolism or production, at the level of sebaceous gland, then it could be impairing the aesthetic value of your hair by limiting the moisturization of the hair fiber, which is important, you know, to not let it get tangled and so forth, and then also disregulating the microbiome at the level of the scalp.

Nick Urban [00:59:11]:
Related to that, addressing the gut microbiome and or using synbiotics, prebiotics with post or probiotics?

Alan Bauman [00:59:20]:
Yeah. So, I think using probiotics are are important. You know, there is some research, you know, coming out now that maybe supplementing, probiotics may not necessarily be so good at sending a signal that, you know, they don’t need to reproduce or something like that. You know, we want the body to produce its own, and so forth. So, you know, there’s probably a delicate dance and and the pendulum will swing this way and that. But that having been said, we know that decreasing whole body inflammation and, improving our overall mood is something that our microbiome is certainly in charge of. And so and even absorption of, the biomaterials that we’re digesting. You know, keeping a healthy microbiome in our gut is important for all of that, you know, second brain type of thing.

Alan Bauman [01:00:03]:
And then the microbiome on the scalp is a whole another set of, issues because if the microbiome on the scalp is dysregulated, you get an overgrowth of fungus like malaesthesia, for example, then you’re going to get dandruff. You’re gonna get irritation. You’re gonna get inflammation. Seborrheic dermatitis is basically a big microbiome dysregulation of all that. So seborrheic dermatitis is, like, you know, a big, big problem. An itchy scalp is so prevalent. First of all, do you know what the most popular shampoo in the world is? No. Head and shoulders.

Alan Bauman [01:00:35]:
Uh-huh. Why is that? It’s because nearly every single person on the planet at some point, and they’re like, and maybe 50% of all people at one point in time are gonna be, dealing with some itchy flaky scalp, you know, going on. And so what’s going on there? Is it is it we’re shampooing too much or too little or the wrong products, strong products, weak enough weaker products? Is there something else that’s dysregulating the the sebum that we just previously said? Who knows? I don’t know that answer. But what I do know is that they sell about a 110 of those bottles every minute.

Nick Urban [01:01:05]:
Wow. Alright. Last one. Ginseng.

Alan Bauman [01:01:10]:
Does it have an effect on hair? I’m not so sure. I’d have to do a bit of research. So, you know, without without more information, I was saying nay. Although, you know?

Nick Urban [01:01:20]:
I read one study that the ginsenosides inside ginseng can potentially stimulate hair follicles. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I guess we need more research, like like always, but that’s one area that might be cool to explore. Well, that could start a whole another rabbit hole, but we are out of time, and I wanna give you the floor. If people made it this far, what would you like them to leave here with?

Alan Bauman [01:01:45]:
Yeah. I guess the most important thing, that people should know is a take home message aside from all the noninvasive therapies that we discussed, but that today, hair transplantation is a viable option. If the follicle is dead and gone and you haven’t had the chance to protect it, don’t lose hope out there. We can use minimally invasive hair transplant procedures called FUE, follicular unit extraction, to restore the more permanent and lasting hair follicles from the sides and the back of the scalp in a very comfortable way under local anesthetic into the front or wherever the crown, thinning or the balding area. For men and women, we’ve done over 13,000 hair transplants here at Bowland Medical. So that’s a permanent restoration, if you will, of your own living and growing hair that’s gonna look completely normal and natural. Of course, you gotta go through about 6 or 8 days of a healing process, but you could be back in the gym in just 3 or 4 days, you know, under a baseball cap. And then couple months later, the hairs are gonna start to grow in, and they’ll be there living and growing permanently.

Alan Bauman [01:02:40]:
And then we’ll protect the rest of the hair using all those great modalities that we just talked about here in this podcast. But I guess, in the last take home thing, we said previously that time equals follicles. So if you’re starting to think that maybe you’re at risk for hair loss, if you’re noticing some of the signs and symptoms, if your hair in some way is losing its aesthetic value, if you’re noticing it’s just not the same, and someone once said just recently, I want my glory back. You know? That has to do with your hair. You’re looking at yourself, and my hair is not the same as it was. Well, let’s try let’s chat about it. You know? We can connect, from your home or phone right at the website at baumanmedical.com. You can just ask a question.

Alan Bauman [01:03:17]:
You go to baumanmedical.com/ask. Ask 1, you know, a one sentence question, and I’ll get back to you. Obviously, if you want a more detailed evaluation, we can do that through video conferencing, like we’re here talking, on the podcast today, with Nick. We can also, have you here in the office and do a more detailed analysis and evaluation of the density and hair caliber using AI powered microscopes and figure out the right personalized precision plan for you. And that’s really the key to the whole thing. It’s just, you know, find the right practitioner, board certified hair restoration. ABHRS is one of the you know, that’s the American Board of Hair Restoration Surgery. IAHRS, International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons, and, of course, fellow of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery.

Alan Bauman [01:04:02]:
So those are the credentials you wanna look for, in your hair doctor, you know. And your hair doctor is probably not your dermatologist, probably not the MediSpa down the block. You know, you may need to find someone and connect with them from a distance in order to get the right information to you.

Nick Urban [01:04:17]:
Perfect. Well, doctor Baumann, thank you for joining in the podcast. It’s been a pleasure hosting you and chatting all things hair.

Alan Bauman [01:04:24]:
Nick, great to talk to you today, and, let’s reconnect soon. If you get any questions from this podcast, I’m happy to come back on or do an IG live with you or whatever you like to do. We can certainly get the answers out to your, to your, listeners and followers.

Nick Urban [01:04:39]:
Absolutely. And I’ll put a link to everything we’ve discussed, the ways to get a hold of doctor Baumann in the show notes for this episode. And until next week, be an outlier. Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Head over to Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating. Every review helps me bring you thought provoking guests. As always, you can find the show notes for this one at mindbodypeak.com/andthenthenumberoftheepisode. There, you can also chat with other peak performers or connect with me directly.

Nick Urban [01:05:21]:
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