412: Why is My Hair Thinning? Hormones, Nutrition, & Restoration Options for Hair Loss

ELLA: 00:00:03

Welcome, you're on air with Ella, where we share simple strategies and tips for living a little better every day.

If you're interested in mindset and wellness or healthy habits and relationships, or hormone health, aging well and eating well, honestly, if you're into just living better and with more energy, then you're in the right place. We're not here for perfect. We're here for a little better every day. Let's go. Hey, you're on air with Ella. And today I AM joined by Dr. Alan Bauman.

And I am really pleased to have you here. Alan, we are talking about something we have never talked about on the show before. Please tell us before we jump in, who are you and what do you do?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:00:43

Well, Ella, thanks for having me. Yes, I'm Dr. Alan Bauman.

I'm a full time board certified hair restoration physician and I have the great pleasure of helping people maintain, enhance and restore their own living and growing hair. That's my passion, to eliminate hair loss and to provide beautiful hair for all of our patients.

We're there to fulfill the mission of protect your own and enhance your own living and growing hair. Because hair is a very emotional organ, as you probably know. And I can't believe you waited this long, you know, to talk to your audience about hair.

ELLA: 00:01:11

I mean, for many years you just think hair loss is something that happens to men, A, but then B, you start to realize that hair and hormones, like it's all tied together and every, this is an everyone issue. Everyone needs to know this. So I'm really pleased to be chatting with you about it today. I want to talk about the causes.

I want to talk about the role hormones play. I want to talk about the role nutrition plays. Any tips you have for us.

My, my goal is to keep as few of us from needing to be patients, Alan, as possible. I, I have no doubt that you are not suffering from a lack of demand.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:01:45

Well, you're, you're right about that. And, but the good news is that there's a lot of things you can do if you're noticing some hair thinning. And obviously it is pretty pervasive.

Pervasive. You know, men and women could have hair loss. It's obviously more visible in men.

So, you know, you know, if you, you can see it in men a lot more easily because it's a receding hairline or they're developing a bald spot in the crown. Maybe you had an uncle, a dad or grandfather who's dealing with hair loss or a sibling.

You know, maybe it's a significant Other, perhaps, but in women, it happens a little bit more subtly. And so there's about, let's say, 80 million Americans out there that are suffering with hair loss.

It's almost 50, 50 men to women, but it looks different. And again, this is my point, that female hair loss is very subtle to the naked eye. You get a diffuse hair loss in the frontal zone.

Typically, sometimes it recedes a little bit in the hairline, but more often you're seeing more scalp shining through, maybe in a part line, maybe you're feeling your ponytail a little bit thinner than it used to be. Maybe you can't grow as long a hair as you used to, or you're seeing excessive shedding.

Those are the common signs and symptoms that bring women to our practice.

And about 50%, almost 50% of our patients today at Baumann Medical are women who are struggling with hair thinning and hair loss, as well as some other scalp health issues.

ELLA: 00:02:56

So, yeah, I believe it. And I'm going to go out on a limb and deduce that this is hormone related.

Can you please tell me to what extent is this hormone related for men and women? And what do we need to know?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:03:09

Yeah, so hair follicles, not only a very emotional organ, but also very sensitive to hormones, as we know for sure in men. We know specifically exactly what the primary trigger, not the only trigger, but a primary trigger in men is dht, dihydrotestosterone.

And the reason why we know that so easily is because if you inhibit the production of DHT in men, you could do that pharmaceutically. You get a very powerful regrowth and certainly prevention of hair loss over time. Now, in women, it's always a little bit more complicated, isn't it?

We can see hair loss that happens around the time of childbirth, for example. That's a very, very common time where hormones are raging when you're pregnant. And of course, the day after, hormones are crashing.

And within the next month or so, you can see a lot of shedding and hair loss, as what happens is those hair follicles, some are in the growing phase, some are in the resting phase. When that ratio changes during pregnancy, everything is growing at full tilt.

But when those hormones drop back down to normal, more follicles are then in the resting phase. You can see a dramatic shed.

Now, for many women, it's just a temporary situation, but for others, it actually exacerbates or reveals this underlying tendency towards hair loss, which happens genetically, meaning that on your mom's side or your dad's side, you may notice folks who are out there who have thin hair or thinning hair or who have experienced a lot of hair loss. And so that time after childbirth.

And then of course, as you mentioned, perimenopause, menopause and postmenopausal women, that's a very, very common time where we see hair loss occurring.

The quality of the hair decreases, much times the color is degraded, and especially the volume and the quantity of hair that you have on your scalp, even the shine and the aesthetic value of hair changes, of course, as we age.

ELLA: 00:04:53

Yeah, the texture, right, for sure.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:04:55

And as it goes gray, sometimes it gets a little bit more wiry. It just seems to change with time. But there are many, many other influences, not just age and hormones.

Oh, and we, we neglected to mention the most common female hormone abnormality of childbearing age, which is PCOS or PCOS related conditions, is also related to androgen sensitivity. That's why you have acne and extra hair growth in other places and hair loss associated with that condition. So that's the younger set.

Women who are of childbearing age sometimes right after pubert, have a lot of hair loss situations there due to that pcos, polycystic ovarian syndrome. And then the childbirth era and then you've got again the menopause age as well.

ELLA: 00:05:33

When you really step back and think about it. And I hope I'm wrong about this, you tell me if I'm wrong.

But it is actually fairly unusual to see women out in the wild over a certain age with like a luxurious head of hair. It's either thin or it looks brittle or it even looks kind of fried, if you will. I'm being very indelicate, but I'm just being honest, Alan.

And when you notice an older woman with just a gorgeous, lush head of hair, it really stands out to me. Is it just me? Hey, very quick reminder. We have started 21 days of movement. If you're listening to this in real time, we just started. Come join us.

There's a private group in Instagram. There is a reel. It's pinned on my Instagram profile. It tells you everything you need to know. But 21 days of movement is happening now.

It's happening in Instagram at on air with Ella. Find me in there. Come along and join 21 days of movement.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:06:34

You know, a full luscious set of hair for an older gentleman also stands out, by the way, because, you know, 50, 50% of men 50 and over have some hair thinning that's visible to the naked eye. But the point is, is that, no, you're absolutely right. Hair does lose its aesthetic value over time. The hair color, quality, texture.

And the more you torture your hair, honestly, the hair, remember, is a hair th fiber, right? And the fiber is dead tissue, keratinized protein, much like your fingernails.

The magic that happens in terms of hair follicle function is under the skin, right? It's not what we see. What we see is the product of that, like 3D printer that's under the skin.

And you know, you're born with about 150,000 of those little bad boys up there. And their job is to produce this beautiful fiber as we continue to age and grow over time.

But as the, as the follicle diminishes in terms of its function, that's when you get a weaker, wispy or thinner hair that's also more prone to breakage and dullness and so forth.

And then you add on top of that, certainly the things that we do, which is hair color, chemicals and heat and all of the other, all of the above, that can degrade the fiber, which cannot repair on its own.

It's like if you nicked your fingernail, you cracked your fingernail, you have to wait for that fingernail to grow back before you can, you know, treat it aesthetically. Again, same thing with your hair.

And so when you see women who've colored their hair for many, many, many years, sometimes it does look a little bit damaged. And if you've over processed it, sometimes it can cause some really bad breakage. And you said fried.

You know, it can happen, but there may be hormonal effects also. You know, thyroid dysfunction can also affect the quantity and the quality of your hair as well.

So again, that's another hormone that can affect the hair follicle function. But yeah, there's a, there's a laundry list of things that can affect your hair over time.

Nutritionally, you know, caloric intake, because hair follicles are highly metabolic.

And of course, with so many weight loss programs today, pharmaceutical and non pharmaceutical, you can have some degradation of hair from that whole body. Inflammation or inflammation even directly right at the level of the scalp.

If you're itchy, flaky, you know, psoriatic or otherwise irritated or inflamed at the scalp, you can certainly degrade the hair fiber follicle function, which degrades the hair fiber production.

And, you know, so many other things, medications like antidepressant or blood pressure medication or statin drug, I mean, these are all really, really bad for hair. And even simple stuff like, you know, stress cortisol exposure is not good for hair follicle function and sleep wake cycles.

You know, if you're sleep deprived, that chrono, biologic, chronobiologic clock in the brain can also affect the clock in your hair. To turn those follicles on and off at the right time is really important. So you know a lot of things that can go wrong. Unfortunately, yeah.

ELLA: 00:09:07

Our follicles are more sensitive than I ever realized from what I'm learning, which is to say that they really respond to stress. And everything you're saying is buttressing that initial like that learning from me. But Alan, let me ask you a couple of questions.

So I'm going to assume that in most cases what we're talking about today is applicable to both men and women. And as you said, there is need here to serve both men and women in this conversation.

Will you please point out to me as we're going through some of the. So what are we going to do about it?

And tell me if they are at all gender specific because otherwise I want to attack this just at a human level, not at a gendered level until it's practically necessary. And before we do that, let me ask you this.

When we talk about our hormones impacting hair loss or hair aesthetics, what are the differences in the hormones between men and women? Is it hormonally driven for us both? I would assume it would be, but I've got no idea.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:10:06

There's a lot to unpack there, first of all. So like, let's just take the easy stuff first. Right?

So early male pattern hair loss is pretty simple and easy to understand because it's primarily hormone driven. Not to say that these other things can't affect it.

But as I mentioned earlier in our conversation, DHT dihydrotestosterone is the primary trigger for male pattern hair loss. And we know that exposure to DHT obviously happens, of course, our entire life.

Why do some men have male pattern hair loss by the time they graduate college or even before? And some men can live until they're 50 years old before they start to see a thinning or a balding spot.

And it has to do with their sensitivity to that DHT and other factors too, obviously toxin exposure, smoking, sleep, wake cycles, nutrition and inflammation, all those things.

But we know in the early stages when you're supposed to be healthy and vital and you know, you're, you're a college athlete, how come you can't grow your hair very well. We do know that in that age category, if we do attack it with something that inhibits the DHT production, we have a very strong rate of success.

I'm not saying that finasteride, which is that medication that inhibits the DHT production, I'm not saying that's appropriate for everybody, but we do know it is powerful.

ELLA: 00:11:11

Clarification question there. When you talk about dht, what is actually the elevator statement around dht?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:11:17

Actually not the absolute level of DHT that's the problem, but it's the sensitivity that you inherit. I see the dht.

So the younger guy with early male pattern baldness, he is more sensitive to the DHT than, let's say his brother, you know, who is, you know, 10 years older and has not much more hair, not much hair loss at all. And women have some DHT now, of course they have less.

But we know that this androgen and female hormone balance as we get into menopause can be a problem.

And the reason why we do know this is because a lot of women who are in menopause will choose bioidentical hormone optimization or hormone replacement.

And that might include also some bit of test testosterone, which can be absolutely healthy and required, you know, as we know, for all the great benefits for lean muscle mass and bone and brain function, sexual drive, all these different things. But we do know that too much testosterone at that age can also start to recede the hairline. You can have other testosterone effects in women.

And so women who use, for example, too much, and that's relative, but let's just say a lot of testosterone maybe or have over been over treated, let's say with pellets or things like that.

Sometimes it's very easy to get over treated if you're doing pellet hormone replacement, if you're not careful, can have some very serious androgenetic alopecia. Right. So that's what we're talking about. That's the, the male and female pattern of hair loss, androgenetic alopecia.

We can, we see that very often in our female patients and, and very often these areas, the temples may be pretty steady, meaning holding on for really their whole life. And then all of a sudden they're in menopause and they're doing hormone replacement and then all of a sudden, boom, it's receding all the way back.

And then what do we have to do? The only thing we can do is transplant that area.

ELLA: 00:12:55

Oh, so when that is the cause, then the only solution is transplant at that point?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:13:00

Well, when it's severe. Right. So there's Think about the hair follicle. Not like a light bulb on or off, but more like a dimmer switch.

And so the follicle initially is, as we all see in the youthful age of folks, it's growing a thick, strong, luscious, smooth, healthy strand of hair. And hopefully all your follicles are just doing that beautifully.

But over time, the follicle will produce a thinner, weaker, wispier hair until eventually, with each successive cycle, the length of that hair diminishes. And so, just as an example, women in the temples typically have a little bit less hair density there their whole life, maybe.

And then as the hairline looks like it's receding, what's happening is that those follicles are weakening, producing less coverage of hair in those zones. And so if the follicles are too far gone, then we got to put some back.

ELLA: 00:13:49

Okay?

And I assume that when we talk about early male pattern baldness, that at a certain point you can't, you can't supplement your way back to hair growth. So for men as well, at a certain point, transplant is going to be the only viable solution there. Is that correct?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:14:05

You're right. So nutritional supplementation are important for hair. Why is that? Well, hair follicles are highly metabolic.

And so if you want to protect the function of the hair follicle, you actually have to feed yourself. You can't be on a strict caloric deficit for too long or else your body will start shunting nutrients and fuel to the core survival organs.

And let me tell you, that ain't going to be your hair follicle, unfortunately. So we know that if you're protein deficient, you're not going to grow hair. They lose their hair because they don't have protein. Enough protein.

And, but, but it can be subtle. You could be doing a fasting regimen and all of a sudden, you know, shock the hair, essentially.

You could be on ozempic or another GLP1 agonist and be in a caloric deficit for a long period of time. Yeah, you're losing a pound or two a week. It's great. But guess what, you're losing a boatload of hair at time.

So there's ways to protect your hair during caloric deficits that will encourage the hair follicles to stay in a growing phase and still produce hair. But it can be tricky. Vegan or vegetarian diets, for example.

These strict and harsh diets often do not contain enough bioavailable protein and even vegetable protein, plant protein sounds great, but many people just, they just genetically can't absorb it or they have to take in so much of it that that it's just impossible to get the amount of protein that you need. So those are very, very often some earliest things that we see in folks that are trying to uncover in an early stage of the game what's going on.

We're taking a very holistic approach at Bauman Medical. We're looking at those lifestyle factors, your nutritional regimen.

If we need to add supplementation, we need to do collagen powder, multivitamin, even a probiotic to improve absorption. Let's get some extra biotin on board, things like that that are kind of simple and easy. Let's get into that.

ELLA: 00:15:48

Okay, I would like to go all the way out to worst case scenario, if you will, and then dial it all the way back in so that we can start talking about what we can do differently tomorrow. Hey, it's Ella. I need to jump in here to tell you about something very short term, very time sensitive that you need to know.

Hopefully you are aware by now that I am holding an event for women only, women with professional interests primarily. And this event is being held in central New Jersey. Really easy to get to on May 9th.

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I'm co hosting this with somebody else and she has a really large network. This is just for you for a very limited time because I can only do this for 20 people.

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If your company's paying, which we have materials, if you're an employee, we have materials for you to submit to your employer so that they can pay for your admission. But if you're paying out of pocket, first of all, we've priced it really, really, really reasonably. So that should not be a problem.

But just for you guys, if you want to come and you want to bring a buddy and you were like a little bit wary about coming alone, I need to tell you that's never a thing. It feels like that and then you get there and it doesn't feel like that anymore. I have so many people can tell you that that is true.

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I really want to understand like for whom transplant is the answer so that then we can put everyone else in an everyone else bucket. Does that make sense?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:19:12

Yes, absolutely.

And so, you know, first of all, that's one of the things that we try to elucidate in a consultation, by the way, an evaluation which can be done online or in the office.

But I will tell you, if you're, if you've got male pattern baldness and you've got a deep receding hairline or a bald spot that's highly visible, if it's shiny like a cue ball, you're going to need a hair transplant there.

If you have a scalp scar, if you have an injury from trauma, a car accident, God forbid, or you've had some kind of cosmetic procedure like a brow lift or something, or facelift that's left you with a scar tissue, the only way to put hair back into a scar is through a hair transplant procedure.

For our women I mentioned end stage, you know, deep receding hairline, overdosed with testosterone or whatever, or just extensive female pattern hair loss.

We do very well with those patients with hair transplantation, and even women who are born with a little bit of a higher hairline, who don't like that look, a lower hairline, typically just in general. Again, trends can change.

Just like eyebrows go from fat to thin in fashion, a lot of women will come in and request a hairline lowering procedure into an area where they never had hair. You know, it's a surgeon and a patient's judgment call whether that's appropriate or not. But it's certainly possible to do that.

So that is a common request. Female hairline restoration, eyebrow transplants, eyelash transplants, and. Yes. And anywhere else that you need hair we can transplant.

ELLA: 00:20:35

By the way, what is it, what is it about aging where you get hair everywhere you absolutely do not need it or want it in any way, and it falls out of everywhere else. Like, what's, what's up with that? That's retard.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:20:46

That's mother nature's cruel trick on both men and women.

I think men have it worse because, you know, we got to start trimming the hair inside the ears and our noses and their eyebrows start to get bushy like Groucho Marks and all that. And. And of course we' balding at the same time. We're fighting like hell to keep our hair, you know, so it sounds like.

ELLA: 00:21:03

You do it all. It sounds like the technology, I bet, is just apples and oranges to where it was 15 years ago. I bet it's a completely different industry.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:21:12

Completely.

r the old plugs back from the: 1980

ELLA: 00:21:24

The reason I wanted to go there first is I don't want to create false hope for anyone who's hoping like that. We can offer one of these sort of biohacking tips and it's going to regrow their husband's head of hair. You know what I mean?

So I wanted to go to the extreme so that we can work our way backward. Now I'd like to talk to you about the rest of us. Bucket.

I want to know what every 35 year old, every 45 year old, every 55 year old ought to be considering when they have their health. Health span. Their hairspan, did you say?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:21:54

Yeah, hairspan, Absolutely.

ELLA: 00:21:56

Hairspan in mind. And you've touched on a few. I want to dig a little deeper.

If you could speak in the most general terms, what are five things everybody should be doing or paying Attention to right now, right?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:22:09

So.

Well, the first thing you should know is that if you think you're prone to hair loss, right, you have, let's say, close biologic relatives who are losing their hair, or you've started to think you're noticing a change in your hair over time. You need to know that time equals follicles, that this is not going get better on its own.

So if you just take one message home, you know, take action, right? Don't, don't sit around and deny it and oh, yeah, it's going to get better, or I'm in this little shedding phase.

No, you really should have something evaluated because you can lose 50% of your hair without it being noticeable to the naked eye.

That's what, what it means is that the science shows you can literally take an area of your scalp, take out a huge amount of that hair, 20, 30, 45% of that hair, and it still looks about the same. But once you start to lose more than 50, the bulk, that's when it starts to look into the naked eye. So early action is critical.

So what do we do in an evaluation? How do we figure out what's the right therapy or treatment?

So we go through the lifestyle factors that we previously mentioned, and that includes, you know, your sleep, wake cycles, inflammation, what's your diet, what's your stress level, those basic types of things. What kind of medications are you on? Do you have other risk factors, hormonal factors that could be influencing your hair or hair production?

Is the scalp health both on point? Right. Is your scalp irritated, itchy, inflamed? Do you have scalp acne which is called folliculitis? Is there dandruff?

Is there something that we can see under the microscope that doesn't look healthy? We want to clear all that up first. Why? Because we know inflammation is going to be bad for the hair follicle.

And certainly if you're going to need a hair transplant, inflammation is going to be poor healing. So that's not so good. And then we talk about therapies and treatments and this is where the buckets come in.

So, so we spoke a bit about nutritional supplementation. We have a whole supplement line. There's also herbs. Right. So these are non pharmaceutical things.

ELLA: 00:23:56

Can you tell me some of the nutrients we should definitely be making an effort to pay attention to now with this in mind, for sure.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:24:04

So for women, if they're prone to anemia or protein loss, you definitely want to supplement those things. If you think that those things are on point. You've had blood work and so forth. Hormones are okay. Take a look at your B vitamin complexes.

Look at extra biotin. Get your protein collagen powder on point. We focus on the multivitamin with B complex because B complex is excellent for hair regrowth.

Biotin helps with skin and hair and nails for sure. So those are some of the basic items many people have heard about, some of the more popular advertised nutrients, and.

ELLA: 00:24:37

They'Re expensive as hell. So I'm really glad you're bringing this up.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:24:40

Yeah, some of them are very good. And I will tell you, I'll mention a few by name because we know, for example, Nutrafol, everybody's heard of it. It's been out for a decade.

They launched Neutropol 10 years ago through physician offices like mine.

And we have very good confidence in neutropol because there's some clinical published studies behind them that shows that the ingredients in neutropol, which are kind of like an herb salad, to be honest. I mean, ancient herbs, right?

Things like ashwagandha for stress, curcumin, turmeric for inflammation, saw palmetto, as we mentioned, could be a good anti androgen therapy. Collagen, that's in there as well. And a bunch of other things, too.

Those are all ingredients in your, if you will, the herb salad that attacks the hair follicle and protects it in different ways. So that's the benefit of Nutrafol. Now, is Nutrafol going to be as good as a medication? Probably not.

But if you can lower that inflammation level, if you can make yourself more resilient to stress, I mean, look, you might need extra ashwagandha than what's in Neutropol.

ELLA: 00:25:36

Let me ask you this. And I'm a vegetarian. I know it's inconvenient, it's a pain. I don't recommend it. But I am so. I am taking a vitamin B complex. I am taking biotin.

I am supplementing with kion amino acid because I don't eat meat. Then I am taking collagen, which is not vegetarian at all.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:25:56

Right, I got you.

ELLA: 00:25:57

So I am, like, going out of my way to hack this thing called life as someone who doesn't like to eat meat, but is not like waving a vegetarian flag.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:26:05

Okay, well, Ella, you're doing all. You're doing all the right things.

ELLA: 00:26:09

I don't think I eat enough protein. And you're telling me. Just one more reason. We talk about. We talk about protein ad nauseam, okay? But maybe I should take my own Advice.

Every once in a while, while I know I don't get enough protein, what I'm hearing you say is stop messing about. Like I care about muscle. So I'm already invested. But we're risking more than just slow muscle build.

We're risking our hair if we're not getting enough protein. Why?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:26:36

Well, the reason why you need protein is because hair is protein. Keratin is a protein. It's dried protein. That's what your fingernails, your hair is. The hair fiber that you see is dead, keratinized protein.

When I say dead, it means it doesn't self repair hair. The follicle under the skin is alive. The follicle is about 2 to 4 millimeters deep, depending on where it's located in the body.

It contains about a hundred thousand cells. Each one about two dozen different types of cells. So there's a lot of activity going on there.

Hair follicles are some of the most highly metabolic cell populations in your body, which makes sense. The reason why I think hair is so valuable to people, right? Because it's again, an emotional organ.

I keep coming back to that, that the reason why hair is so valuable is because it's an outward sign of not only beauty and youth, but health and vitality. Hair is important because it's an outward sign of that internal feature and function of health and wellness and vitality.

So yeah, you need protein because you got to feed those follicles.

ELLA: 00:27:35

Reason 735,002, why I need to up the ante when it comes to my protein intake. And by the way, same as everybody else listening, like we struggle, we struggle with this.

Okay, Alan, I want to hit you with like lightning round questions. I have so many questions. The only way I can think to get them out to you is to just spitfire them at you. Are you ready? Are you buckled up?

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:27:55

Go for it.

ELLA: 00:27:55

I want to get to more of what to do about it, but I still have questions on tools we can basically employ at home.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:28:02

Got it.

ELLA: 00:28:02

Myth or fact? If you pluck a gray hair, it's never growing back.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:28:06

That's a myth.

Well, if you pluck a hair many, many, many times, like you maybe have done with your eyebrows, potentially, you realize that it doesn't grow back back, that traction alopecia can occur. But if you pluck a gray hair, the chances are pretty good. It's a, it's a very.

Actually, even though it doesn't have a pigment, it's usually a very strong hair follicle. There's not too many like weak gray Hairs. You notice, they just, they, they're like, they're pretty robust, you know, I did notice.

I mean, they just, you know, you.

And if you pluck, if you want to keep plucking the grays, thinking that's going to solve your problem, your base can be plucking out all your hair eventually. So we don't have a cure for gray hair. I'm just leading into the real, probably your next question.

But there are some peptide treatments out there that hint at protecting hair follicle function and pigmentation. Copper Peptide is one of them. Copper Peptide is a non pharmaceutical product.

We have solutions, liquids that you can use on your scalp that contain peptides. You can use those at home, by the way.

And there's also treatments that can be done in the office where we literally push peptides through the moisture barrier of your skin using ultrasound. So those are treatments that we do in the office called TED transepidermal delivery. So those are two ways you asked for about home therapy.

So copper peptide and some other like zinc, thymulin and such are in the AMPM PEP grow that we have. That's something you use at home twice a day. Or as I said in office treatments with ted, they're not painful. There's no needles. You just.

We just deploy the peptides right into the scalp. That's one treatment per month for usually a series of four.

ELLA: 00:29:33

Okay. Collagen. I'm pleased to hear you recommend it because the jury is still out on collagen insofar as its effectiveness with specific conditions.

I have also read the molecules too big to be bioavailable for what you think you're consuming it for. Give me your quick take on why collagen's beneficial. And I did pick up that you said that there are several different types.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:29:59

Yeah. So I do think a collagen supplementation is important. I do like collagen as a nutritional supplement for skin and hair.

I do believe that you are getting a biologic benefit of it.

You know, I think when it comes down to like molecule size and all of this, I don't think that we know exactly what the size is in terms of absorption. And the same goes is true for the skin.

You know, sometimes it's not necessarily the size of the molecule, but you know, it's how your skin responds to it. So like, like I said before, we deliver those peptides through the skin using ultrasound.

But you know, some of those peptides actually can get through the skin without the ultrasound too. By the way, there, there are very specific Types of collagen. I'm trying to think of the name Verisol, Fortagel.

These are, these are commercial, proprietary mixtures of collagen where they've actually done the studies to show that it has an effect on skin or has an effect on hair. And the only way to really know if you're going to get a benefit from a therapy or treatment is to get a baseline measurement.

Look, some people are not responsive to over the counter minoxidil, and that's okay. They may not have the metabolic pathway to convert it to the active metabolite in the skin.

ELLA: 00:31:03

And that's the prescription that you can take for hair growth.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:31:06

Yeah, well, minoxidil is available over the counter. That's yellow Rogan pain. You don't even need a prescription for that.

ELLA: 00:31:11

Okay. I've seen people micro needle their hairline, micro needle their eyebrows.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:31:16

Effective or not, micro needling can be effective, but I'm going to put a footnote on it because remember, micro needling, if you do it correctly, there's two reasons to do micro needling. Number one, for penetration of a solution, right? Because you're making small punctures, right?

So a derma roller with a 0.5 or dermal stamp, 0.5 millimeter is probably not going to hurt you. And but on your skin or on your scalp, it's going to increase the penetration of your topical.

So that would be a reason, number one, and that you could almost do at will maybe twice a day to improve that penetration of the topical. The other reason you would want to consider derma rolling microneedling is to create micro trauma. And why would we want to traumatize the skin?

Well, micro trauma, a little bit of wounding, as we know with skin healing and skin rejuvenation, can trigger collagen production and the release of growth factors and such. Now, we're not talking about resurfacing your grandmother's antique table here, okay?

So if you're going too hard too fast, too often with your, you know, Amazon Dr. Pen or whatever, you're probably going too hard.

So my point is, is that there's a sweet spot that if you hit that little bit of micro wounding, your body will attempt to heal and rejuvenate without causing trauma to the existing hair. You'll get a boost of hair growth, which is amazing. And there's a lot of data on this in the clinical literature, which is exciting.

But too much trauma will negate all of those beneficial effects, cause a dramatic boost of inflammation, and it's going to knock out more hair than it's going to grow. So if you do it too often, too much. So there's a sweet spot there.

ELLA: 00:32:48

Yeah, that just. That makes good, good sense. Red light therapy.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:32:52

I'm a huge red light fan. I mean, in Medical School, 30 something years ago, well, they did not teach us that red light had any effect on an animal cell.

I mean, that was just not in any bio. That was not in any biology class that I ever took.

ELLA: 00:33:06

Yeah, surprise.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:33:06

I didn't know how red light affects animal cells.

But today we are very clear about that, you know, and there are a few people to basically applaud for, just for discerning all of that through clinical research and scientific study, like Dr. Michael Hamlin. So I'm a huge advocate for red light. The Bauman Turbo laser cap is the home unit. That's the premier device. It's portable rech.

It has more coverage area than 25%. 25% more coverage area than any other device on the market. And it's only five minutes per night with zero side effects.

So if you're looking for a home treatment, that's the one to get.

ELLA: 00:33:39

Yeah, I'll say that. If that is of interest to you, you've got to go to a reputable company. Please don't just get a device off of Amazon.

You're going to be wasting your money.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:33:47

I'm so glad you said that. I was going to say the same thing.

ELLA: 00:33:50

Yeah. I'm here to help, Alan. I had no idea that you carried all of these items.

So I will put in a link and I will also write every single nutrient that we talked about. So everything you guys will be summarized in the show notes. So don't worry about that. You don't need to write all of this stuff down.

I got you covered. All right. We don't have that much time left, and I definitely want to get in to some of the other therapies that you talk about.

So we talked about at home, what you can eat, what you should probably be supplementing with. We talked about how there are some tools that you can just get and use on your own.

What now occurs between that approach and the extreme of hair transplant. It sounds like we have some options on the spectrum.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:34:37

Yeah, there's. I would say there's two other kind of buckets that things fall into. One would be pharmaceutical intervention.

We had mentioned early on finasteride to inhibit DHT production in younger men and postmenopausal women. Perhaps minoxidil is the og. The original FDA approved medication for hair loss. Most people think about minoxidil as a topical.

Today we prescribe it using compounds compounded medication in a micro dose format so that we can titrate down the dose and still get that really strong boost of hair growth in a consistent dosing strategy.

ELLA: 00:35:07

So we're, we're consuming it through our mouth or it's, it's not topical anymore. Oh, okay, okay.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:35:13

It can be, you can do it. Yeah, if you don't like. But you have both. And sometimes people do both. But in general, the topicals are a little bit more haphazard.

People's lifestyle gets in the way. You got a fancy event to go to, I'm too tired tonight, blah, blah, blah.

So getting a dose of minoxidil like in the morning that covers you for the full day is not a bad way to go. And it's a very powerful hair growth treatment. It does require a prescription.

ELLA: 00:35:38

Who should you be asking for this type of prescription? Like who should you be starting this process with? Not Everybody has a Dr. Allen.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:35:45

Yes. But everybody has the Internet today. Okay, you can all go to baumanmedical.com and from your home or phone you can connect with me.

And you know, we have a prescription, prescriptions available in all 50 states.

And, and so we're, we're certainly available to treat patients from all across the country and many patients do fly in to see us from all across the world. So. But prescription medication can be powerful. It does require a doctor's prescription.

Yes, you, you should visit a board certified hair restoration physician for this. And one that measures you, not just says, oh yeah, I think it looks okay. Or one, oh yeah, I think it's getting better.

No, let's quantify and measure what's going on over time. Time so we know how well it's working.

So a board certified hair restoration physician, American Board of Hair Restoration Surgery Fellow of International Society of Hair Restoration International alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons is a great place. These are all credentials. And look for someone who's experienced, who has the knowledge and also has the tools in the toolbox.

ELLA: 00:36:42

Dr. Bauman, we will make it extremely easy to find you. You are located in Boca Raton, Florida, United States. States.

But we will put all of your links plus a summary in the show notes for this episode. Alan, thank you so much.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:36:57

It's totally my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

And all I'd like to say is if there's somebody out there with questions, you can always go to baumanmedical.com and ask a question and I will get right back to you.

But it's really a pleasure and hopefully we get a chance to answer some questions that come back from this podcast and we can revisit it in a 2.0 segment.

ELLA: 00:37:15

You bet. Thanks, Alan.

Dr. Alan Bauman: 00:37:16

My pleasure. Pleasure.

ELLA: 00:37:17

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