How to Block DHT and Beat Hair Loss

In football, the most difficult task faced by any team on offense is to block hard-charging defenders determined to tackle the player carrying the ball. A team can have quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers with abundant skills and speed, but if they do not have any linemen to block for them, that team will be guaranteed to lose every game.

For men who suddenly find themselves experiencing the symptoms of male pattern baldness, the situation is very similar to that faced by a football team whose best efforts are being undermined by a terrible offensive line. In this case, however, the role of the 11 onrushing defenders with the predatory gleam in their eyes is being played by a biochemical called dihydrotestosterone, or DHT for short.

DHT: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

Produced naturally in the body, DHT – when present in reasonable and normal amounts – is put to work by the body helping to perform various important biological tasks. But for reasons that appear to have something to do with genetics, in the bodies of many men something goes haywire, and amounts of DHT are produced that are far in excess of what the body could ever hope to use to carry out natural biological processes. When there is a lot of DHT hanging about without anything to do, it can start getting restless and surly, and before you know it, those extra DHT molecules will start wandering around looking for trouble anywhere they can find it. Unfortunately, where they usually find it is on the scalp, down in the roots of the hair follicles.

Carrying the football metaphor a little further, the hair follicles are a lot like all of those running backs and wide receivers who make their living trying to carry the ball into the end zone. Instead of carrying footballs, however, these hair follicles carry the roots of the hair, and their job is to nourish and pamper those roots to facilitate the growth of hair that is thick, healthy and strong. But when excess DHT arrives and begins filling up any empty spaces it can find inside the hair follicles, they react to the roots of the hair like a snarling linebacker zeroing in on a ball carrier trying to run down the field. DHT does whatever it can to prevent the hair follicles and hair roots from doing their job, and unfortunately it is quite good at executing its malicious intent.

Essentially, the hair follicles and the hair roots they nourish are like ball carriers with no blockers to help them, and like a running back being smashed to the earth by that snarling linebacker, they are stopped completely in their tracks by rampaging DHT performing its deadly mission. The final result of this activity by DHT is that hair growth slowly atrophies, and eventually the hair thins out in a relentless process that results in a pattern of hair loss that has come to be known as male pattern baldness – or androgenic alopecia to use the technical term.

Blocking DHT and Letting Hair Growth Run Free

DHT is a very tough opponent, without a doubt. But it can be blocked, and there are now treatments for hair loss that can do this quite effectively. One of these remedies for hair loss is a medication called minoxidil, which is sold under the moniker Rogaine. This topical application is massaged directly into the scalp, and like a powerful offensive lineman, it blocks out marauding DHT molecules and prevents them from stopping the process of hair growth.

A more powerful – and more expensive – weapon in the fight against DHT is a drug called finasteride. Available by prescription only, finasteride (Propecia) works to block DHT production by regulating the actions of an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase, which is responsible for the conversion process that takes the male hormone testosterone and alters it chemically to produce DHT. Returning to our football metaphor, 5-alpha reductase can be seen as the equivalent of the coach who orders his defensive players into the game in the first place. Stop the coach from sending his players onto the field before the game starts, and you won't even have to worry about actually blocking anyone.

The final option for those determined to stop the destructive actions of DHT are natural supplements that contain a package of ingredients that will help the body moderate DHT production, invigorate healthy follicle function, and block DHT directly if and when it shows up on the scalp. Like ten other players working together to block anyone who gets in their way as they escort a ball carrier down the field, the various ingredients in hair loss supplements each helps in its own unique way, and as such, they can be quite effective working as a team to help a body besieged by DHT find its way back to normal functioning once again.

Touchdown!

For those suffering from male pattern baldness, blocking the creation of and action of DHT is the decisive factor that will allow hair loss associated with this disorder to be stopped and eventually reversed. When a man who has been suffering from hair loss is able to look in the mirror and see new, healthy hair growing again in the places where it had apparently been lost forever, the sense of joy he experiences is likely to be very similar to that experienced by a running back or receiver who has just taken the ball through the defense and into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.