Hair Loss Revisited
A decade ago (2016) after discovering some solutions to problems like thyroid disease, weight loss, hair loss, and cancer (a functional cure, not THE cure for the Warburg Effect I discovered in 2023), I began getting lots of requests for help from people on the internet, so much that it was taking up too much of my time and so started this website, which I later compiled into the first version of my book Fuck Portion Control throughout 2016-2017 and first published in 2018. One of the major subjects covered in that first version of FPC was explaining my understanding of why my hair loss had reversed over those early years of my recovery, but since it has been ten years since that original writing I thought I would do a review and deeper explanation of everything related to hair loss now that my understanding of human biology and health is so much greater.
This image was the original banner on my facebook page for FPC, which I deleted due to their discriminatory practices against LGBTQ+ people, support and enabling of genocide, and data-selling/harvesting.
One important thing people don’t understand about all this work I do, however, is that I DID NOT WANT TO BE DOING THIS. My life goals were to write and direct film or video games, and never once did I desire to have my dreams and aspirations derailed by debilitating metabolic illness, so like most people I would usually delete photos that showed my worsening health problems and receding hair line, instead of having “before and after” pictures. The one bad picture above, at the worst of my health problems, was taken by a friend and posted to their social media page, so it was still around to use when I started needing them. As I frequently write in my work, we do not actually have control over fate and destiny, and no matter how much we desire it life does not work that way and we are not Gods whom can will others to do what we want or hair to magically return, and after my life fell apart in 2015 and my subsequent recovery it became clear that my life purpose was not the fulfillment of my own personal aspirations, but to use my considerable intellectual resources to help others and unstick biological scientific research from the quagmire of myopathic prejudices and profit motives.
While early hair loss was a significant symptom of my physical decline it was also not a concern to me. My ex boyfriend was the person who got me on finasteride, due to his own narcissistic embarrassment over hair loss, something I had not even considered and what then catalyzed the greatest implosion of my wellbeing to date. It was not for lack of vanity that I cared so little about hair loss, but instead that there were so many other health problems like suicidal depression, chronic insomnia, early erectile dysfunction, and volatile relationships which predominated my entire adult life that were more concerning. I would have willingly given every last hair on my head in exchange for relief of depression or insomnia, but unfortunately the same fundamental causes of those problems also cause hair loss, perturbations of the pathways which produce endogenous niacin (the kynurenine pathway as discussed in the chapters on hair loss and niacin therapy), and chronic stress from unresolved experiences of trauma and absence of effective life skills as discussed in The Perfect Child and Under a Libra God, my second and third book (all the ebook versions of these are donation based, so you have no excuse for not reading them!).
As discussed in FPC, my first grey hairs also appeared in my early twenties, which turns out is due to undiagnosed cystic fibrosis which causes early greying through disruption in CFTR and copper status by opportunistic Trichomonas parasites (or other parasite), and is not a genetic disease as is commonly mistaken, because Trichomonas also actively inhibit CFTR as a mechanism of colonizing human mucosal tissue which then disrupts mucosal function which then disrupts the commensal microbiome not only on mucosal tissue but also the skin. My early understanding of hair loss did not contain any of this research, since it would occur over the intervening decade, but one of the ways I know when my research is correct or not, besides its demonstrable benefits to symptoms for myself or others, is when correct it will connect back to and support earlier research rather than contradict itself as so much mainstream, ‘accepted’ science does. This is also the reason I have made so much progress in my academic research compared to the entire research and medical industries which have been stuck treading water for the last five decades, because I was lucky to pull on the correct thread thanks to the work of Dr. Ray Peat whose work is the foundation of my own and not because I am particularly intelligent (although that has a little influence), so one correct discovery or conclusion then informs and even elucidates the next, since nature and science is inherently logical and never contradictory.
The first version of my explanation for hair loss was primarily disruption of the kynurenine pathway, as discussed in the chapter on niacin therapy, by stresses such as a low metabolic rate, high intake of polyunsaturated fats, lack of sun exposure, and insufficient consumption of sugar. Iodine was recommended as both a low-dose supplement and topical application in saturated fats, and my early conception of this iodine was to support local thyroid function, since iodine is the primary factor in thyroid hormones, where thyroid hormone also regulates the metabolic rate and was a cornerstone of Dr. Peat’s research and other biologists on whose work his was founded. As my research progressed into microbes and pathogens I later realized that thyroid does not only function to regulate the metabolism but also functions as an immune factor to deliver iodine to immune cells and immune peroxidase enzymes which actively kill pathogens. Iodine is actually deposited in the scalp, hair, and hair follicles which helps fight mites and fungi which opportunistically feed on hair and skin, so the early conception of this hair loss treatment was correct but even for reasons I had not initially realized.
I also later discovered there is a cyanogenic form of thyroid, not only an iodized form, as discussed in the updated version of FPC, which is why dietary cyanide is often confused as a “goitrogen” and shown in studies to “compete” with iodine for thyroid transport and thyroid enzymes, which iodine outcompetes if we are replete with iodine which is required anyway for optimal health, and doing opposite what is commonly accepted for severe thyroid conditions like Hashimoto’s and Graves produces rapid resolution of their conditions and oppositely the worsening of their conditions if they don’t. These principles of the integration of iodinated and cyanogenic thyroid with the immune system then greatly affects superficial features like hair loss since pathogens are ultimately the catalysts for such problems.
An important point most people (willfully) overlook in my book, especially in the chapter on hair loss, is that apparently disparate diseases are not at all disparate, and all illnesses are interconnected symptoms of one condition of non-health, and the information in the chapter on hair loss (or any other singular chapter) is not the only information required to address hair loss (or any other condition). For instance, if a person works to restore endogenous niacin production and uses iodine they are unlikely to see hair regrowth if they do not also address immunity, gut, hormones, etc., because those chapters contain other fundamental biological requisites to resist pathogenic colonization and stress which catalyze the problems which then lead to hair loss. So while taking things like niacin and pregnenolone can make up for their deficiencies this DOES NOT resolve the underlying deficiencies which are the problem in the first place. I even discuss the importance of psychology on hair loss and the requisite to practice inventory therapy (most especially as discussed in TPC), to resolve the stress of ineffective life skills, which actually have a greater influence on our physical wellbeing than pathogens and nutrition—for instance everyone with dieting disorders such as I used to have is actively starving ourselves of nutrients required for a healthy microbiome to protect us against opportunistic pathogens and which synthesize nutrients like tryptophan in the gut from a good and consistent diet.
So while my book and research were not finished, this point of wholistic wellness rather than fixation on symptoms subjective to our own personal fears is an undying reality of hair loss and the reason why there will NEVER be a pharmacological cure to hair loss, since no pill can make up for the deficiencies in environment, behavior, and nutrition required by our evolutionary human biology, and the only reason you desire a simple cure is the very helplessness caused by unresolved fear and trauma which motivates ineffective life skills which underly your hair loss in the first place!
Age 39 in 2020, early in the pandemic.
In 2020, at the age of 40, I had the thickest hair of my entire life, which rivaled almost what I had as a teenager, and had recently realized, finally, that the entirety of my health problems were rooted in cystic fibrosis which was caused by early childhood colonization by Trichomonas species, which are everywhere and which every person eventually gets after passing adolescence and becomes sexually active (since they specialize in colonizing mucosal tissue), and began a new line of research into reversing their colonization and restoration of endogenous production of pregnenolone. But this meant I had to stop taking one of the major factors which helped to maintain such thick and luscious hair and delayed aging (pregnenolone is the master steroid of the body, so it has significant and systemic effects on every system, including thyroid and thus immunity, stress, metabolism, electrolyte homeostasis, etc.). I hoped it would not be a long ordeal but it wasn’t until late last year (2025) that I finally discovered it to be rooted in digestion of dietary fat and synthesis of cholesterol (this is a vague descriptor of the chapter on hormones, I’m just not getting into because this article is already too long), and going for five years without pregnenolone again had a very deleterious effect on my health and wellbeing, with low-grade, chronic hair loss (it was also likely worsened by contracting COVID, since that kind of infection puts an enormous strain on the body) and obvious aging in my skin, physique, and eventual return of some other problems like insomnia.
Related to this was finally also discovering the cure to cystic fibrosis earlier this year (although since it was so recent my understanding of it is still somewhat simplistic) and the fact that lithium is the primary factor which mediates benefits of red light therapy, in part through the killing of parasites, and for the first time in my life not suffering chronic fatigue and constant coughing, which will likely have yet another beneficial effect on hair status without requiring supplements as in the past. But who knows what the future holds, as what I hope or want is not what the Universe necessarily hopes or wants, and all of us are mortal animals subject to the laws of mortality, and hoping to never experience hair loss or other health problems is as ridiculous as hoping to never experience death. All we are capable of is working within the limits of mortality. Those who try otherwise (which includes willful ignorance) will find themselves sorely disappointed. In that vein, I think most people overlook the greatest result of my research, which is that I am even alive in the first place, and hair continues to be the least of my concerns.
10 years of research at the age of 45 (end of 2025)