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 Dr. Lee is the founder and owner of Regrowth LLC, a company based in Los Angeles and dedicated to the treatment of hair loss. He has been developing innovative products and treating hair loss sufferers for the past 16 years. Dr. Lee is the creator of the Xandrox line of hair loss treatments.
Important Note: Due a busy schedule, Dr. Lee cannot answer any new questions at this time; however, he will be providing high quality answers to questions he receives from his own practice exclusively to Morphollica.com regularly
[not named]
2004-05-18
Are androgens required for scalp hair growth?
Are androgens required in the development and growth of hair on the scalp like they are on the rest of the body?
Surprisingly, no, they aren’t. There are hair follicles covering the entire human body except for the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. And androgens play a key role in the growth of human hair everywhere on the body, except on the scalp and the eyelashes. In the growing child, as the anagen period lengthens, the hair follicles progressively enlarge, the diameter of the hair shaft increases, and hairs become longer.
The timing of androgen stimulated hair growth varies between different areas of the body. At puberty the growth of hair in the lower pubic triangle usually starts, followed by growth of axillary hair. Axillary hair growth is maximal during the third decade and thereafter slowly declines, whereas the growth of beard and chest hair starts later and requires more potent androgens (DHT). Beard growth gradually increases and does not peak until the fourth decade. Increased hair growth in the nose, ears, and eyebrows is a feature of middle to old age. There’s a strange and inexplicable irony in the stimulation of body and facial hair by androgens, considering that those same androgens cause simultaneous balding in the scalp.
Richard Lee, M.D.
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