Hey Lisa,

I’m very sorry to hear that. We did not test potassium levels. Has your doctor screened you to rule out other potential causes of hyperkalemia: kidney disease, diabetes, certain medications, etc.? That might be a good starting point.

Best,
Rob

In your research, were you able to determine the amount of Potassium in the Women’s Balance Nutrafol product? I am having severe side effects and my Potassium was elevated to dangerously high levels.

Thank you,
Lisa

Tony – I’m so sorry to hear about your experience with (what sounds like) nearly every popular natural and pharmaceutical intervention available to fight androgenic alopecia.

One quick question: have you ever seen high bilirubin levels in routine blood tests? It seems like this is an unusual signal amongst nearly all of the finasteride non-responders we’ve worked with. There’s some evidence that may implicate problems with phase I / phase II metabolism of finasteride and overlap with genes that may drive up bilirubin levels.

Best,
Rob

Hey Amy,

Thanks for your questions, and sorry for missing your comment until just now.

1. Dermatologists and hair loss specialists are the gold-standard here, but you can also use at-home assessments for your patterning of your hair loss, rates of hair diameter diversity (shedding of thin vs. thick hairs), presence or absence of scalp inflammation, health evaluations, and other factors to get a really good ballpark for what might be going on. We’ve built interactive tools that do this work for you, which you can find inside our membership. But you can also try these exercises yourself.

2. The cherrypicking in this case likely does not come from the methodological designs, but rather, from the selection of the participants. So they might be randomly sorting participants into different groups (a positive), but those participants have already been hand-selected to fit a cohort most likely to benefit from their supplement (a negative). In this case, the treatment group would most definitely outperform the placebo group.

1. You mentioned that people can save money by determining the causes of hair loss and treating it (presumably, some sort of deficiency like iron, etc.). How would the layperson do this -do you recommend seeing a dermatologist & asking for some blood tests?

2. You said the first clinical trial met the gold standard (double-blind, randomized, etc.). Wouldn’t that mean they couldn’t cherry pick the participants & some decent % of the women in the trial would have suffered from androgenic alopecia?
Amy

Which saw palmetto brand do you recommend and at what dosage for male pattern baldness?

Thank you, Elaine! And thanks for sharing your perspective. We see an increased speed of hair growth (or a lengthening of the hair cycle) with a lot with natural substances. While this can certainly help achieve longer hair styles, these types of results don’t always mean thicker, denser hair (as you mentioned)!