Patients need to be aware that there are many companies and doctors that play on the vulnerability of people with hair loss. There are numerous unethical companies that make claims that their products cause "fuller and thicker looking hair" and hope you interpret that as clinically significant hair growth. However, these companies and doctors will not put in writing that their product "cause clinically significant hair growth" because they do not!

A partial list of unsubstantiated and/or false claims is:

Claim: Balding men have poor vascular supply to the balding area.

Fact: Numerous studies have shown that the vascular supply to the balding scalp is just as good as the non-balding scalp.

Claim: Balding men have plugged follicles.

Fact: A plugged follicle will not stop a hair from growing.

Claim: Balding men have diseased scalps.

Fact: There are a few rare diseases that can cause hair loss, but is not in the same pattern as male patterned baldness.

Claim: Lack of vitamins causes hair loss.

Fact: Hair loss due to a vitamin deficiency is rare in the United States. It is more common to see vitamin toxicity as a cause of hair loss.

Claim: Electrical stimulation to the scalp or massage therapy will cause hair growth.

Fact: Anything that irritates hair-bearing skin can cause minimal temporary hair growth. However, no studies have been shown that this causes clinically significant hair growth.

Claim: The Demodex mite (a normal human mite) causes hair loss.

Fact: This is completely unsubstantiated. The Demodex mite is found in most hair follicles in adults, not in just the hair follicles of balding men. And if the Demodex mite truly did cause hair loss, why doesn’t it cause hair loss of the eyebrows, of the beard region, or of the sides of the head