Dr. Alan J. Bauman: Revolutionizing Hair Health - Biohacking, Scalp Science, and Nurturing Your Natural Crown

In this captivating episode, I have the honor of hosting the renowned Dr. Alan J. Bauman, a trailblazing hair transplant surgeon who has profoundly impacted the field of hair restoration. With over 30,000 patients treated and 10,000 hair transplant surgeries performed, Dr. Bauman's expertise and dedication are unparalleled. His practice, rooted in Boca Raton, Florida since 1997, stands as a beacon of hope for those struggling with hair loss. 

Throughout our conversation, Dr. Bauman unveils the intricacies of hair health, emphasizing the crucial interplay between lifestyle, nutrition, and hair care. He shares groundbreaking insights into how biohacking and precision medicine have revolutionized hair restoration, offering hope and tangible solutions to those grappling with hair loss. Dr. Bauman's holistic approach goes beyond mere aesthetic enhancement; it delves into the roots of hair health, offering a comprehensive strategy for maintaining and revitalizing one's natural crown. 

Whether you're battling hair loss or simply seeking to optimize your hair's health, Dr. Bauman's insights provide a beacon of light. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that will change the way you think about hair health and the possibilities of modern medicine. Visit BaumanMedical.com to embark on your journey towards hair restoration and to explore the wealth of knowledge Dr. Bauman offers.

Key Points From This Episode:

Dr. Bauman's Journey into Hair Transplantation [00:03:45]
The Psychological Impact of Hair on Identity [00:07:24]
The Evolution of Hair Transplant Procedures [00:10:08
Graying Hair and Potential Treatments [00:12:16]
Preventative Therapies and Hair Transplant Success [00:18:15]
Lifestyle Changes and Hair Restoration [00:19:09]
The Future of Medicine and Hair Restoration [00:24:29]
The Role of Biohacking in Hair Restoration [00:27:49]
The Importance of Blood Flow for Hair Health [00:34:36]
The Role of Stress and Lifestyle in Hair Health [00:37:16]
Non-Invasive Hair Growth Technologies [00:45:46]

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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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People:

• Dr. Alan J. Bauman
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Official Website
• Dave Asprey
  • Official Site
• Peter Attia
  • Official Site

Places & Organizations:

• Biohacking Congress
  • Official Website
• Intercoiffure America/Canada
  • Official Website
• World Trichology Society
  • Official Website
• Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce
  • Official Website
• Grey Team
  • Official Website

Transcript

Dr Alan J. Bauman : We're not just putting the hair back, but we're getting into that deeper dive discussion. You know, once the hair comes back and patients are looking and feeling good, I'm able to take it that much further because a lot of the things that we've identified along the way to help their hair are now improving their whole energy level.
Andres Preschel: There is only one supplement that I think almost everyone on this planet should be taking and that's a full-spectrum and highly bioavailable magnesium supplement because, well, let's face it, ever since the industrial revolution, our soil has been depleted. of magnesium and therefore our food is depleted of magnesium and on top of that our modern environments which are inherently overstimulating and stressful are constantly depleting our body of magnesium and unlike other nutrients this is not something your body can produce on its own it literally needs to get it from the diet and one individual kind of magnesium alone is not enough. You actually need seven different kinds to support over 300 biochemical reactions that help regulate your nervous system, red blood cell production, energy production, managing stress and emotions, etc. And so the folks at Bioptimizers have made it very easy and convenient to add back in what the modern world leaves out. They've created Magnesium Breakthrough. Now I've been taking this for the past two years and the biggest benefits that I've seen are related to my evening wind down sessions and my sleep. I tend to be pretty overactive in the evenings, just totally overthinking everything that I do. And this has helped me wind down and get more restorative, more efficient to sleep. So I wake up feeling way more refreshed, more energized, more clear, more ready for the day. And the way that I see it, sleep is upstream of essentially every other health and wellness related habit and decision. Because if you're sleeping better, automatically you're going to have more regular cravings, you're going to have higher insulin sensitivity, you can derive more of all these inputs like fitness, right? You make more gains, you gain more muscle, you burn more calories, and you wake up feeling refreshed so that you can do it again and again and again, and then beyond the fitness you have more energy to go for a walk, to do fun activities with friends, you are less stressed so you can socialize anxiety-free, and you're also going to be retaining, refreshing, and refining your skills and information much, much better so you won't forget any names. And, yeah, I mean, like I said, over 300 biochemical processes that you're supporting with magnesium. And then sleep, I mean, wow, better sleep is just a better life in general. So, I found that extremely helpful on a personal level, and I'm sure that you guys will find it helpful too. Your mind and body, and maybe even your spirit will thank you. So anyway, if you want to get a sweet little discount off of this amazing, amazing magnesium supplement from Bioptimizers, all you have to do is visit the show notes. So you scroll down right now, takes just a couple seconds and boom, you'll have access to all seven different kinds of magnesium that your body needs. All you have to do is hit the link and use code KYP for Know Your Physio. KYP. That's all. Enjoy 10 to 22% off depending on the package you choose, whether or not you subscribe. I'm obviously subscribed because I don't even want to think about whether or not I'm going to get this essential supplement in the mail. And yeah, hope you guys enjoy that awesome stuff. And that's all for now. I'll see you guys on the show. Dr. Bauman, here we are at the Banking Congress in Miami. It's great to enjoy this moment with you. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. Great to be with you, Andres. Awesome, man. So before we dive into how hair can serve as a marker and a diagnosis for other health issues we may be suffering with and all the different therapies that you offer to help treat hair, let's start with why. Why do you do what you do, man?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, you know, people often ask, you know, how I became a hair transplant surgeon, how I got involved with hair loss. And it almost happened by accident, to be honest, because my original intent was to do plastic and reconstructive surgery. And from the time that I was a teenager, I was always interested in surgical interventions to change people's form and function. And really, that's what plastic surgery was all about. I was introduced to surgery by a plastic surgeon and had the opportunity to watch him operate in the OR. back in the 1980s and and see his patients as they progress through their healing and and their recovery. And of course, the way that their lives were changed, their their self-confidence or self-esteem, the way he turned back the clock for those patients. So I figured that I was just always that's what I was going to do. And I kind of pursued that path. And so hair kind of wasn't on the radar until many, many years later. I was in my surgical residency. I was aiming towards plastic surgery and I met a patient who had had a hair transplant and he was going to have something else done. He was doing some other cosmetic procedure. And I guess like most other people at that time in the mid 1990s, I thought hair transplants were just pluggy looking and probably painful. Like, why would you ever do it or perform it, you know? And I was shocked to learn that this guy had had a procedure and I was basically unable to tell. And so that was the first kind of clue that maybe I should look into this, you know. And so we had gotten to a short discussion about how he chose his surgeon. He told me in layman's terms about single follicle implantation. And he was obviously thrilled that he had fooled me that he had had a procedure. Right. And I was enthralled by the artistry that was involved that he described in creating something that looked totally natural. And the other thing that struck me about that conversation, looking back, is how he described it changed his life. So both socially and professionally, his life took a 180 after he got that procedure. And so that always stuck in my mind. And I remember saying to myself, no, maybe I should look into that, you know, as I progress through my plastic surgery training, cosmetic surgery training. And so that was the start. And that was a brief conversation, maybe less than 20 minutes, but it triggered something in me to go look and investigate a little bit further about hair transplantation and what the methods were. And I figured, well, maybe I could add that to my repertoire, but And so eventually I became so enthralled with the procedure and the treatments that I decided to do it 100 percent. And that was over 25 years ago. I moved to Boca Raton, Florida, to set up the practice after my fellowship, after my training, after my preceptorship in hair transplant surgery, to really start Bauman Medical. And that was, you know, a quick 25 years. Wow, man. And thirty three thousand patients later.

Andres Preschel: Wow. What an incredible story. And, um, I think it really speaks to the way that you were able to maintain your values. You know, you admired this mentor for so many reasons, and I think you can still, you still were able to honor his work in a way that spoke to you with that novelty factor, especially, you know, seeing someone's health and their, their confidence transform with a procedure like this. I mean, it's something that's so visual, right? Um, how do you think most people feel after they complete a round of, you know, therapy and hair transplant surgery with you?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : So I get to run a practice and we see, I mean, a thousand patients a year through the door, right? And I am just totally blessed because what I get to do every single day, not just operate work with my hands and create that artistry, but then six and 12 months later, I get a chance to see those patients with their hair regrowth coming in and learning about how it's improved their lives. And so to see their lives change, to have them have their confidence restored, to have them feel you know like they're walking on cloud nine that they're walking on air because they look now can look in the mirror and they see the frame of their face that they used to have from years before or something they wanted forever you know maybe When they were younger, they couldn't have the time or the energy or the resources to do a hair transplant or hair restoration procedure. And now they've done it finally and kind of rewarded themselves in that way. And so the practice is very, very rewarding in that way, meaning I get a chance to actually perform the procedures and then see the results and how it impacts those patients' lives.

Andres Preschel: That's amazing. And I want to leave you with an anecdote before we dive into the therapy itself. So I have grown up with this huge sense of identity with my hair. And I think most people have, but you know, my, I remember my parents would like comb her hair to go to school. And then, you know, my hair, I had to have my hair fixed up before I went on any social, you know, gathering and party and going on a date. And at one point, I was at a very low point in my life when I was in college and I had this sense of like identity loss, right? And I was trying to figure out, you know, who am I? What am I here to do? And I decided to shave my head, okay? It was probably the worst but also the best decision that I've ever made because number one is it showed me that I have a very ugly head. And all of a sudden I lost all sense of confidence. I mean, I was wearing a hoodie. I was like trying to, you know, I was very antisocial. But it also showed me that, like, this is how valuable of a characteristic this is in my life and in my identity. And I can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like to eventually lose your hair as you age and as you endure the stress of everyday life. So it really, I can't imagine how rewarding it must feel for you to be able to restore someone's identity through the hair, right? Um, so what does this procedure actually look like? Uh, the hair transplant procedure, what does that look like? What does it feel like? What's the recovery like? And how long will it take for someone to regain the sense of confidence?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Uh, yeah, well, uh, well, first of all, I mean, just to your point, uh, you obviously, you know, you shaved your head. I mean, that's a pretty dramatic statement, you know, think of like, uh, you know, Britney Spears shaved her head after she had, you know, terrible hair loss from hair extensions and things like that, you know, had perfectly healthy hair. Yeah. So that's like a, I mean, that's a serious psychological thing that you did to really change, um, uh, you know, your, your, your whole, it was like a fresh start.

Andres Preschel: That's what it, that's what it was. That's the, that was the significance behind what I did.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : I always say that hair is a very emotional organ. And so obviously you were going through some, you know, internal struggle or trauma at that time to try to reinvent yourself.

Andres Preschel: And so for sure.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Hair is a very, very important, you know, the thing that we use to display, you know, our self-image that we communicate to the world, not only when we wake up in the morning and look at ourselves in the mirror and try to comb it or brush it or whatever, but our hairstyle, the curl, the color, I mean, you know, the braiding, the dreadlocks, whatever, no matter what your ethnicity is, hair is always like just ingrained, I think, in the human psyche as something that's an important part of our self-image, you know, and self-expression. And when you have control over it, which is what you did when you shave it, obviously you're exerting this like power that you have. But if you're losing it and you don't have control over it, that's when the emotions kind of hit you sideways. That's what I see in some of my patients who are experiencing thinning or shedding or receding hairlines or balding in the crown, whatever it may be, a change in their hair. even if it's changing their color, you know, going from dark hair to gray hair like I'm going through, you know, it's evolving, right? And so sometimes it feels like you just don't have control over that. And being able to then gain control over that situation is very empowering. And so I always tell patients, look, you've got to get on top of this early because there are preventative therapies that you can do before you get to a baldness stage and need a hair transplant. But hair transplants have definitely come a long way. No question about it. Right. I'm happy to take it through that.

Andres Preschel: Sure. And I've heard that as far as like the graying of hair, that has a lot to do with hydrogen peroxide. What do you have to say about hydrogen peroxide? And is there any way to prevent that from happening to prevent the graying of hair or to fight back against it in a natural or, you know?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Yeah. So there are a lot of theories about, you know, what's triggering the depigmentation of hair and whether it's stem cell loss or the peroxidase degradation and so forth. The melanocytes are basically the ones that deliver the pigment to the hair follicle and then eventually to the hair shaft, which is what we see, right, the hair fiber. and when those melanocytes start to peter out that's when you lose your pigmentation and it actually sputters meaning that there's some data and research that shows that there's a period of time where the follicle will put pigment in and then take it away and then put pigment in and take it away and hopefully we're going to develop in the future some therapies and treatments that can help prevent or reverse that degradation of those melanocytes and hopefully provide more pigment to the hair fiber. But unfortunately today there's not really any good solid evidence or therapies that can repigment your hair obviously without doing a dye job right so that's the just for men cure right but what's interesting is i've been involved with some research with the university of miami with dr ralph paus is probably the most prolifically published hair biology researcher in the world and many of the follicles that we've donated to that research facility have been used to determine how can we how can we repigment the follicles? And just this past year, a research was published on rapamycin, which as you know, is a very important anti-aging compound. And there's a lot of debate of whether that's going to extend lifespan or health span, but a rapamycin actually in many cases can repigment the hair. And so that's kind of like a brand new technology that hopefully will become available in the clinic and we'll be able to test it to see can we repigment hair follicles that are not so far gone. All right. Right.

Andres Preschel: And alluding to someone's internal health and how may reflect on their head. When you do, let's say, a transplant, let's say you're bringing in fresh, new, colorful hairs to someone that has graying hairs on their head. If you introduce these hairs, will they change in color because of what's happening in someone's insides with regards to their internal health and well-being?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, remember that, let's say you're graying up front, so typically around the face is where men and women go gray first, and then the hairs around the sides and the back are a bit more resilient, not just in terms of quality and caliber, but also in color. So oftentimes, if you're dealing with a graying problem, When we transplant those follicles from the sides and the back of the scalp, you do get this darkening effect, which is nice. And so over time, it'll blend in with the previous non-transplanted hairs. But no one has ever complained about getting a darker pigmentation from hair transplantation in those gray areas. But will these new hairs eventually gray out as well? Well, eventually they will. right and for sure cool yeah and uh do you have any kind of we want to try to prevent that right right so stress and things like that can certainly Trigger graying, we see that anecdotally. We've seen that hit throughout history. Patients will often relate a story where they've been very sick, they've gone through a hospitalization or something like COVID, you know, near death experience or something. And then, you know, they find that their pigmentation as well as their hair quality has definitely changed for the worse. And then, you know, hopefully we can try to reverse that with therapies and treatments. If they've accelerated their balding pattern, then it may be time for a hair transplant.

Andres Preschel: Right. And how involved are you guys in the lifestyle end of things to complement the procedures that you do?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : In a huge way. And, you know, just this past year, we've added a full functional medicine department to Bauman Medical. Really? And the reason is because the hair follicle is such a highly metabolic organ. It's got the highest mitotic rate of any cell population, including bone marrow and your GI tract.

Andres Preschel: Would you mind describing what that means for the listeners?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Yeah, so cell division is what we call mitosis. And so when a cell population is highly mitotic, that means that it's rapidly dividing. And so those cell populations tend to be very, very sensitive to changes in metabolism, changes in health status, changes in your overall well-being. And so I think evolutionarily, that's why hair is kind of important, because it's like this barometer that you can basically visualize from across the room, make a quick judgment call, Right. Evolutionarily, is this person a good mate or not? Right. To procreate the species, you can make a judgment call on their age from, you know, across the room, essentially. Right. And when it comes to health and wellness, if you have something that is triggering, let's say, nutritional deficiency. So something's going on with your nutrients and fuel. Something is going on with whole body inflammation. Something is going on with your allostatic load, which is the total amount of stress that we're experiencing. All of those things can degradate the function of the hair follicle. Hair follicles are very sensitive organs. And we see this very often, for example, in our menopausal patients, perimenopausal women who are going through hormone imbalance. They may have shifts in their hormonal balance and that can absolutely trigger problems with their hair, color quality, texture, as well as hair fiber production. And so it's, I think, One of the things that I've learned is that the hair follicle being a very sensitive organ to all of this health and wellness stuff oftentimes requires a deeper dive than just, oh, let's, you know, let's start with therapy and treatment that's, you know, off the shelf, FDA approved or whatever. Let's take a deeper dive into what's going on metabolically so that we can figure out what's happened.

Andres Preschel: And this isn't just like after someone has received the treatment. I imagine that there's some kind of integrative approach as someone's getting ready for the treatment, right? Is there any consideration to that end of the procedure considering that being in, let's say, a more stress-free state can help them assimilate the new hair, the new fibers?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, a hair transplant, when we move the follicles from one place to another, the way that we're doing it today is a very sophisticated microsurgical technique. And so the success of that technique is not highly dependent on that. But what we do find is that patients who are more optimized So we're here at the Biohacking Congress. This patient population is concentrating on reducing their stress, improving their health and wellness, looking at their nutritional status, getting good sleep, avoiding toxins, avoiding behaviors that would degradate their ability to heal. And so this patient population actually heals, in my opinion, much faster, much better, much more quickly without, you know, a significant downtime compared to some other patient populations that we may have treated over the past 25 years.

Andres Preschel: Right. And odds are that they won't even need to hire someone like yourself until much later in life. Right. For this kind of.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Oh, well, you're asking, can you rectify your hair loss situation with lifestyle changes? And sometimes you can. You know, that's something that we have looked at. If you have a thinning or shedding process, you know, optimizing your health is definitely going to improve your situation. But when it comes to hair transplants, hair transplants are needed when the follicle density has dropped below a certain level that no matter, even if we get all of those hairs that are in that zone to be the best they can be, turning all the burning trees into oak trees in the forest. If the follicle density, if the number of trees in the forest is too low, you're not gonna see a visible change, and that's when you're gonna need a hair transplant. So there's a lot that goes before we get to a transplant process, because also it's important to understand that the transplanted follicles are essentially immune to male or female pattern hair loss. That's the genetic tendency towards losing hair. That's the most prevalent population that we see in the practice. So the transplanted hairs are placed into the new location. Those are immune to male pattern or female pattern baldness, but we still have to protect the other hairs. And so there's a whole holistic approach to doing that, not just lifestyle changes, but there may be medications or other treatments, laser light therapy, stem cell treatment, cell therapy, PRP, protein, peptides and growth factors, you name it. Yeah. To try to preserve the other hairs. So you don't have to keep undergoing hair transplants again and again and again. Right.

Andres Preschel: Wow, and what are some, let's say, biohacks, supplements, foods, lifestyle changes that almost anyone can add in to see some kind of benefit in their hair quality?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Yeah. And so that's a great question. I've developed an entire wellness system for hair and that's a line of supplements that I think hit most of the high points. So a lot of times I'll see, for example, young men in their 20s who have never taken a vitamin. Maybe they don't even have a primary doctor and they're coming in with male pattern hair loss. We want to make sure the protein intake is good. We want to make sure that they're not vitamin or nutrient deficient. So we have vitamins and minerals. We want to make sure that they have good biotin on hand to grow good quality hair fiber. And so we want to make sure that that their nutritional intake is actually being absorbed. So we may think about probiotics. They may be experiencing undue stress, whether it's work or personal life or something else going on. And so there may be some herbs and other things that we can add into the program. to make them more resilient to the effects of stress. So, and there are also herbs that can affect the main triggers for hair loss. As we know, testosterone in the body gets converted into DHT, dihydrotestosterone. That's the active metabolite that can trigger the hair loss in genetically susceptible patients. And so if you're sensitive to DHT, dihydrotestosterone, you're gonna lose some hair. So there are herbs like salt palmetto and things like that. And there's treatments that you can do, even shampoos that contain caffeine, green tea, salt palmetto. to help prevent. Now, those are not going to be miracle cures. So very often we have to dig a little bit deeper, consider maybe pharmaceutical intervention or other therapies depending on the patient's risk tolerance to help them preserve the function of those follicles. But yeah, there's a lot we can do on the lifestyle.

Andres Preschel: Right. Yeah. And you know, most doctors, traditional doctors don't have this appreciation for functional medicine as you do. How far into your career did you realize that this is an essential, you know, compliment to your, to your procedures?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : It's a great question because, you know, if you think about my training, I'm allopathically trained in medicine and surgery, which is basically suck it out, cut it out or burn it out, pill for an ill. I mean, that's what I was trained in. And my education, I would say, was not a 180. when it comes to a more holistic approach or what I would call let's say a preventative approach. And you know some of the people that I follow and you know my mentors in the world of complementary therapy and kind of this new horizon come from the American Academy of Anti-Aging, podcasters like Peter Attia, you know, people who are biohackers like Dave Asprey. You know, these are folks who are kind of leading the charge into a more preventative and holistic approach. And so my own health journey I think parallels that change in my attitude towards my patients. And I would say that started about eight to 10 years ago. And so I started to realize in my own self that I needed to make some changes, uh, as I entered, you know, into my late thirties and early forties that my, my body, my brain, everything was not the same as it was from, you know, 10 to 15 years before that. And, um, Being a member, let's say, of the American Academy of Anti-Aging, people used to say, oh, you know, that's crazy, that's alternative stuff, there's no research on that. Well, actually, quite a number of the theories and research and concepts that were being presented at that conference have now become mainstream. So, there's no question in my mind, having been involved with that field for over 20 years, I know that that's the future of medicine. And I've done it in such a way and been acknowledging that in such a way that I've now included a functional medicine department at Bauman Medical. So if someone is coming in and they have poor sleep, they're high stress, they have a toxic load, whatever it may be. Well, I have I have an entire functional medicine department that can dig deep into that. So we can look at biomarkers, we can look at blood work, we can look at your DNA and look at metabolic health and what pathways that might be dysregulating not only your hair follicles, which, as we mentioned before, super sensitive. Right. But also your other organ systems and use that as a gateway into really tuning up your whole body. Right. So, you know, it's been an interesting journey, you know, through that, that weaving my way through that and, you know, sorting out what's working and what's not working, but really taking a very proactive approach, whether it be looking at the way that personalized precision medicine you know looking at dna analysis for example determining what medications or treatments might work best for someone with hair loss you know based on your dna i mean i think that there are not many physicians out there that are doing things like that and really tracking right so as a biohacker we're tracking our sleep we're tracking our heart rate variability, we're tracking our steps, we're tracking, you know, you know, anything that we can track. Yeah. Glucose monitor, whatever. Yeah. And so being able to track literally hair by hair on your scalp with some of the A.I. powered tools that we have is really given us some brand new insight. You know, that's far beyond what you're going to get at your dermatologist's office and most of the others that are out there in the field of hair restoration surgery.

Andres Preschel: Wow, so when you were first, you know, looking forward to this career path and the novelty that you had experienced that one time with that one patient that you mentioned, I don't think you anticipated any of this at all, right?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : I had no idea. I mean, I was thinking, you know, even at that time in the 1990s, I mean, literally, surgeons thought like the follicle was either turned on or turned off and that there was like no in between. Really? Like they were like just black and white. Yeah, and obviously that's not the case, right? So through the use of microscopy and looking at the hairs under a microscope, we can see that the hairs were miniaturizing, that they were weakening, that they were growing a thinner, shorter, weaker, wispier hair before they turned off. And that was something that was kind of foreign to most people in the industry because hair surgeons really didn't use a microscope in those early days. You know, dermatologists didn't have a dermatoscope. There was no such thing as the field of trichology, which is a hair and scalp science. So, yeah, it's changed a lot. I mean, you know, my first video microscope we acquired in the practice in 1999. It was attached to a PC, which was like this, you know, the size of an end table. It came from France. If the thing crashed, all the error messages were in French. I mean, it was like, you know, think about trying to get tech support, you know, in the US trying to get tech support in French, you know, I mean, it was crazy. But but what that taught me is that there were certain modalities like laser light therapy, even how minoxidil and some of these other treatments work, that we saw this rejuvenation of the hair going from thinner to thicker before it was really time for a hair transplant. And so, yeah, it's been an interesting journey over the past 25 years. And now I think obviously it's commonly accepted that there's this miniaturization process, but I don't think that was obvious to most hair surgeons back before the 1990s.

Andres Preschel: Right. I mean, I'll tell you what, it's incredible to see how through biohacking and precision medicine, you're able to honor your original intention in such a profound way, especially compared to the initial reasons you wanted to go into this field in the first place. The ability that you have now to truly help and transform someone's life is beyond, I think, what you could ever imagine years ago, right?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Oh, absolutely. I mean, learning just the intricacies of the hair follicle and hair follicle function, I mean, I came at it from the outside in, right? From a surgical point of view, move it from here to there, you know? And instead of a plug, let's do a single follicle instead of a strip harvest. Let's do an individual extraction of the grafts. Let's figure out how to store the grafts so we get 99% success rate. Let's figure out how to create a comfortable process so the patient isn't afraid of a hair transplant. make sure that we get the final result in an artistic fashion. So it looks normal. Right. So all of that is was kind of the door that opened. Right. But on the once I was inside, you know, the field and then all of a sudden I realized, oh, my God, this is a mesenchymal stem cell population that can be affected by a whole body metabolism and that it can be affected by lifestyle and your circulation and your nutritional status and your hormone levels and your stress level, everything, your sleep wake cycles even can affect your hair.

Andres Preschel: So at this point, your patients leave with better hair and a way healthier body and a higher functioning physiology across the board.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Absolutely. Yeah. So we're not just putting the hair back, but we're getting into that deeper dive discussion. Once the hair comes back and patients are looking and feeling good, I'm able to take it that much further. because a lot of the things that we've identified along the way to help their hair are now improving their whole energy level, their whole outlook on life, their body composition. I mean, all of that is through adding what I would call Bauman performance. And that's a separate department, which is now very real. I mean, I've been wanting to do that for a number of years, even before the pandemic. Now it's fully functional and, you know, up and running with a team of people. you know, if the patient wants, and not every single person is going to engage in that performance program, but at least they'll have the opportunity to take a look at it. Right.

Andres Preschel: Wow. And what can be said about, because you've mentioned now the baldness that comes with, you know, high levels of DHT and testosterone and such, but What about creatine? What are your thoughts on, because I know a lot of people tuning in now have heard of creatine. It's the second most studied ergogenic aid in the world after caffeine. There's tens of thousands of studies to perceive super effective. I take creatine for both the physical and for the mental, but do I have to be afraid of some potential baldness or anything like that?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, short answer is maybe. uh-huh right so uh creatine has all those great benefits and very often we see our young healthy athletic population using creatine for all the great reasons that you mentioned um but we do know that there is research that shows that when you supplement with creatine you're going to increase that dht level a little bit and if you're sensitive to male pattern hair loss that dht could cause some trouble right dht is the primary trigger for male pattern baldness we know that for sure because if we lower the dht levels a little bit We have the hair loss process will slow down if we lower it a lot. The hair loss process may eventually even stop or reverse. So DHT can cause a lot of havoc in the scalp. Not for every person. There's some people that have super high testosterone, super high DHT and never lose a hair, right? They have the same hair that they were born with or had when they were, you know, prepubescent. But for most folks, you know, 20% of guys in their 20s, 30% of guys in their 30s, 40% of guys in their 40s, 50% of guys in their 50s are going to experience some degree of male pattern hair loss. And so for those, that means that they're sensitive to DHT. If they're raising their DHT, they could be putting their follicles at risk. So is it worth the great benefit of taking creatine? Well, we have to talk about that. There's risk benefit there. Well, there's other things that we can do. I mean, even as men continue to age right into middle age, then their testosterone levels may drop a little bit as they wane. We may want to replace that either with supplementation or activating more testosterone through resistance training or even hormone optimization therapy. but if then you boost up that testosterone, more of that's gonna get converted into DHT, that could also accelerate your malpattern hair loss process. So a lot of patients will come in, they say, well, I've started this exercise regimen, young guys in their 20s or 30s, and they've noticed more hair loss. Or guys who are in their 40s or 50s, they're on hormone optimization, just recently started with injections or creams or pellets or whatever, and they're accelerating their hair loss. Well, there's a lot of things that we can do to stop that.

Andres Preschel: I also wanted to ask you about vaping. The reason being is because I actually have a client of mine who, a very young guy in his early 20s, he developed alopecia nervosalis, lost every single hair on his body, everything. And he worked with me and he worked with a functional medicine doctor and what we identified was that it was in fact the vaping. As soon as we cut out the vaping, we added in the right lifestyle changes, nutrition, etc. The hair came back and it came back stronger than ever before. He grew hair in places that he never even had hair to begin with. But I'm curious if you've seen this pattern among people that use vapes or that smoke anything, you know, nicotine or whatever. How can this influence the hair on their head and the rest of their body?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : I mean, so we know even just basic smoking, right, the exposure to nicotine clamps down on the blood vessels and that's starving the hair follicles of nutrition. And so that's the last thing that we want to do. We want to increase blood flow. We want to use things like nitric oxide supplementation in some cases. to improve blood flow to the hair follicle. Every single follicle has its own little blood supply. And it's probably pretty simple. Really? Individual blood supply for every follicle? Absolutely. And there's a network, almost like a nest of circulation that goes around each hair follicle, as well as nerve endings. Wow. So, those arteries and veins kind of enwrap the follicle and feed this highly metabolic cell population. And I would say it probably is, you know, the width of those blood vessels are so small, I mean, probably down to like a single red blood cell. So, if you start clowning down on the blood flow to your scalp, you're going to dysregulate the follicle. You're definitely going to starve it of oxygen. And so, you're not going to produce good quality hair. And so it's very common that smokers will come in with poor quality hair, that the cuticle, which is the outside coating of the hair fiber, is not so robust. And so it's prone to breakage. It looks dull. It feels rough to the touch. And so hair loses its aesthetic value when the fiber is not performing properly, right? and so and then of course eventually the hair follicle will just shut down and die and so we know that just smoking can do that right and so the interesting thing most of my patients are non-smokers right very very unusual to find a smoker in the in my practice in particular because i think they're just like more health oriented maybe more well educated And they're also thinking about their longevity. So smoking is one of the easiest thing, quitting smoking, one of the easiest things you can do to get another decade out of life. Right. When it comes to vaping. Oh, my God. Like when you say there's no safe cigarette, I think you're worse off with the vape because God knows what the heck all those toxins are, the heat. I mean, you know, you're you know, creating all the blebs inside your lungs. I mean, it's just that's just a disaster. So, you know, people who are hooked on vapes, I mean, I think in some cases it's just as bad as a smoke, you know, from a tobacco product like a cigarette. So and especially because we just don't know the effects of all those toxins and heat and everything else that's coming out of that. I mean, what's in that liquid that you're vaping is probably a guess, you know, at best. What part of the world is that coming from and who's watching to see if there's any kind of like toxic byproducts. So I'm not surprised that that kind of exposure to toxins would dysregulate your autoimmune reactivity. So, and that's what alopecia, alopecia is a general term for hair loss and there's many different types of alopecia, there's genetic, Androgenetic alopecia, which is male and female pattern hair loss, that's mostly what we treat in the practice, but we do see a lot of autoimmune conditions, patchy hair loss, right? Alopecia areata can affect your beard. You can have a blotch or a spot where there's no hair growth. It can happen on your scalp. It can happen to teenagers. And it can be triggered by stress. It can be triggered by a lot of things, right? Yeah. And what you've described is total hair loss across the whole body. And very often over the past couple of years, especially pandemic, we've seen infection with COVID trigger autoimmune conditions. We've seen the vaccines trigger autoimmune conditions or re-trigger them. I mean, I've had patients who were basically what I would say in remission from alopecia areata using therapies and treatments that we've provided and haven't seen them in a decade. And all of a sudden, you know, either they got they caught covid or or they did a booster or vaccination and all of a sudden, boom, reactivated. Right. So, you know, there's definitely some things out there that can mess with your immune system, biotoxins, mRNA and things like that, that we all have to be aware of.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, I think working with this individual showed me that most people, most young people in their 20s, they don't have the best health habits. And when they do something as stressful physiologically as smoking, it exacerbates that. It really takes it to the next level. And in his case, you know, he was, I guess, unlucky, but very fortunate to have this experience because it showed him that he should, in fact, take that much care, you know, such a dedicated level of care to his personal health well-being. And now, you know, he's like a primal health coach and he's like obsessed with health and biohacking. I had dinner at his house last night and it was like the healthiest dinner I've had in years. Nice. Um, I mean, I had super healthy food all the time, but he takes it to the next level. Right.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : And, um, well, when you go through a health challenge like that, sometimes it's a wake up call, right? Oh, absolutely. Now you see that it's time to like take care of yourself. Absolutely. Uh, you know, obviously when all of your hair falls out, it's like, you know, it's staring you in the mirror, right? What's going on. And so I'm, I'm not surprised that he made that kind of a change. As we do see also with even male and female pattern hair loss, you know, sometimes that's the wake up call. Yeah. As I said, sometimes men, it's the first medical visit that they might have since they visited their pediatrician. Yeah. The hair doctor. Right. And so that's why they're not taking care of themselves and not on a vitamin nutritional regimen. They're not, you know, trying to avoid refined sugars and things like that. We have all that discussion with them. Right. You know, to try to avoid the need for hair transplantation if we can.

Andres Preschel: And I don't want to go too far off this tangent, but I do want to mention how I think a lot of people that are taking these tobacco products and smoking all this stuff, they're doing it because they have this lack of energy. They're not sleeping great to begin with, and they're trying to compensate for it, but they're just adding greater stress, more vasoconstriction, and restricting their body of more and more and more of these nutrients. So it's like a counterintuitive approach to feeling energized, feeling good long term.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : We'll see people self-medicate with all kinds of things, right? And so, you know, what can we do if they're stressed out and then they're, you know, smoking or drinking or whatever, or they're binge eating. I mean, we want to try to replace that with healthier habits, right? So simple stuff that we talk about in the practice, breath work. I mean, how do you change your mindset like within a minute?

Andres Preschel: Well, it's the most accessible way to influence your physiology.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Yeah. I mean, it's free. You don't need a medication. You don't need a pill. You don't even need to do much of anything. You can just close your eyes and do, you know, change the method that you're breathing, change the rhythm. And that resets the whole system. Right. It's amazing. Right. We do that in hair transplants. If a patient comes in, their blood pressure is high, their heart rate's high. We're getting ready to start the procedure. We know we're going to be putting in some local anesthetic and we know it's going to be a comfortable process for them. But the patient is anticipating something else. Right. Hey, let's take a minute, we'll get the aromatherapy going, let's put on some, you know, sea turtles on the video with some relaxing meditative music and binaural beads or whatever. Let's do like 30 seconds of deep breathing, you know, I mean, just let's do this pattern of breathing. And then boom, we take their blood pressure, it's down, heart rate is down, we're ready to go. Their mindset is totally different.

Andres Preschel: So just putting that like, HRV skyrockets and now their body can accept this. I mean, because at the end of the day, it is damage that you're creating, right? But now everybody can repair and recover so much quicker and more effectively when it's in this state of, well, better autonomic nervous system function.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Absolutely. And so, and we've known this through surgery, you know, even in my training that, you know, attitude, you know, predicts how the patient's going to recover. I mean, if the patient is super nervous and, and, you know, anxious and has these, uh, you know, endorphins rushing or whatever, I mean, they just tend not to heal as well. And it's certainly true also with cosmetic procedures and treatments, even hair transplantation. So mindset does play an important role. But also in the biohacking world, there's a lot of things that we do in and around the procedure to help encourage their body to recover, recuperate faster. You know, Dave Asprey is obviously a very public patient of mine, so we can discuss how he essentially healed in half the time. through using biohacking methodology. He made a whole movie about how healing can be essentially hacked through a variety of different modalities when he had his foot surgery. But he used those same modalities when he had his hair transplant and he healed in half the time and grew twice as fast as anyone I'd ever seen previously. Wow.

Andres Preschel: And given this experience that you've had and how accomplished you've been through your approach, What do you think that we should start teaching in medical schools to all doctors? What do you think they should know about biohacking and optimal health to improve the outcomes of any procedure that they do?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Yeah, where do we start? So, you know, like I said, in my career, I've had the opportunity to network with and learn from, I would say, the pioneers in what I will, let's say, just consider generally as the medicine 3.0 approach. a preventative, proactive, holistic lifestyle medicine approach. And so if you search lifestyle medicine now, the ivory tower, right? You can look at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, medical schools all across the country are now using or at least aiming a little bit more towards lifestyle medicine as opposed to a pill for an ill, which is what we've all been trained. right right so i don't know if we can really you know change the whole course of of medicine that way i think it's going to have to come from the consumer point of view i think the patients who are educated empowered who are listening to a podcast like this or visiting conferences like biohacking by on congress biohacking conference Um, you know, listening to podcasts of those folks like Peter Atiyah, Dave Asprey, uh, Matt Caberlin, uh, you know, you name it and, and kind of picking and choosing, see what resonates for them. That's how medicine is going to change because there's always going to be the influence of big pharma There's always going to be the influence of, you know, big food, you know, and the accessibility of like, you know, cheap processed food is not going away. And especially as, you know, unfortunately, I think economically and so forth, you know, we're getting further away from like the good stuff, like nutrients and fuel that are really helpful for our body. right and so i think we're going to see that divergence so that there's going to be this upper level of people who are going to be taking better care of themselves because they're well educated and unfortunately the people that need it the most uh maybe lower socioeconomic status uh folks are you know going through just you know their day-to-day struggling for existence you know those that's going to be tough I mean, you know, how do you flip the food pyramid? I mean, how do you trust the FDA, you know, to take care of us in terms of nutrition? I mean, it's baffling to me in many ways. So, you know, I think it's gonna be an evolution, not a revolution. You know, I'm hopeful that this will continue to progress and you're gonna see more and more and more people. I mean, look, even in my local area, there are more what I would consider biohacking facilities Now there's three times as many today as there were a year ago. Places where you can get access to far infrared sauna and cold plunge and contrast therapy, IVs that are going to be helpful for reducing stress and improving hydration and metabolism. um, pulsed electromagnetic field and so forth. So I think as we see those, uh, modalities continue to improve, we're going to see a lot more data, a lot more research and how it's improving and extending not just the lifespan, but the health span of our patients. And that's, it's exciting place to be here. you know, in the cutting edge.

Andres Preschel: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I have a few rapid fire questions for you before we conclude. So when it comes to something like taking a shower, you know, you have the water, you know, going right to your scalp. And, you know, as we know, tap water is atrocious in most places. So what do you think about like showerhead filters and how they may influence the health and well-being of our hair and our scalp? What kind of considerations and investments can we make in better quality water?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, you know, many, many years ago, it's interesting you ask that, we used to dispense and distribute chlorine filters to our patients, and mainly it's because our local water, especially in Florida, has a high chlorine content. And if you, let's say you shower with high chlorine content, what happens is that it degrades that hair fiber, and so your hair just feels different. It feels more dry, it looks more dull, it's not as shiny, so it loses its aesthetic value. And patients will often find when they use a filtration system, whether it's a whole house or a showerhead filtration system, that just the shampoo works better, their conditioner works better, their hair feels and looks better. Do I have particular preferences on that? No, I wouldn't say I have like a specific guideline for patients right now in terms of what filter to get, but I would not discourage you from doing it. yeah yeah and so uh you know and of course all the different toxins that could be in the water and things like that that were you know is rushing over us you know the good news is that our skin is pretty good at keeping stuff out i mean we have uh technologies in the practice that enable us to push growth factors and peptides through the stratum corneum which is that moisture barrier of the skin so we don't have to use a needle to stimulate hair growth anymore um we can use these devices called ted trans epidermal delivery we can use PRP, platelet-rich plasma, we can use red light therapy, laser light therapy, and so forth. So there's a lot of modalities that can really affect the hair follicle, but we do have to get those treatments through the skin. So your skin is a pretty good barrier up to a point, but it does absorb everything from UV radiation, which can also dysregulate the hair, to the toxins that we get exposed to.

Andres Preschel: And when it comes to something like shampoo and conditioner, are there any ingredients or any products that we should make sure to add in and any that we should absolutely make sure to avoid?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, the first thing about shampoos and conditioners is that there's no one size fits all. I mean, I like to think that the products that we designed are the Bauman MD brand. are you know one size fits most so if you have some scalp issues and what I mean by that is that your scalp is exceptionally dry or very very oily or it's flaky or it's irritated or it's itchy or maybe you have folliculitis which is basically like acne of the scalp You might need a scalp evaluation. So I have an entire department, trichology department is the study of the scalp and the hair. And I have a certified trichologist that can look at your scalp under the microscope, do some tests in terms of pH level, moisture level, sebum level, which is the oil and make some recommendations. Do we need to intervene immediately? Is there something you need to just change in terms of your habits, in terms of frequency? Is there something you need to change in terms of your products? So the question of shampoo and conditioning is a little bit more complicated than, you know, what should I use? Right. But it's a very common question, but that's why I have an entire department for that. Right. In the practice. But the short answer is there are ingredients that you might be sensitive to in different shampoos that are readily available out there in the supermarket shelves. If you've ever been down a shampoo aisle, you know, there's thousands of different types of shampoos and conditioners, and that's because there's so many different types of hair. Right. Hair types like coily hair, is going to need more deeper conditioning, more durable conditioner. Hair that's straight or finer needs less conditioning. And then shampooing, do we need to shampoo out oil or dirt or hair product? That depends on your lifestyle and your age and some other factors. So again, no one size fits all, but when I created the shampoos and conditioners, I put in ingredients that were helpful for the hair and the scalp. So caffeine, green tea, salt palmetto, those are some key ingredients. I've also included Sandalor, which is a really interesting compound that we've discovered through that research with the University of Miami. And I've learned that sandalore in the research can trigger hair growth and so that is an important ingredient. So hair follicles can actually smell certain compounds. So just like our nose is reactive to certain odors, right? We smell sandalwood, we smell lemon, we smell orange, we smell whatever. You know, chamomile, rosemary, blah, blah, blah. Your hair follicles have those same kind of chemoreceptors. So there's chemoreceptors in the hair follicle that can be triggered through different odors and aromas. And so sandalwood, sandalore is one of those aromas that stimulates hair growth. And so that's included in our shampoos and conditioners. And then there's ingredients that we have in the soothe, so there's in the boost line and then we have a soothe line. The soothe line is specifically for inflammation. So if you have irritation and inflammation, what we found is that including CBD, for example, into the shampoo and the conditioner, we get a calming effect at the level of the scalp and it soothes the scalp. And there's also some new research that shows that CBD may actually trigger hair growth as well.

Andres Preschel: And is there such thing as hair overgrowth?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Well, yes, hair can be unwanted, right? So, women often come in, let's say after their treatment with a hair growth pharmaceutical like minoxidil, and they might notice hair, excessive hair in other places. They may have been struggling with that their whole life, you know? They want more hair on their scalp, but they don't want it on their upper lip, right? And so, there's ways to essentially remove that hair, right? So, there's waxes and shavers and lady shavers and there's electrolysis and of course laser hair removal can help with that. And I have an entire aesthetics department also in the practice and so if you have too much hair in other places we can remove that. So we use laser hair removal for that.

Andres Preschel: What don't you guys have in this practice?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Um, it's, it's expanded quite a lot over 25 years. And so, um, even to the point where we have cranial prosthetic devices for people who are not candidates for hair transplant surgery. So those alopecia patients who cannot undergo hair transplants, we have cranial prosthetics that basically could give you Hollywood hair in as little as 12 weeks, you know, and this is a beautiful, uh, completely durable head of hair, uh, that you can swim with, wash, shampoo and all of that. But it stays on, stays with you, um, to replace complete baldness. You know, for those alopecia totalis and universalis patients.

Andres Preschel: Wow. Well, I know that we're running short on time, but I do have two last questions for you. So, first of all, what can I do with my hair? Anything that I can do with my hair to keep it, you know, vibrant and keep this full head of hair as I age? Absolutely. You can assume that I'm already doing all the biohacking, all the optimal health, applied physiology.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : So just so you know, a consultation about hair loss and your hair situation and goals would typically take about an hour. Right. So to just say, you know, within 30 seconds, what you should be doing would be probably doing you a disservice. And so let me just go through kind of what we would normally do if we were in consultation together. You would come into the office if possible. If not, then we can connect on Zoom. And a lot of our patients do start their journey virtually. So that can be done all through baumanmedical.com, right? You can start with an in-person or a virtual consultation. What we can't do virtually is measure your hair. When you're in the office, we're going to spend some time talking about your lifestyle factors. I'm going to get an idea of your nutrition, your stress level, things that might be dysregulating your hair, what you have in terms of hair loss in the family. So we're going to identify those risk factors. Are you doing something with your scalp hygiene or hair habits that might be detrimental to your hair? We're going to sort through all of that. We're going to look at your current nutritional regimen. Are you on creatine, for example? We talked about that. If you were older, are you on hormone optimization therapy? Are there medications that are on board like statins or blood pressure medications or things like that that could hurt the hair follicle? Are you on pain medications like abapentin and so forth that could hurt the hair that we know now are not so good? And then we look at the measurements, right? So we're gonna do a deep dive on your scalp. We're gonna look at the back of the scalp with an AI powered microscope that'll literally count the individual hairs and tell us the quality and the caliber of each individual hair in that zone. And then we're gonna compare that to other zones that are at risk. So what's happening in the crown? You may not have baldness there yet because you can't see the scalp, but what if you've lost 20% of your hair? You would not know with the naked eye. But we can identify that with the microscope. Wow. So actually you can lose 50% of your hair without it being noticeable right from across the room. Wow. So, and that just tells us that, you know, when we do the microscopic analysis, how much miniaturization has occurred subclinically, meaning that it's not obvious, but there's definitely some tendency towards hair loss. And of course, looking for miniaturization in the more common male pattern hair loss areas is something we do. So we may do a deeper dive. We may look at your DNA analysis and see are there different metabolic pathways that are influencing hair growth and might indicate that you'd respond better to one type of treatment or another. Well, and then we look at the plethora of therapies that are available. So you're a young male, generally in good health. You know, you have some hair loss maybe in the family. Maybe there's some just simple things like nutritionally that we could add to your regimen. Maybe hair, scalp, hygiene, things that we could do. and then we'll track it over time. If something is noticeably changing, we're getting a depletion of density, we're looking at miniaturization, then we're going to talk about other methods. So platelet-rich plasma, injectable treatments we do in the office, or TED, transepidermal delivery like we have here at the booth. So come on by. Yeah, Andres, we'll measure your hair today. I'll be there. Biohacking, we can check it out. Cool. And then we can, that becomes a baseline measurement so that we can benchmark over time whatever you're doing and we can see how it's working or not. Well, if it's working, great, we leave it alone. If it's not working, your goals have changed or something's happening, maybe your health status changes next year, we're going to be on top of it, see how it affects your hair. Well, you know, but hopefully the idea is to help you preserve your beautiful thick head of hair so that you don't need invasive invasive procedure like a hair transplant. But if you're coming in and you see some loss, there's density loss, then we need to talk about how is a hair transplant performed? What kind of a procedure would we do? What areas would we address? How is that process accomplished? Is it a single day process? Is it more multiple procedures? Just depends on your goals and your hair loss situation.

Andres Preschel: Well, so I'll tell you what, I mean, that's the fact that the naked eye can't detect a 20% loss in hair density. That's terrifying, but also very empowering, right? Because it shows you that in fact, you should get this tested and maybe tested throughout a period of time to see through AI and the tools that you have available in your office, you know, what's really happening and why might this be happening? Because just looking at yourself in the mirror alone isn't enough. No, no, it's not enough at all.

Dr Alan J. Bauman : And so just like you, you know, as we get an advanced age, we may do a calcium score or a CCTA to look at your blood vessels in your heart. I mean, my gosh, we need to do that kind of benchmark. We need to look at your telomere length to look at how you're aging and so forth. Well, we can do that by looking at your scalp. We can tell your hair's age essentially before it's noticeable to the naked eye. So you can lose 50 percent of your density. and it will look about the same. Jesus. So that's like, as we say in South Florida, no bueno, right? No bueno. The good news is that it also works in reverse. So if you have a balding pattern, we don't have to put back 100% of your hair in terms of density and numbers of hairs to create coverage. So hair transplantation puts back, let's just call it 30 to 40% of your original hair density in most of the areas to create the coverage. It's going to make it look good and look great. Wow.

Andres Preschel: I have one last question for you. If you had to put a word, phrase, or sentence on a billboard somewhere, what would it say? Where would you put it? And on that billboard as well, you know, where could people look and find you if they wanted to learn more about this message or this mission?

Dr Alan J. Bauman : Yeah so I guess the message would be you know when it comes to hair loss an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as it is in most health situations right and so what I mean by that is that we can protect and preserve the function of the hair follicles if we take the right action at the right time before the follicles are completely dead and gone or beyond repair. So what that means is that you need to have if you think that you're at risk for hair loss Or if you're noticing some changes in your hair, the earlier you seek effective treatment, the earlier you seek a complete and thorough evaluation, the more successful you will be at protecting and enhancing your full head of hair. So that journey starts at baumanmedical.com. So some folks come in, they might be encouraged by their significant other. noticing that, oh, your hair is changing. They may be encouraged by their parents, knowing that the parents may be dealing with some hair loss issues and genetically they see it in their child, their daughter or son. And so a lot of times we're starting those evaluations much earlier today. Patients are coming in at a much earlier age, which is great. I'm convinced that many of our patients that we see today through the practice will never, ever need a hair transplant. And so why is that? Well, they're being proactive. You know, I'm also, you know, been in practice long enough. So I have a second generation, you know, of patients coming in, meaning that, you know, the father or the mother had had a procedure and they realize that they're at risk. They have a genetic tendency and they have a young younger child maybe going off to college or graduate school or entering the workforce. And they see that there's some hair loss going on and they want to kind of fine tune that, get it, get a handle on it before they get out there into the world, so to speak. Wow. So those journeys start at Bauman Medical dot com. Even if you have a question, you know, you're not sure about the gray hair or how often you should shampoo or these other things that we brought up today. You can go to Bauman Medical dot com slash ask and ask any question about hair and I will respond through my team and get the answers out to you. Amazing. On the website, you'll find thousands of pages of information that I've personally written myself over the past 25 years. You'll see all the tools, the technologies, the results, hundreds of hours of videos. So not just patients who have gone through the process like Dave Asprey, for example, but many other prominent people who have kind of blazed a trail, if you will, when it comes to the procedures and treatments that we do. And you'll see patients of all stages of hair loss. You'll see men and women. You'll see, you know, female to male transition patients and male to female transition patients and such. And those are some exciting procedures to do, you know, when we're doing gender affirming care. But you can find information on eyelash transplantation, which is something that I specialize in, as well as eyebrows, scars, burns and those other things like cranial prosthetics. You can find out information about Bauman performance, but you can start your journey from anywhere in the world. Almost 50% of our patients start with an online or virtual consultation. So, as I said, we can't do the measurements, but we can start to get some photos and start to have a discussion about what's going on. And hopefully you'll be able to come in to visit us in Boca Raton, Florida, you know, for a more detailed evaluation at some point, if needed. If you're interested in transplantation, restoring your own living and growing hair, obviously that journey again can start at Bauman Medical

Andres Preschel: Amazing. Thank you so much, Dr. Bauman. What a pleasure. It's been an honor. Yeah. So that's all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in today. For all of the show notes, including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today, everything from discount codes to videos to research articles, books, tips, tricks, techniques, and of course, to learn more, about the guest on today's episode, all you have to do is head to my website, AndresPeruchel.com, that's A-N-D-R-E-S-P-R-E-S-C-H-E-L.com, and go to podcasts. You can also leave your feedback, questions, and suggestions for future episodes, future guests, so on and so forth. Thanks again for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next one. Have a lovely rest of your day.