Ok i did some research and made a longer post about it including links and sources..however apparently im not allowed to post links so the post got marked as spam..
So here the short story:
There are no studies done whether metformin can cause hairloss or not..so so far we have no evidence
However there are some hints that metformin can cause indeed hairloss through different mechanism
- vitamin b12 deficiency caused by metformin -> will lead to diffuse thining all over the head; in general it takes month if not years to built up vitamin b12 deficiency so if you notice hairloss a few weeks after u start with metformin its unlikely its due vitamin b12 deficienvy
-estrogen/ aromatase inhibitor: metformin lowers estrogen and inhibits aromatase which can cause hairloss in women and enhance male pattern baldness in men. Eg women who got treated with aromatase inhibitors for breast cancer report hairloss and thinning, sometimes even in the form of male pattern baldness.
- prostaglandin: metformin reduces prostaglandin. Especially prostaglandin e2 is suspected to prevent male pattern hairloss
- dht: Dht is the key hormon when it comes to male pattern baldness. There are no studies how metformin affects dht in men. Since it raises sghb it probably reduces dht which would be good.
