Hair Loss Diagnosis

Men have been searching for an ultimate cure for hair loss for thousands of years but until very recently all available cures were either cosmetic cover-ups or vitamin/mineral pills and herbal lotions, with far too many of them just being scams. It was only with the advent of finasteride and minoxidil and improvements made in hair transplantation techniques in recent fifteen years that the new era began, enabling hair loss sufferers to halt the further progression of the balding process and replace the missing hair on top of their head using the hair left at the back of their scalp. However, to this day no ultimate cure for baldness is available.

There are presently several promising medical drugs and new surgical techniques under development but none of these new therapies is expected to hit the market before 2010. NEOSH101 is being developed by the US firm Neosil and it is currently undergoing phase IIb clinical trials. NEOSH101 has been shown to be a more powerful and faster-acting hair growth stimulant than minoxidil and it only needs applying once daily. Though considerably improving the current hair loss treatment options, NEOSH101 is not going to become an ultimate cure for hair loss. The clinical trials seem to be advancing slower than most hair loss patients would like and, hence, do not hold your breath for it hitting the market anytime soon. NEOSH101 is largely expected to replace minoxidil and other less powerful hair growth stimulants.

Another promising line of development is the telomerase research. Telomerase is an enzyme that is able to put natural caps on telomeres and thus protect them from shortening. Telomerase thereby helps maintain the genomic integrity. Shortened telomeres are associated with occurrence of the premature aging processes. However, the uncontrolled activation of telomerase can cause cancer. Cancer research is the main focus of the telomerase study but scientists are also seeking other applications, such as anti-aging drugs and drugs against hair loss and gray hair. Although still under development, there are already some products available on the market that seek to emulate the mechanism of telomerase action but they apparently have no scientific backing and should be avoided. Telomerase research could really change the world of medicine but its commercial application might be a good decade away.

Hair multiplication, often called hair cloning or follicular neogenesis, is the next hopeful treatment option being currently developed. This technique involves extracting the hair follicles from the back of the patient’s scalp, culturing and multiplying them in vitro and injecting the newly-grown hair cells into the bald scalp. Among several teams of scientists on three continents exploring hair multiplication, the UK healthcare firm Intercytex appears to be the frontrunner. Intercytex reported results of the latest stage of the clinical phase II study of ICX-TRC (a suspension of a patient’s own dermal papilla cells) in March 2008 and they were largely positive. The next release is expected in Q4 2008. This therapy might hit the market in 2010 at the earliest. The main benefit of hair multiplication would be solving the shortage of donor hair which is the main limiting factor in hair transplantation.

Generating hair follicles in hair-free skin wounds is an utterly new approach to regrowing lost hair. It was discovered accidentally as wounded skin in mice started producing new hair. This technology is currently being developed by the US medical device company, Follica, that licensed this technology from the University of Pennsylvania. Though this method may sound weird it only uses common medical devices and drugs that have already been medically approved and thus it might not take too long for it to become commercially available.

This is the list of only a few promising treatments for hair loss that are being currently developed but many others are in the pipeline. It seems that becoming bald will soon be by choice rather than destiny.

The hair loss treatments most frequently prescribed by dermatologists and hair loss clinics around the world are Propecia, or some other form of finasteride, such as Proscar, and Regaine/Rogaine, or its generic form - minoxidil. Some doctors will also recommend you to use supplementary vitamin and mineral pills, special shampoos, such as Nizoral, and perhaps a laser comb. But very few dermatologists and hair loss clinics will recommend their patients buy herbal hair loss treatments. But there are so many of them out there and most of them claim that they work better than Propecia or any other medicinal treatment prescribed by your doctor, while being free of potential negative side effects so typical of prescription medicine. And some of the manufacturers seem to be so convinced about the effectiveness of their product as to offer you a full money back guarantee. Or is it a catch?

First, one needs to differentiate between medical practice and the pharmaceutical industry on one hand and the cosmetics industry on the other. The medicinal and pharmaceuticals fields are strictly regulated in almost every country in the world, ensuring patient’s safety. Doctors can only prescribe permitted medications for certain conditions and the safety and efficacy of such medications has to be approved by the national health supervisory authority. Such products are considered safe and clinically proven to help treat the given condition. If your doctor recommends you some other, unproven herbal hair loss product, they will be taking the risk of supporting a treatment that has not been subjected to any rigorous clinical examination. Most doctors would not dare to do that since they have no guarantee that such a product would be beneficial to their patients and recommending a bad product could hurt their reputation.

Although some of the active ingredients in herbal hair loss products may pose a health risk, despite the common belief that they are safe, this is not their main controversy. The principal question is whether the herbal hair loss remedies are effective in treating hair loss. They might be effective to a certain degree since some of them also contain minoxidil, the only existing, clinically-proven and FDA-approved, topical medicine for treating hereditary baldness. Additional components, besides herbal extracts, usually include minerals, vitamins, amino acids and essential fatty acids. Most of these substances are either essential to ensuring healthy growth of hair and skin or they have been shown to promote new hair growth, mostly in small studies conducted on rodents. They have never been clinically tested for treating hereditary baldness and thus their effectiveness and mechanism of action are unknown. They may or may not help promote hair growth but since no clinical proof of their efficacy exists, the only way to find out is to buy them and try for yourself. And should they fail to work as promised, you may find out that the generous money-back guarantee, after deducting their incurred costs, only applies to a small fraction of the original price. This is the way some herbal hair loss product manufacturers earn their money.

In summary, no herbal hair loss remedy has ever been clinically proven and independently verified to effectively treat hereditary baldness. This does not necessarily mean that all herbal hair loss remedies are ineffective as they might work for some of us. However, they are usually overpriced and should at best be expected to maintain your existing hair rather than grow new hair from a bald patch.

Rogaine was the first medicinal drug in history approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating genetically determined hair loss in men. By now it has been approved and is available as a hair loss cure in many other countries of the world. Its principal active ingredient is minoxidil, a vasodilator that was originally used in the form of the oral drug Loniten to treat high blood pressure. Minoxidil is a hair growth stimulant but its exact mechanism of action is not known. Since Loniten has long come off patent, generic minoxidil is widely available in drugstores at a very reasonable price and in most countries it does not require a physician’s prescription.

Both Rogaine and generic minoxidil come in concentrations of 2% for women and 5% for men but many experimental generic treatments use concentrations of up to 20%. Minoxidil is often blamed for causing various negative side effects. Since it has become the most frequently used drug for treating hereditary baldness, its side effects are very well documented and they happen to be often exaggerated. In less than one percent of patients they include an irregular or fast heart beat, very low blood pressure, swelling face and ankles, blurred vision, numbness in the hands, etc. These symptoms are directly related to minoxidil being a vasodilator. In addition, minoxidil can cause increased hair growth on the face and other parts of the body. This is due to its ability to stimulate hair growth. But some side effects that minoxidil is often blamed for are not caused by minoxidil itself. They include inflammation, redness and itchiness of the scalp, dandruff and allergic reactions. These negative side effects can be attributed to the chemical vehicles used in the solution, such as propylene glycol and isopropyl alcohol (propanol). Many hair loss sufferers have discontinued their minoxidil treatment because of scalp problems, although minoxidil rarely causes such reactions.

Furthermore, many generic, minoxidil based lotions contain supplementary ingredients that are supposed to improve their overall efficacy, such as azelaic acid, retinoic acid, herbal extracts, etc. These substances, especially the herbal extracts, are known to be allergenic to many people. It is advisable to try several different minoxidil based products, for instance, those that do not contain propylene glycol, in order to test their tolerability for your scalp. A more expensive product, e.g. the original formulation, Rogaine solution, is not necessarily a better choice than a less expensive generic mixture. However, Rogaine foam, though relatively expensive, is typically very well tolerated. Anti dandruff shampoos, e.g. Nizoral, can, in the majority of patients, be employed successfully to treat scalp inflammations, itchiness and dandruff caused by the use of minoxidil based topical products.