Minoxidil (loniten)

Minoxidil (loniten)

Minoxidil is an antihypertensive vasodilator medication. It also slows or stops hair loss and promotes hair regrowth. Now off-patent, it is available over-the-counter for the treatment of androgenic alopecia. Minoxidil must be used indefinitely for continued support of existing hair follicles and the maintenance of any experienced hair regrowth. It is marketed under many trade names, including Avacor Physician's Formulation, Loniten (oral), Mintop, Amexidil, Rogaine, Spectral.DNC, and Vanarex. Kopexil is a derivative of minoxidil missing the piperidine substituent.

History

Originally, minoxidil was used exclusively as an oral drug (with the trade name 'Loniten') to treat high blood pressure. However, it was discovered to have an interesting side effect: hair growth.

Minoxidil may cause increased growth or darkening of fine body hairs, or in some cases, significant hair growth. When the medication is discontinued, the hair loss will return to normal rate within 30 to 60 days. Upjohn Corporation produced a topical solution that contained 2% minoxidil to be used to treat baldness and hair loss, under the brand name Rogaine in the United States and Canada, and Regaine in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Treatments usually include a 5% concentration solution that is designed for men, whereas the 2% concentration solutions are designed for women. The patent on minoxidil expired February 11, 1996. While the drug is available in the United Kingdom, it cannot be prescribed on the NHS, so patients must either buy it over-the-counter or have a private prescription for it. A foam-based formulation of 5% minoxidil, which is claimed to be as effective as the liquid-based formulation, was introduced by Upjohn and marketed under the brand name Rogaine/Regaine Foam.

Mechanism

The mechanism by which minoxidil promotes hair growth is not fully understood. Minoxidil contains the nitric oxide chemical moiety and may act as a nitric oxide agonist. Similarly, minoxidil is a potassium channel opener, causing hyperpolarization of cell membranes. Minoxidil is less effective when there is a large area of hair loss. In addition, its effectiveness has largely been demonstrated in younger men who have experienced hair loss for less than 5 years. Minoxidil use is indicated for central (vertex) hair loss only. Minoxidil is also a vasodilator. Hypothetically, by widening blood vessels and opening potassium channels, it allows more oxygen, blood, and nutrients to the follicle. This may cause follicles in the telogen phase to shed, which are then replaced by thicker hairs in a new anagen phase.

Side effects

Common side effects of minoxidil include burning or irritation of the eye, itching, redness or irritation at the treated area, as well as unwanted hair growth elsewhere on the body. Users should stop treatment and seek medical attention right away if they experience any of the following serious side effects: Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); chest pain; dizziness; fainting; fast heartbeat; sudden, unexplained weight gain; swollen hands or feet.

Alcohol and propylene glycol present in some topical preparations may dry the scalp, resulting in dandruff and contact dermatitis. Some formulations of minoxidil substitute lipid Nanosomes in order to reduce contact dermatitis from the alcohol and propylene glycol vehicle.

Paradoxically, hair loss is a common side effect of minoxidil treatment. Manufacturers note that minoxidil-induced hair loss is a common side effect and describe the process as "shedding". Although this phenomenon demonstrates that minoxidil is indeed affecting hair follicles, manufacturers offer no guarantee that the new hair loss will be replaced with hair growth. The speculated reason for this shedding is the encouragement of hairs already in the telogen phase to shed early.

Side effects of oral minoxidil may include swelling of the face and extremities, rapid and irregular heartbeat, lightheadedness, cardiac lesions, and focal necrosis of the papillary muscle and subendocardial areas of the left ventricle. There have been cases of allergic reactions to minoxidil or the non-active ingredient propylene glycol, which is found in some topical minoxidil formulations. Pseudoacromegaly is an extremely rare side effect reported with large doses of oral minoxidil.

Another side effect of minoxidil is that of dry skin, dark under-eye circles, and skin redness. Studies have shown that minoxidil can cause collagen depletion as it is a lysyl hydroxylase inhibitor, an enzyme which is key in collagen production.

Minoxidil is highly toxic to cats and may cause death with just inadvertent skin contact.

Application

Minoxidil needs to be applied once or the recommended twice daily, and may be used indefinitely for continued support of existing hair follicles and the maintenance of any experienced hair regrowth. To achieve maximum effect, the solution should be in contact with the scalp for at least 4 hours before allowing hair to get wet. Minoxidil stimulates hair follicles and growth, but does not reduce DHT or the enzyme responsible for its accumulation around the hair follicle, 5-alpha reductase, which is the primary mediator of male pattern baldness in genetically susceptible individuals. Therefore, when treatment is stopped, the DHT has its expected effect of shrinking and ultimately destroying the genetically predisposed hair follicles.

Minoxidil products involve contact with hair strands which may cause problems with hair styling as minoxidil must be in an alcohol-based solution. If the solution does not pose any problems, hair styling products may be applied after it has dried. (Source: Wikipedia)



 

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Avoiding Hair Loss Scams

Avoiding Hair Loss Scams

 

Hair loss potions, lotions, creams, and rubs are a multi billion dollar industry worldwide – it has been this way for years, and will continue to be so. Everyone wants your money, and the old adage that ‘a fool and his money are easily parted’ is never more true than when you think how many companies make a tidy profit from hawking cheap ‘miracle cures’. The sad truth is that many, many people are desperate to find a solution to their hair loss and will grasp at anything that looks remotely likely to solve their hair loss problems. There’s very little money to be made in the truth when it comes to hair loss, so that’s not the direction many marketers take when it comes to selling you their products. Hair loss products have been estimated to be in excess of $1 billion a year industry, and that figure alone should give you some idea as to the bone-fides of hair loss product claims. With such money at stake, if there were truly a product that could stop your hair loss and regrow your lost hair, everyone would know about it – it would be very, very big news indeed. Small advertisements in obscure sections of newspapers would not be the likely domain of a product with such earning potential if it were capable of delivering results.

Think before you buy. Look for any product guarantees and make sure to read any claims that the product manufacturers make. Don’t be taken in by those ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos that seem to be the main staple of hair loss product advertising. Any 1st year graphics student can doctor a photo to make someone look like they have a fuller head of hair, and any 1st year marketing student can come up with phrases like ‘makes your hair look thicker’, so don’t be fooled by the product’s blurb. Take a good look at the claims, and don’t make any impulse buys – impulse buys are what keep the hair loss scammers in business and making tidy profits.

The good news is that in the U.S., the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) both have waged war against unscrupulous peddlers of products that make false claims, particularly in the case of hair loss products. You can find a lot of information about products that may have warnings against them at their respective sites, FDA (www.fda.gov) and FTC (www.ftc.gov) - just use their on site search facilities with the term ‘hair loss’ and you’ll see just how much information you can uncover (they are actually very good resources for general information about hair loss products). You can also log complaints with these organizations if you feel you have been the victim of a scam. One comforting fact is that as America is one of the biggest consumer blocs in the world, chances are that any product worth experimenting with is sure to be available in America. If it is, then it falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA. If the product doesn’t meet it’s advertising claims, then at least you have some recourse with the FDA.

What’s the easiest way to avoid being taken in by a scam? Knowledge. The more you know about the causes of hair loss, the more you’ll be able to identify a legitimate product when it comes along. The simple fact is that there is no complete cure for baldness or hair loss at this time, and given the known causes of hair loss there is unlikely to be one single ingredient that can cure hair loss. There are products that tackle DHT, and DHT is known to trigger hair loss, and that’s really about how far we have come. The Internet can be one of your most valuable tools when it comes to hair loss products and their claims. Remember, nearly 40% of men will suffer from hair loss at some point in their lives, so there is a good chance that someone, somewhere, has an opinion on the product you’re thinking of using. Good or bad, you’ll find plenty of opinions on the net and you should seek out as many of them before you part with your hard earned money.

Remember, if it seems to good to be true, especially when it comes to hair loss treatments, it probably is.

Source: understanding-hair-loss.net

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Could gene therapy cure baldness?

 

by Jacob Silverman

Source: science.howstuffworks.com

 

Hair loss affects millions of Americans -- men, women and even children. It seems that there are an equal number of supposed remedies: wigs, hair pieces, topical treatments, drugs, vitamin supplements, transplant surgery, hats or simply shaving off what's left. Beyond these treatments, there is an industry of hairloss associations, support groups, counselors and more. Because hair loss has no cure and is a matter of vanity, it also attracts its fair share of scam artists. But in the eyes of many researchers, the key to finding a hair loss treatment is finding out its cause. That's why a recent study from a research group at the University of Pennsylvania has many people excited.

Scientists have long believed that hair follicles develop in the womb, and that no new follicles appear after birth. A person's head has 100,000 hair follicles, and when any of them shut down or gets severely damaged, that's it. No new follicles are going to appear, and follicles are limited in their ability to regenerate. However, re­searchers at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Dr. George Cotsarelis, have regenerated follicles in mice by manipulating a gene called Wnt. The study potentially has broad applications, both for devising new methods to regrow hair and treating a variety of skin conditions and wounds.

Wnt is involved in the healing of wounds and can be used to produce new hair follicles. The experiment showed that follicles can develop when a wound heals, and that the process can be manipulated to greatly increase the number of follicles. In the study, scientists removed small sections of skin from mice. This spurred stem cell activity in places where the skin was removed. However, when the scientists blocked the Wnt gene, follicles didn't grow. When Wnt was stimulated, the skin healed without scarring and eventually had all the same characteristics -- hair follicles, glands, appearance -- of normal skin. These new follicles also behaved normally, producing hair in the same way as other follicles.

The Penn team's study, the results of which were published in the journal "Nature," may unlock new possibilities in wound treatment and force scientists to reconsider the skin's regenerative power. Unlike some animals that can regrow their tails or limbs (a severed sea star limb, for example, can even grow into an entirely new sea star), the regenerative abilities of mammals was thought to be rather limited. But in this case, follicles and the area around them showed a tremendous ability to regenerate with ­no apparent aftereffects.

The technology used in the study has now been licensed to a company called Follica Inc. (Dr. Cotsarelis is a co-founder of Follica and a member of its scientific advisory board.) Follica hopes to use the technology to develop new treatments for hair loss and other disorders. There's a lot of money to potentially be made: treatment for "conditions of the follicle," which include hair loss as well as acne, skin and scalp conditions and excessive hair growth, is a $10 billion industry annually [Source: Puretech Ventures].

The Wnt study may lead to new and effective baldness treatments, but it's important to temper any enthusiasm. There's a still a significant gap to bridge between regenerating follicles in mice and wiping out male pattern baldness in humans, and gene therapies have generated excitement before. In January 1998, scientists at Columbia University announced they had made the first discovery of a gene partially responsible for baldness. They called the gene "hairless" because it was associated with a specific form of severe inherited baldness. The leader of the research group said at the time that their discovery may lead to new therapies for hair loss and baldness within five years [Source: Science Daily]. While those therapies haven't materialized, the study marked an important shift from looking at hormones to examining genes as the primary factor in hair loss.

No one knows how long it will take to find permanent solutions to hair loss, but these forays into gene therapy are an important step. Since that 1998 announcement, scientists have discovered more about how hair loss works, how it's inherited and how genes and stem cells can be manipulated to solve the problem­. With continued study and the Human Genome Project continually yielding new insights about our genetic code, it's likely a matter of when -- not if -- those late-night infomercials and spam e-mails promising "miracle hair-loss cures" become irrelevant.

For more information about hair loss, gene therapy and other related topics, please check out the links on the following page.

Launch Video

Treatment Advances for Balding

 

Lots More Information

Related HowStuffWorks Articles

• How Hair Replacement Works
• How quickly does hair grow?
• Why does the hair on your arms stay short, while the hair on your head can grow very long?
• How Stem Cells Work

More Great Links

• American Hair Loss Association: Hair Loss Research / Gene Therapy
• BBC News: Gene find triggers baldness hope

Sources

• "Hair Loss Research / Gene Therapy." American Hair Loss Association. http://www.americanhairloss.org/ hair_loss_research/gene_therapy.asp
• "Gene find triggers baldness hope." BBC News. May 16, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6661849.stm
• "Follica Developing Breakthrough Discovery to Treat Hair Loss, Wounds and Other Degenerative Skin Disorders." PR Newswire. May 16, 2007. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109& STORY=/www/story/05-16-2007/0004590099&EDATE=
• Sample, Ian. "Gene therapy holds out hope for baldness cure." The Guardian. May 17, 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,2081527,00.html
• "About Follica." PureTech Ventures. http://www.puretechventures.com/content/portTest.asp? file=follica.asp&id=122&mainPage=portfolio&subPage=aboutUs
• "Columbia Researchers Identify Gene for Inherited Baldness." Science Daily. Jan. 26, 1998. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/01/980130073111.htm

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TODAY | Aired on September 12, 2012

Scientists find vitamin D could cure baldness

More than half of American men experience hair loss after they turn 50, but now Japanese scientists have found that vitamin D could be a possible baldness cure. NBC’s Craig Melvin reports.

 

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>we're back now at 8:11 with a potential new hope for millions of americans bedeviled by baldness. here's nbc's craig melvin.

 

>> reporter: in recent years, screen stars and athletes have embraced the inevitable, making chrome domes cool. and now there's the dashing royal landing a beautiful princess despite his thinning hair. colin watson is bald and proud. scott evans started shaving it 15 years ago.

 

>>once you go bald, you don't go back.

 

>> reporter: but not every member of the bald brotherhood is happy about losing their hair. doctors like mark dauer perform more than 1,000 hair replacement surgeries a year.

 

>>what i see in my patients is when we can restore the hair, in the only does it make them feel better about themselves, but it restores their self-confidence.

 

>> reporter: but at an average cost of between $8,000 and $ $12,000, hair restoration surge have i too expensive for many. many turn to popular drugs like propecia and row gain. soon though some hope there may be another option.

 

>>this research that we've come up with is fantastic news for us.

 

>> reporter: recently japanese scientists figured out how to grow human hair on hairless mice. scientists discovered there's a nutrient that seems to awaken the receptors and follicles that shot down in hair loss, that nutriien and possible cure for baldness, vitamin d.

 

>>i don't think it's the level of vitamin d. it's how the vitamin d is being handled by the receptors in the follicles that may be part of the reason why we lose our hair when we get older.

 

>> reporter: that's cause for cautious optimism.

 

>>in the next few years we'll have many other options that ultimately one day will make hair loss a voluntary thing.

 

>>if they could do it, i'd think about it, but they got to convince me first. i'm a non-believer.

 

>> reporter: some are skeptical about a miracle cure. others don't see the need.

 

>>i choose to stay bald. i'm comfortable. i like the look. my wife likes the look. i'm good.

 

>>i like his look, too. that was nbc's craig melvin. dermatologist susan taylor joins us. good morning.

 

>>good morning.

 

>>people who have lost their hair or dare i say a cure, let's understand about what exactly causes people to lose hair.

 

>>sure. many different causes of hair loss, but the bottom line is that there are three phases of hair growth, the anagen or growth face, that can last two to five years but there's a sleeping phase. that's only supposed to last weeks or months, but sometimes it becomes permanent, and that can lead to ballotness.

 

>>so the follicle goes to sleep.

 

>>that's right.

 

>>and what is it about vitamin d that can actually reawaken that follicle?

 

>>well, what scientists have found is that vitamin d and the receptors, so that you can think of the receptor as a lock. vitamin d is the key that fits into the lock, and that seems to cause hair to grow, and also can help generate stem cells. those are cells that can turn into follicles to form.

 

>>did this research indicate whether vitamin d might one day be more effective than things like row gain and propecia and other drugs?

 

>>well, row gain and propecia they prevent further hair loss. well, the hope is with vitamin d and activating the receptor, turning the receptor on to grow hair, that we can either cure hair or take a bald scalp and grow hair.

 

>>what are we suggesting, that one day there will be an ointment of vitamin d, or are we going to be ingesting it? how will we get it into our systems?

 

>>we're not quite sure, so right now all the science is done in the lab. it's done in animals and cell cultures. we'll have to wait and see if it's vitamin d that will activate the receptors or the compounds, something that activates the resomors.

 

>>a lot of bald men who want their hair back. are we suggesting that you'll at one point get the vitamin d in your system and you'll start sprouting hair again, or will this take years, months.

 

>>>> we don't know. we don't know. we hope it's a potential cure, but there's much work to be done to translate what we've learned in the lab to humans.

 

>>just a fun fact for our friends without hair. you lose about 100 hairs from your scalp every single day.

 

>>every single day.

 

>>that's right.

 

>>which means in about two and a half weeks i'm mr. clean. that's good. doctor, thank you. nice to see (source: video.today.msnbc.msn.com)
 

 

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A cure for baldness? It's just a hair's breadth away

A cure for baldness? It's just a hair's breadth away

Doctors all over the world are fighting to find a way to stop men from losing their hair, writes David Robbins (Source: independent.ie)

By David Robbins
Thursday October 25 2012

Men are very poor judges of their own hair. Where there is thinness, they see abundance. Where there are wisps, they see luxuriant locks.

Several years ago, I noticed my hairline was receding. It was like a tide slowly ebbing, leaving a small island of hair at the front.

The next time I went to the barber, I asked him to give me a number two blade all over. I expected him to say I was being hasty, that I had years to go before I had to do that.

What he actually said was: "I thought you'd never ask."

I can't say it was very traumatic. Several people told me I looked better bald. And now, if my wife sees an old photo of me with my 1980s bouffant, she becomes helpless with mirth.

There is a famous sign in Dublin's city centre. In fact, it's so famous, they started a campaign to have it listed as a protected structure. It says, in yellow neon letters: "Why go bald?"

Why indeed? It's a question most men will ask at some point. Nearly 70pc of men experience baldness by the time they reach 80.

The good news is that new research in Japan, France and the US has moved closer to the goal of "curing" male baldness.

Dr George Cotsarelis, head of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania, recently announced he was in talks with pharmaceutical companies about making a drug to block an enzyme he believes causes baldness.

The enzyme, prostaglandin D2, was identified in a research paper in February as instructing follicles to stop the production of hair. But his laboratory is not the only one racing for a cure.

In June, Dr Bruno Bernard of L'Oréal said he and his team had discovered that thinning hair is often due to follicles being in a "dormant" phase.

It is all to do with the level of oxygen around stem cells called CD34+ cells. He thinks that by targeting these cells he can awaken them.

Meanwhile in Japan, a hairless mouse was given a stem-cell treatment to transplant hair follicles on its head from a hairy mouse.

This breakthrough could mean that follicles might be grown in a lab and then transplanted on to the head.

But even without these research advances, the baldy of today is still pretty well catered for. There is more money being spent researching baldness cures than on trying find a cure for malaria, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates pointed out recently.

"Now baldness is a terrible thing," he said, before pointing out the reason the pharmaceutical industry is so interested in the area, "and rich men are afflicted by it."

Baldness is caused when the body produces too much dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which in turn produces androgens which cause the follicles on the top of the head to shrink and die. By the age of 50, about 40pc of men have some baldness.

"About 95pc of male pattern baldness is hereditary," says Philip Kingsley, chairman of the Institute of Trichology, "although recent research shows that genetic hair loss can be brought on earlier by emotional stress."

Baldness has its own scale, just like earthquakes or wind speed. It's called the Norwood scale: a one on the Norwood is a slight receding at the temples, while a seven is Michael Noonan territory.

The idea of a magic pill that could stop the balding process is something many men would pay for. Already, many are paying up to €20,000 for existing treatments.

These fall into three basic categories: hair 'systems' (basically, wigs), drugs (finasteride, used in Propecia, and minoxidil, the active ingredient in Regaine or Rogaine), and transplants.

Finasteride is taken in pill form and works by preventing the formation of DHT in the scalp and works for about 50pc of patients; minoxydil is a gel or foam which is rubbed into the scalp.

Some 85pc of men see some regrowth, but how it works is not precisely known.

Both these treatments have to be used continuously, but they can be undertaken at any age. New treatments include the HairMax Lasercomb, a kind of electric hairbrush that stimulates the follicles and has just been licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration, and botox, which has been shown to promote regrowth.

There are also many vitamin supplements (mostly iron and zinc) and patent lotions ranging from stinging nettle to shark cartilage, but trichologists are quick to warn against the many "snake oil salesmen" out there.

However, more and more men are trying transplants, either FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) or FUT (Follicular Unit Transplant).

FUE is very painstaking, transferring two or three follicles at a time from the side or back of the scalp to the top.

Men who are balding, thinning or merely receding will be watching these new developments with interest. They will be hoping that it may be a case of "gone today, hair tomorrow".

- David Robbins

Irish Independent

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Is the cure to baldness finally here?

Is the cure to baldness finally here?

Is this company Replicel really working towards an effective solution of baldness. See the video to see how their technology works.

 

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The management of baldness

The management of baldness is a multidisciplinary effort that spans the medical, pharmaceutical, food supplement, exercise and fashion industries. Androgenic alopecia, alopecia areata, and telogen effluvium are the primary nonscarring alopecias. The most common cause of hair loss in men is androgenic alopecia, the early stages of which can be slowed or reversed with medication, while more advanced cases may be amenable to hair transplantation. Alopecia areata presents as focal discoid patches of hair loss, and affects up to 2% of the U.S. population, occurring more often in children. Telogen effluvium can occur after stressful events, including severe illness, childbirth, or high fever, and can be seen with certain medications or deficiency of iron, particularly in females. Thyroid dysfunction, both when increased and decreased, can lead to specific patterns of hair loss.

The Bald Truth : The First Complete Guide To Preventing And Treating Hair Loss

Available at Amazon.

With the introduction of Propecia™ the drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of male pattern baldness, and Rogaine™ 5%, regrowth of regular or "terminal" hair -- not peach fuzz -- is finally a reality. Yet thousands of products in the $7 billion hair-loss treatment and restoration industry claim their effectiveness too. Now in The Bald Truth, consumer advocate Spencer David Kobren offers the antidote to decades of hair-raising hype. In this comprehensive, authoritative book, Kobren examines the largely unregulated baldness treatment industry and tells how, after years of research, he successfully treated his own hair loss -- and how you can too.

IN THE BALD TRUTH YOU'LL LEARN ABOUT:

 

* the latest in hair restoration -- including a thorough review of the breakthrough drugs Propecia and Rogaine 5%, and how they work

 

* how to keep from getting scalped by botched surgical procedures

 

* how nutrition can supercharge treatment -- the diet that helps hair grow

 

* the power of herbal treatments

 

* hair systems -- what they are and where to find the good ones

 

Exploring case histories, the latest scientific studies, and new treatments being developed, The Bald Truth proves that male pattern baldness can be combated -- and helps you make an educated decision about the best alternatives available today.

 

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