Research Peptides for Hair Loss – A group of scientists has identified a peptide or a molecule made up of several amino acids – that plays a determining role in different types of alopecia. We know that hair loss is stressful and can cause lack of confidence and more. In this post we look at what research peptides are available for hair loss and what is the latest news on the laboratory!
Can Peptides Help with Hair Loss?
Peptides, like proteins, are responsible for numerous functions in the body, many of which are not known to science. Among them could be some processes that lead to hair loss, reported the team led by Professor Xue Zhang, of the Beijing Medical Union College.
The mutations suffered by a peptide reduce the effect of its function. It generates a strange variant of genetic alopecia. The discovery opens a field of research for developing new drugs in the treatment of some variants of hair loss in humans.
Research Peptides for Hair Loss Results
The researchers recall that it showed that mutations in the HR gene are responsible for rare alopecia, known as congenital atrichia, ten years ago. This condition occurs in the first months of life of people who have hair when they are born but begin to lose it progressively and lose it entirely before the age of five, although there are cases of complete alopecia from birth.
What Causes Hair Loss?
Other hairy sites on the body may be affected. But eyebrows, eyelashes, pubic and axillary hair are more often present in scant quantity. Another type of alopecia, known as Maria Unna’s hereditary hypotrichosis (MUHH), has been linked to the behavior of the HR gene, but the mutations have not been identified. The experts detected a sequence adjacent to the HR gene that encodes a small peptide, and that mutations are in 19 families with MUHH. The peptide works by inhibiting HR production, so mutations lead to higher levels, which must be kept in a certain range to prevent hair loss. It is the revolutionary baldness treatment that will probably never see the light of day
Researchers Find Epilepsy Drug Increases Hair Thickness
For many men, losing hair begins to be a problem in middle age and becomes their workhorse for the rest of their lives. Common baldness or androgenic alopecia is the most common cause of hair loss and is related to an alteration in male hormones or androgens, marked by a genetic predisposition. It can affect 40% of men between 18 and 39 and 95% over 70 years.
Curing Baldness is Big News
A group of researchers from the University has published a hopeful study on the efficacy of valproic acid in the journal Biomaterials. A drug often used in the treatment of seizures and also against the disorder bipolar. Experts observe an increase in the density and thickness of hair in mice. In the trial, they used a new system of dissolvable cellulose microneedles, which they have patented under DMN.
Many treatments tested on mice never get tested on humans. However, “it would not be the first time that a promising drug in mice has not reached humans,” explains Sergio Vañó, member of the AEDV Trichology Group and director of the Trichology and Alopecia Unit at the University Hospital. Ramon y Cajal. The reason is that “the biology of the hair follicle of rodents is very different from ours. We have the example of capillary cloning: in 2003, it was a success in mice, then in 2018 and we still cannot replicate it in humans”.
Last year, another group of researchers at the University of Texas studying nerve tumor formation and the role of the KROX20 protein in nerve development found that if they killed the cells that produce this protein, the mice lost their hair. In addition, they observed that the cells that produce KROX20 also made another protein called SCF, which is responsible for giving hair color. Conclusion: The loss of SCF makes us go gray, and the failure of KROX20 makes us lose our hair. So do we have the cure in our hands? Again the same problem: it is a study in mice.
The work presented by the Seoul group “is interesting because part of the evidence —although still scarce— that relates the topical use of valproic acid as a treatment for androgenetic alopecia”, explains Miguel Sánchez Viera, director of the Institute of Comprehensive Dermatology (IDEI ).
Injectable Peptides for Hair Growth
The great novelty, the biodegradable needles used to inject the drug.
“Years of research are needed to know if this hypothesis is confirmed or its effectiveness because the first results indicate only a slight improvement. The most innovative thing about your study, beyond the antiepileptic drug, is the patent of these microneedles biodegradable containers that they have designed,” adds Sánchez Viera. But “it will take years for this new system to be tested in humans, to check its level of safety, non-toxicity, and efficacy, depending on the necessary doses.”
The Seoul experiment has one point in its favor: if a laboratory wants to invest in these microcapsules with the anticonvulsant substance to treat alopecia, it is already halfway there since it is a drug that has already been approved, tested, and marketed for use systemically.
Much is known about valproic acid, including its toxicity —serious in pregnant women— making it easier to reach the final phase sooner. However, the patented microneedles must also pass rigorous research and approval controls. It will allow time to market, and if its efficacy and safety in humans are proven, perhaps one day, it will become a new and revolutionary treatment against baldness.
Peptides for Hair Growth
Not even the most expensive hair loss shampoo works; whatever the advertising says
And in the meantime, what options are there to deal with this problem? Experts warn an anti-hair loss shampoo, even if it is obscenely expensive, will never work no matter what the advertising says. And low-cost surgery, when it consists of traveling to foreign clinics of dubious healthiness, is not worth it either because this type of surgical intervention for a hair transplant can lead to infections and scars.
The only scientific evidence against hair loss is medical treatments, either topically, as gels or lotions, orally or by injection. “So far, the only approved and safe drugs routinely used in clinical experience are minoxidil which is still being investigated.
