Hair restoration research with medications

Cosmetic hair restoration is an issue that many men and women suffer with with male pattern baldness and thinning hair. A group of researchers at the University of Manchester published a study showing how the side effects of some medications can actually be used to help stimulate hair growth. A drug that has been around since the 1980’s called Cyclosporine A had a side effect of patients having hair growth. The researchers discovered that the drug has in it an inhibitory mechanism that stops the body from using a certain protein that inhibits the growth of hair cells. The researchers used donated human hair follicles and found they promoted the human hair growth in the laboratory. Further research is needed.

Minimally invasive procedures which promote blood circulation in the scalp and stimulate growth factors include micro-needling with or without platelet rich plasma PRP.

  1. Nathan J. Hawkshaw, Jonathan A. Hardman, Iain S. Haslam, Asim Shahmalak, Amos Gilhar, Xinhong Lim, Ralf Paus. Identifying novel strategies for treating human hair loss disorders: Cyclosporine A suppresses the Wnt inhibitor, SFRP1, in the dermal papilla of human scalp hair follicles. PLOS Biology, 2018; 16 (5): e2003705 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003705