stop hair loss

When it comes to treating your hair loss it pays to have some basic understanding of the existing treatment options in order to better assess your chances and to choose the right remedy for your current condition. In the first place, hair loss treatment options can be divided into surgical and non-surgical therapies. Although there are only a few surgical techniques currently used, the non-surgical spectrum is wide and confusing. There seem to be thousands of non-surgical treatment options available to those who wish to avoid hair surgery. Propecia and Rogaine might be the best known medicinal hair loss treatments, while dried fruits of saw palmetto and a Chinese herb, He Shou Wu, also known as Fo-Ti, are the natural ingredients most frequently used in alternative hair loss remedies.

The non-surgical hair loss therapies can be in principle broken down into medicinal and alternative treatments, whereas when considering methods of application, they can be divided into oral treatments, topical applications and others, such as low level laser therapy. Irrespective of the aforementioned breakdowns, hair growth treatments work either by blocking the activity of dihydrotestosterone, also called anti-androgens, or by stimulating hair growth.

Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is a biologically-active metabolite of the male hormone testosterone that is thought to be the main cause of both male and female hereditary pattern baldness. DHT causes hair miniaturisation as the hair becomes finer and thinner with every new hair growth cycle until the hair follicles refuse to produce another hair at all and eventually die. The exact mechanism by which DHT acts on hair follicles is not known, though. Finasteride, better known under its trade name Propecia, is the only clinically-proven and FDA-approved anti-androgen used for treating male pattern baldness. It acts by preventing the creation of DHT in the scalp. Since the introduction of Propecia, many other drugs and natural therapies have emerged claiming anti-androgen activity. Some of them are supposed to work by a different mode of action than Propecia, such as preventing DHT from binding to the receptor sites in the follicle or blocking activity in the androgen receptor itself.

Minoxidil, also known as Rogaine, is the best-known hair loss medicine amongst hair growth stimulants. It is assumed that hair growth stimulants work by directly stimulating epithelial growth of hair follicles and some of them may also counteract the hardening of the hair follicles but the exact mechanism of their action has never been described. One thing that all hair growth stimulants have in common is their ability to increase the length of the hair growth cycle, thus improving the ratio of hair in the growth phase and to increase the hair’s diameter.

The natural hair loss treatments are in principle assumed to work by the aforementioned modes of action and are often presented as safe alternatives to medicinal treatments. There are not too many hair loss treatments that have been clinically proven and independently verified to be effective in treating baldness. Of those few existing, all happen to be medicinal drugs. Natural hair loss treatments have still to live up to their manufacturer claims.

When deciding about the most suitable hair loss treatment option, one should always consider approaching the problem from different angles. It is best advised to use a combination of anti-androgen and hair growth stimulant, such as a Propecia/Rogaine combination. Alternative, hair loss treatments, for instance natural remedies, should mainly be considered as a method of fine-tuning this basic regimen in order to achieve additional benefits.

No single natural or herbal hair-loss treatment sells as much as some of the most popular hair loss drugs - Propecia or Rogaine/Regaine. However, due to the sheer variety of natural hair-loss products, their combined sales might already exceed the sales of medicinal hair-loss treatments. The key to the growing popularity of natural products is a general belief that they are as effective as medicinal treatments but less expensive and do not carry the risk of negative side-effects. However, none of these claims seem be true.

There are far too many herbal and naturally-derived substances out there that are assumed to treat hereditary pattern baldness in humans but none of them has ever been clinically proven and independently verified in a statistically significant sample. Hence, no matter what the marketers of the natural hair-loss treatments say about the superior effectiveness of their products, you should take their word with a grain of salt. That does not automatically imply, though, that all natural hair-loss products are a scam. Natural treatments are a mix of numerous components that are suspected of promoting hair growth and they may work for some people but their mechanism of action is not known and their results usually vary significantly between patients.

Herbal and naturally-derived supplements have not been subjected to any rigorous clinical testing regarding their safety, either alone or in interactions with other substances, as medicinal drugs. Most plants and naturally-derived substances are only tested on rodents not on humans. In addition, increasing numbers of herbs and herbal products are becoming known for causing for nasty allergic reactions. Many marketers tell you that saw palmetto is as effective as finasteride in treating hair loss and that it can be used as its natural alternative. Its mode of action is to reduce the dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels in your scalp, the same job finasteride is believed to do. However, saw palmetto is supposed to have no negative side-effects. Saw palmetto simply enjoys the best of both worlds; it is as effective as finasteride but as harmless as drinking tap water. A quick internet research turned up the following list of side-effects experienced by saw palmetto users: stomach pains and diarrhoea, severe bleeding in the stomach during saw palmetto use, allergic reactions, difficulty with erections, decline in sexual desire, testicular discomfort, breast tenderness and enlargement and a warning that saw palmetto extract is not recommended for women who are pregnant or breast-feeding because of its possible hormonal activity. This shows that herbal substances may not be so harmless after all.

And lastly the price comparison does not seem to speak in favour of natural hair-loss products, either. They happen to be amongst the most outrageously-overpriced hair-loss cures on the market. Sure, it is not easy to beat the price of cheap generic minoxidil. But why should you pay ten times more for the same generic minoxidil just because it comes in a fancy box with a few herbs and vitamins? Natural hair-loss products usually come as a complete treatment, consisting of topical and oral applications and a shampoo. You are advised to use the entire therapy, as the individual components complement each other. This obviously ensures very good profits for the manufacturer.

Herbs have been used in traditional folk medicine for thousands of years to treat various hair loss conditions. However, traditional recipes have not always been usually very successful in treating hereditary forms of baldness and to this day no ultimate herbal or medicinal cure for genetically-determined hair loss conditions exists. Nonetheless, herbal remedies have experienced a tremendous revival in popularity recently and now account for well over 50% of all hair loss products sold. This revival came with the discovery of the true cause of hereditary baldness, now believed to be dihydrotestosterone (DHT) attacking hair follicles and the arrival of finasteride, which is capable of blocking the conversion of testosterone into DHT. Finasteride is an anti-androgen drug that had been used for some time prior to the discovery of its hair growth-promoting benefits to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), also called prostate enlargement. Following this discovery, herbalists started looking for possible natural alternatives to finasteride among plants that have been traditionally used to treat urinary problems.

Extract from saw palmetto berries has been used for decades to treat prostate enlargement and it is one of the few substances of herbal origin used in natural remedies that have been subjected to some sort of scientific research in regards to their potential for treating BPH. Its supporters assume that it works by inhibiting the conversion of testosterone into prostate and follicle-harming DHT but no study has yet confirmed this theory. Some studies suggest that saw palmetto works by a different mode of action to finasteride, and does not affect the levels of DHT in the body or scalp. However, the most recent research results indicate that saw palmetto might not be effective in treating BPH at all. No clinical research has ever been conducted on saw palmetto’s effects on hair loss. All of its potential hair benefits are derived from the assumption that if it is effective in treating BPH, it must be also effective in treating hereditary hair loss. Saw palmetto is widely used by thousands of male hair loss sufferers around the world and it is sometimes blamed for causing side effects similar to those associated with finasteride and thus should not be used by pregnant or breast-feeding women or by children.

Extract from the bark of the evergreen tree pygeum africanum is another popular herbal ingredient found in natural hair loss treatments and many herbalists believe it is far more potent in treating hair loss than saw palmetto. Its rise to fame also comes from the general assumption that this plant, thought to be beneficial for treating urinary problems, must be also effective in treating hair loss. Pygeum africanum has been less well studied than saw palmetto and nothing is known about the possible mechanism affecting the prostate, let alone about its impact on hair. It has never been used in any clinical hair loss study. Its inclusion in herbal, hair loss products rests on its assumed DHT inhibiting activity. For those who want to try a natural DHT blocker, pygeum africanum seems to be a safer option than saw palmetto due to its lower health risk profile.

The third most popular herbal ingredient used in natural hair loss cures is nettle root extract. This herbal drug is derived from the root of the stinging nettle, a popular healing plant found in temperate and subtropical zones of the northern hemisphere. Its use in natural hair loss remedies also stems from the fact that it is supposed to help shrink enlarged prostates by inhibiting the conversion of testosterone into DHT. Studies have shown that nettle root is far more effective in relieving the symptoms of BPH when administered in conjunction with pygeum africanum than when used alone, but its mode of action remains unknown. Nettle has never been used in any clinical hair loss study. Caution is advised to patients using nettle root extract since the whole plant is known to be allergenic to some people. Other than that it seems relatively safe as it has been used for centuries in many parts of the world as a vegetable and has been often compared to spinach in terms of its nutritional benefits.

The remaining popular herbs frequently found in natural hair loss treatments include ginkgo biloba, Siberian ginseng, Asian ginseng, gotu kola, green tea, pumpkin seed oil, rosemary, chamomile, horsetail, etc. These herbs are supposed to work by different other modes of action, such as by improving the blood circulation in the scalp, fighting fungal infections and inflammation in the scalp or providing vital nutrients to the hair follicles. Although all of these plants possess properties extensively utilized in traditional folk medicine, none of them has ever been clinically tested for treating hair loss. No scientific proof exists that any herb, vitamin, mineral or nutrient contained in the natural remedies promotes new hair growth. Whether you decide to try a commercial herbal remedy or just one or two herbs on their own, keep in mind that besides there being no guarantee of their effectiveness, no daily dosage has been established and side effects might occur despite the general belief that herbal hair loss remedies are safe and free of them. You should approach any herbal treatment with caution and should health problems, e.g. allergic reactions emerge immediately abandon such treatment.