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According to an article published in on line journal Plosone.org Million
Mulugeta, D.V.M., Ph.D., co-director of UCLA’s preclinical stress biology research
program at the University of California, Los Angeles, claim that they have
uncovered a promising hair-loss treatment & may have the potential to
affect hair color, including gray hair..
The experiment wasn’t focused on hair loss. Instead, it was
designed to study a chemical compound that blocks the effects of stress on the
gut.
The research team, during a study of the effect of a compound
called Astressin-B while conducting
stress-hormone experiments on mice that typically develop head-to-tail baldness
as a result of being genetically altered
to overproduce a stress hormone (The mice used in the experiments had been
genetically altered to overproduce a stress hormone called
corticotrophin-releasing factor, or CRF. Corticotropin-releasing factor
over-expressing (CRF -OE)-mice that display phenotypes of Cushing's syndrome
and chronic stress, including alopecia. CRF-OE mice develop bilateral symmetric
hair loss in adulthood). The goal of the experiments was to study the effect of
Astressin-B ((5 µg/mouse) injected
peripherally once a day for 5 days) to determine whether it would block the effects
of stress on the colon but accidental finding was the mice treated with Astressin –B had recovered the full
cover of fur on the back in few weeks compared to the placebo ( injected with
saline) given mice which did not recover. A
sterssin-B induced pigmentation and hair re-growth that was largely
retained for over 4 months (a significant period for average 2 years life of
mouse) when mice were killed Histological examination indicated that alopecic
CRF-OE mice had hair follicle atrophy and that Astressin-B revived the hair follicle from the telogen to anagen phase.
The team repeated the experiment several times and got the same
results — bald mice grew new hair in a few weeks. The researchers also injected
the compound into young mice before they went bald. Those mice never lost their
fur.
The researcher said the compound appears to have affected the
mice skin pigment as well as
spurred hair growth. This could mean
Astressin-B has the potential to
affect hair color and gray hairs. Majority of Pigments were regained by about 1
week and the hair was regained by about 2 weeks
Temporary blockade of the CRF receptors could thus be a
breakthrough therapy for alopecia particularly for patients in acute
(chemotherapy, traumatic stressful events) or chronic stress setting.
Findings of a mouse study may not be applicable to humans, but results
may spur more study of the role stress might play in human hair loss. Hair
growth cycles are very different in mice and humans, so one could draw only
limited conclusions from the research
The research would probably be useful only for hair loss related
to stress, likes that caused by one-time events, rather than as a treatment for
genetic baldness.
