October 22 2009, 3:33 pm PT | Posted in: Hair Products
Dear doctor. I think you are correct about Segals. Its now seven weeks since I have started using Segals solutions, no visible changes, so far no new hair growth. Now I want to know whether these people like Segals, Foltene, etc are trying to make money by giving false hopes. But some people blogged that these are working for them. Are they mere illusions? and compared to minoxidil why these products are very expensive? I would like your views on that.
Recently I have studied so many articles on Internet that “EMU oil” is a DHT blocker and it grows new hair. I would like your comments on emu oil and whether applying oils like coconut oil, olive oil or almond oil promote hair growth?
I really think the driving force behind many of these products is the ability to make easy money. If I posted a study on the internet consisting of 2 people and said fertilizer applied to the upper lip caused a moustache to grow in thicker 50% of the time, I’d imagine there would be a dozen products like “Magic Fertilizer Moustache Cream” for sale by the end of the month. I wouldn’t have to provide any photos or scientific proof whatsoever for people to believe it. Of course, I would never do that and fertilizer will not grow hair, so don’t bother trying. What I’m getting as it that there’s no proof that emu, coconut, olive, almond, peanut, caramel, nougat, dung, or any other substance will regrow hair. I don’t know where this stuff comes from, but I’ve yet to see proof that it does what it claims.
People are so willing to believe almost anything when it comes to hair loss. Look at the ridiculous “Trust Timmy” and “Honest Jimmy” type of sites out there. Anyone that has searched for “hair loss” on Google has undoubtedly seen those advertisements. Those are simply marketing campaigns created to give you confidence in the product to get you to place an order. They might give false hopes, but their real intention is to make money. Perhaps I should make a “Believe Bill” site to warn people not to fall into these traps.
The sellers of these hair loss products can charge an inflated price, because people tend to equate this higher price with a higher level of efficacy. That reminds me of a story I’d read about consumer electronics (unrelated to hair). In the mid-1990s, high-end electronics began appearing on the market with blue LED lights (rather than the red lights that were common). When cheaper products with blue LEDs began hitting the shelves, it instantly gave some higher perceived value to those products. Now you see those blue lights in everything (instead of red, like it used to be). It was a novelty that has now become commonplace. Granted, blue and green LEDs weren’t developed until the mid-1990s, but the demand for blue in particular was spurred by the higher-end products including these tiny lights. But I digress…
Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):
I have been raising emu and selling emu oil since 1995. We have had many people achieve hair regrowth with the pure oil and the formulated hair products. Emu oil has been shown to thicken skin and increase blood flow and oxygenation at the cellular level when applied. If the hair folicles have gone dormant due to lack of blood flow and nutrition - emu oil can reawaken them. If the hair folicles are “dead” there isn’t anything emu oil can do to help. Many of emu oils properties are very different from coconut, olive and almond oil Below are excerpts from an article about Dr. Holicks research into hair and skin regeneration using emu oil. If you want more info try my site at http://www.allaboutemu.com
A Hair Raising Issue - Drug and Cosmetic Industry, January 1996, By Drs Michael F Holick and James Kinney
Michael Holick, MD, PH.D. Professor of Medicine, Physiology, and Dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine, conducted a study involving processed emu oil, and the results were so outstanding that they quickly became a topic of conversation in many medical and other journals.
Dr. Holick revealed that he and his associates had been very interested in looking at factors that stimulate and inhibit both skin and hair growth. He had been introduced to a processed emu oil known as Kalaya (Kalaya is the Aboriginal word for emu) oil by representatives of New World Technology, a company that processes and sells the oil.
“They had told me about the wondrous things that it’s doing, at least from the folklore of the Aboriginal people and also from their own anecdotal experience. My feeling was that the only way to really know whether or not this oil has some biologic property was to do a control study in a laboratory setting. So New World Technology sent me some Kalaya oil,” he revealed.
“We depilated some mice and we then topically applied, in a blinded fashion, Kalaya oil and com oil to two different groups of mice, and we did this for two weeks,” he explained. Twenty-four hours before the conclusion of the study, the mice were given an injection of a label that indicates what the DNA turnover is. The injection was a monitor of how quickly their DNA was multiplying.
Skin was then obtained from the animals the next day and analyzed. “We found that there was about a 20 percent increase in DNA synthesis, which means that there was a 20 percent increase in the proliferative activity, or the growth activity of the skin in the animals that received Kalaya oil, compared to the animals that received corn oil,” said Dr. Holick. ”And when we looked at the hair follicles, and the thickness of the skin, it showed that the hair follicles were much more robust, and that the skin thickness was remarkably increased, suggesting that the Kalaya oil stimulated skin growth and hair growth in these animals.
Also, we discovered in the same test that over 80 percent of hair follicles that had been asleep were woken up, and had begun growing hair.” “A hair follicle goes through a cycle. It goes from arresting stage into an active growth period, and then it goes back to sleep again. We woke up all the hair follicles by stimulating them, and then we wanted to see if we could further stimulate these hair follicles by topically applying Kalaya oil. We found that there was an enhancement in the growth activity of the hair follicles. So it gives us a very good scientific indication that we were stimulating skin and hair growth,” Dr. Holick elaborated. As a professor of medicine, physiology, and dermatology, this study indicated to Dr. Holick that emu oil merited additional study. “There may be some truth to the anecdotal information that is out there about people that have claimed the magical powers of emu oil, and some of the mythical powers of the oil that the Aborigines speak about. We now have some evidence, very preliminary in nature. to suggest that there may be something in Kalaya oil that will actually stimulate skin growth, and maybe either stimulate and or maintain hair growth.”
Dr. Holick and his colleagues have been interested in developing new products that will specifically enhance skin and hair growth. It was asserted that the “ideal topical moisturizer that would help aging skin should have the ability to help reverse skin dryness and scaling by enhancing the ability of the skin’s upper layers to hold on to water. If the product could also penetrate into the epidermis and stimulate epidermal growth to rejuvenate it’s rete ridges and could enhance the thickness of the dermis, this product would be ideally suited to help the ravages of skin aging.”
The Kalaya oil tested appeared to “enhance the skin’s ability to withstand the rigors of colder climates,” as demonstrated on a test group of skiers. It was suggested that the oil’s unique ratio of C-16 saturated and C-18 unsaturated components might explain the oil’s ability to moisturize and diffuse into the skin. Additionally, the “stereochemistry of the C-18 oleic moiety is thought to play a dominant role in this rapid transformation of rough, dry skin to a smooth and healthy appearance.” The article notes that additional research “is needed to determine whether the effects that were seen in mice are equally applicable to humans.”
Interestingly, tests indicated that the activity of the Kalaya oil appeared to be “synergistically increased when used in combination with phospholipids.” Other applications were explored in chemically treated hair, as an additive in health and beauty aid treatments, as well as shampoos and skin care products. Surprisingly, testing in double blind panel tests indicated that “in liniment base formulas, the presence of Kalaya oil showed evidence of being a strong counterirritant in glyceryl monosteratel ethoxylated cetyl aleohol prototypes.” Many exciting observations were noted throughout the preclinical study. One such observation noted that with Kalaya oil, the performance of sunscreen protectants was enhanced, and it is believed that the oil “locks-down” UVA/UVB absorbents more firmly to the skin and therefore increases the longevity of sun protection properties.”