January 11 2013, 8:58 am PT | Posted in: Hair Products
Hey Doc,
What do you make of the clinical study from TRX2? Is this real? Can a company fake a clinical trial?
Link: TRX2 trial
Thanks
Anything can be faked, but I can’t say whether this is accurate or a proof of concept. Does anyone know if it was published in a peer reviewed medical journal?
Their reports of sales are impressive, but like the Helsinki Formula of the 1980s (which was among the first of the hair growth promoters), a successful marketing effort only proves that the company can sell the product… not that it works as advertised.
Although details of this study are surprisingly well written in this brief and abstracted form, the study does not seem to have been published in a scientific journal (via my search through the US National Library of Medicine).
What is also concerning (to me as a scientist) is that these study results were posted on the company web site in July 2012, which suggests a significant amount of time between obtaining the results and ability to have the article ‘in press” (accepted for publication) or published.
The product is not being advanced as a medicine and is instead being evaluated as a food supplement which does not need to show effectiveness, only a no-harm safety profile to be approved by the UK MHRA. However a new legal framework for the European union that came into effect last month means this company will no longer be able to advertise this as a hair loss treatment without providing a series of studies for approval. So far the EU body has not allowed any claims for hair regrowth and seems unlikely to do so as it requires ingredient by ingredient profiles and independent studies, not ‘formula’ studies for health claims.
They may be able to make a claim that some of the ingredients are ‘essential for normal hair growth’ but that’s pretty much true of most proteins since total protein deficiency could obviously lead to hair loss through malnutrition. But then any ‘hair,skin and nails’ beauty formula relies on amino acids and a few fatty acids to make these sort of vague claims legal in the EU.
To be frank you can buy the ingredients in this product for much less, it’s a typical athletes amino/potassium formula - I take something similar simply for muscle soreness recovery. I can’t say it cured my hairloss - only propecia ever had any effect on my hair so far.