Has anyone tried smearing some grape seed antioxidents on their balding pates? Any regrowth? (see below)
Authors
Takahashi T. Kamiya T. Hasegawa A. Yokoo Y.
Institution
Tsukuba Research Laboratories, Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, Ibaraki, Japan.
Title
Procyanidin oligomers selectively and
intensively promote proliferation of mouse hair epithelial cells in vitro and
activate hair follicle growth in vivo.
Source
Journal of Investigative Dermatology. 112(3):310-6, 1999 Mar.
Abstract
We have previously reported that proanthocyanidins extracted from grape seeds
possess growth-promoting activity toward murine hair epithelial cells in
vitro and stimulate anagen induction in hair cycle progression in vivo. This
report constitutes a comparison of the growth-promoting activity of
procyanidin oligomers and the target cells
of procyanidins in the skin. Results show that
procyanidin dimer and trimer exhibit higher growth-promoting
activity than the monomer. The maximum growth-promoting activity for hair
epithelial cells with procyanidin B-2, an epicatechin dimer,
reached about 300% (30 microM) relative to controls (= 100%) in a 5 d
culture. Optimum concentration of procyanidin C-1, an
epicatechin trimer, was lower than that of procyanidin B-2;
the maximum growth-promoting activity of procyanidin C-1 was
about 220% (3 microM). No other flavonoid compounds examined exhibit higher
proliferative activities than the procyanidins. In skin
constituent cells, only epithelial cells such as hair keratinocytes or
epidermal keratinocytes respond to procyanidin
oligomers. Topical application of 1%
procyanidin oligomers on shaven C3H mice in
the telogen phase led to significant hair regeneration
[procyanidin B-2, 69.6% +/- 21.8% (mean +/- SD);
procyanidin B-3, 80.9% +/- 13.0%;
procyanidin C-1, 78.3% +/- 7.6%] on the basis of the shaven
area; application of vehicle only led to regeneration of 41.7% (SD = 16.3%).
In this paper, we demonstrate the hair-growing activity of
procyanidin oligomers both in vitro and in
vivo, and their potential for use as agents to induce hair growth.