Comment · Fri, June 10, 2022 · ND Owner
Cistanche and Tongkat hair loss
Original post in this thread
AnyFig9718 · 10 points
Hello, I started taking cistanche and tongkat 3 days ago and today I shedded tons of hair. Is there a way to reduce that? I eat clean, do cold showers, excercise (420 min of cardio a week and 3,5 full body strenght trainings). Do you think tongkat a cistanche might be the readon? Thanks in advance
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Take horny goat weed with it.
https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/ced.13043
..and apigenin.
https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/s00403-009-0931-0
...and Gotu Kola.
https://academic.oup.com/bbb/article/81/12/2323/5954394?login=false
That study had a good explanation of the situation.
There are two scientific approaches to overcome the alopecia: how to inhibit further hair loss, and how to regrow lost hair. The well-studied and major type of hair loss in both male and females is androgenic alopecia (AGA).5,) The mechanism studies revealed that AGA is thought to be sensitive to hormones, such as androgens (typically testosterone).5,) When the hormone binds to the androgen receptor, it triggers activation of 5ɑ-reductase enzyme to convert that testosterone into 5ɑ-dihydrotestosterone (5ɑ-DHT).5,) Overproduction of 5ɑ-DHT causes the downregulation of growth factors, and that results in damaging hair production by shortening anagen growth phase.33,) Therefore, inhibiting this mechanism is the major strategy for inhibiting scalp hair loss. Minoxidil and finasteride are currently available and FDA-approved drugs that have roles in inhibiting the AGA mechanism.34,) Minoxidil has function in prolongation of the anagen phase,35,36) and finasteride inhibits the conversion of testosterone to 5ɑ-DHT.37,) However, these drugs are effective on relative small portion of patients (35% and 48%, respectively) and have several side effects including irritation, itchiness, abnormal ejaculation, and abnormal sexual function.34,38,39) Therefore, recent studies have tried to focus on herbal plants, and many phytochemical reagents have been found to have an inhibitory effect on 5ɑ-reductase enzyme activity.5,39) Interestingly, one study revealed that the extract of Centella asiatica did not reduce the percentage of 5ɑ-DHT formation in HDP cells, indicating that Centella asiatica has no 5ɑ-reductase inhibitory activity in HDP cells.39,) However, we showed that TECA increased the viability in 3D spheroid cultured HDP cells, not in 2D cultured cells. This effect related to the significant enhancement of the 3D sphere formation which is directly connected with the hair growth inductivity of HDP cells.20,) Indeed, recent studies showed that 3D spheroid cultured HDP cells enable to induce de novo hair follicle growth.18,20,28) Furthermore, in AGA, the hair shaft becomes smaller (miniaturization), and this reduction in the size of the hair shaft is related with a reduction in the size of the DP.40–42) Therefore, these results indicate that TECA works better to induce hair inductivity than inhibits 5ɑ-DHT formation in its hair loss prevention effect.
So increased conversion of testosterone to DHT results in a down-regulation of growth factors in the scalp, which is what is causing the hair loss. The traditional thinking was to inhibit the production of DHT by inhibiting 5-alpha reductase. However, that comes with side effects, as DHT has positive effects in the body. This is why focusing on increasing the mechanisms of hair growth is more effective than inhibiting DHT, along with less side effects.