Spermidine-Rich Foods to Treat Hair Loss
The consumption of spermidine-rich foods is associated with living longer, and in my last video, I talked about the positive effect the compound can have on dementia, leading a Scripps Research neuroscientist to ask in Nature Neuroscience, “Could spermidine be the magical elixir we all want for a graceful, long life with robust cognitive abilities and a full head of hair?” Wait, hair too?
Our hair is in constant flux. Every day about 50 hairs on our head die and fall out and are replaced by 50 new ones, such that every 2 to 6 months we have a mostly new head of hair. Our hair follicles are busy bees. They are one of the most highly active tissues in all mammalian biology. (That’s why chemo is so often balding, because it targets rapidly dividing cells.) Remember how spermidine is used for cell growth? No surprise, then, that hair follicles show the highest activity of the critical enzyme that makes spermidine. Our hair follicles are like little spermidine-generating machines. In fact, there’s an FDA-approved drug that women can apply to slow the growth of unwanted hair that works by hobbling this very enzyme. Would applying extra spermidine, then, boost hair growth?
The title kinda gives it awaNew subscribers to our e-newsletter always receive a free gift. Get yours here: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/. Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/* and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at https://nutritionfacts.org/video/*. You’ll also find a New subscribers to our e-newsletter always receive a free gift. Get yours here: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/. Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/* and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at https://nutritionfacts.org/video/*. You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution! -Michael Greger, MD FACLM Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translations-info/ transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution! -Michael Greger, MD FACLM Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translations-info/ y, but researchers dissected out hair follicles from human scalp skin (obtained from routine facelift surgeries) and kept them alive and growing in a petri dish. Add a little spermidine and boom—20 percent greater hair shaft growth, the first direct evidence that spermidine is a “potent stimulator of human hair growth.” The researchers concluded that “spermidine deserves rigorous clinical testing as a candidate anti-hair loss agent.” In 2017, they got their wish: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of spermidine to prevent premature hair loss.
I assumed they were going to test some sort of shampoo, but no, a spermidine supplement to see if swallowing it could help your hair from the inside out. A hundred men and women were randomized to receive a spermidine-based supplement or a placebo once-a-day for three months. Hair shedding was assessed with the so-called pull test, where the dermatologist grabs about 50 hairs and gently applies traction. If more than about five hairs come out, the test is considered positive (meaning excessive hair loss). At the end of the three-month study, only one of the fifty in the spermidine group had a positive pull test, compared to 14 out of 50 in the placebo group.
OK, but then it gets really crazy.
The researchers came back three months after the study ended and repeated the testing. By then, 68 percent of those who had been in the placebo group had a positive test, whereas in the group that had taken spermidine for a short period months earlier, not a single tug was positive (0 out of 50), a highly significant result. Strangely, the researchers didn’t say how much spermidine was in daily supplement, but I dug up a patent they filed, and it seemed they may have only been giving half a milligram of spermidine a day, which is only about a half a teaspoon of wheat germ, or less than a single serving of corn, peas, cauliflower, adzuki beans, mushrooms, soybeans (or pig pancreas).
The consumption of spermidine-rich foods is associated with living longer, and in my last video, I talked about the positive effect the compound can have on dementia, leading a Scripps Research neuroscientist to ask in Nature Neuroscience, “Could spermidine be the magical elixir we all want for a graceful, long life with robust cognitive abilities and a full head of hair?” Wait, hair too?
Our hair is in constant flux. Every day about 50 hairs on our head die and fall out and are replaced by 50 new ones, such that every 2 to 6 months we have a mostly new head of hair. Our hair follicles are busy bees. They are one of the most highly active tissues in all mammalian biology. (That’s why chemo is so often balding, because it targets rapidly dividing cells.) Remember how spermidine is used for cell growth? No surprise, then, that hair follicles show the highest activity of the critical enzyme that makes spermidine. Our hair follicles are like little spermidine-generating machines. In fact, there’s an FDA-approved drug that women can apply to slow the growth of unwanted hair that works by hobbling this very enzyme. Would applying extra spermidine, then, boost hair growth?
The title kinda gives it awaNew subscribers to our e-newsletter always receive a free gift. Get yours here: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/. Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/* and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at https://nutritionfacts.org/video/*. You’ll also find a New subscribers to our e-newsletter always receive a free gift. Get yours here: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/. Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/* and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at https://nutritionfacts.org/video/*. You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution! -Michael Greger, MD FACLM Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translations-info/ transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution! -Michael Greger, MD FACLM Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translations-info/ y, but researchers dissected out hair follicles from human scalp skin (obtained from routine facelift surgeries) and kept them alive and growing in a petri dish. Add a little spermidine and boom—20 percent greater hair shaft growth, the first direct evidence that spermidine is a “potent stimulator of human hair growth.” The researchers concluded that “spermidine deserves rigorous clinical testing as a candidate anti-hair loss agent.” In 2017, they got their wish: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of spermidine to prevent premature hair loss.
I assumed they were going to test some sort of shampoo, but no, a spermidine supplement to see if swallowing it could help your hair from the inside out. A hundred men and women were randomized to receive a spermidine-based supplement or a placebo once-a-day for three months. Hair shedding was assessed with the so-called pull test, where the dermatologist grabs about 50 hairs and gently applies traction. If more than about five hairs come out, the test is considered positive (meaning excessive hair loss). At the end of the three-month study, only one of the fifty in the spermidine group had a positive pull test, compared to 14 out of 50 in the placebo group.
OK, but then it gets really crazy.
The researchers came back three months after the study ended and repeated the testing. By then, 68 percent of those who had been in the placebo group had a positive test, whereas in the group that had taken spermidine for a short period months earlier, not a single tug was positive (0 out of 50), a highly significant result. Strangely, the researchers didn’t say how much spermidine was in daily supplement, but I dug up a patent they filed, and it seemed they may have only been giving half a milligram of spermidine a day, which is only about a half a teaspoon of wheat germ, or less than a single serving of corn, peas, cauliflower, adzuki beans, mushrooms, soybeans (or pig pancreas).
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