EUNUCHS do not go bald,
observed Hippocrates 2,500 years ago, and while few have gone
down the castration route to avoid hair loss, they have tried
almost everything else. Queen Victoria was so worried about her
thinning locks that she took a concoction made from silver birch
sap. However, there is now a new remedy that looks more
promising.
Equol is a form of oestrogen that is made when bacteria in
the gut breaks down oestrogen–mimicking chemicals, known as “isoflavones”,
chemicals found naturally in soya beans and some other plants.
The results of a study published last month in Biology of
Reproduction indicated that equol effectively blocks a
particularly potent form of testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT),
linked with both male pattern baldness and an increased risk of
prostate cancer.
DHT can be kept in check with Propecia (finasteride), which
targets the enzyme that turns testosterone into DHT, and stops
hair loss in about 80 per cent of cases and stimulates new
growth in 30 per cent. However, benefits are lost when you stop
taking the medication, and side-effects can include temporary
impotence.
Equol, when injected into mice, did not stop DHT
being made, but put it in “handcuffs”, stopping it from
attaching to the male hormone receptors in the prostate and hair
follicles. It is a kinder solution than castration.
“Directly binding and inactivating DHT without influencing
testosterone gives equol the ability to reduce many harmful
effects of androgens without affecting the beneficial ones,”
says Professor Robert Handa, an endocrinologist at Colorado
State College of Veterinary Medicine, the senior author of the
latest study.
So could boosting equol intake via diet help? Should baldies
binge on soya and tofu burgers? Certainly far fewer Japanese men
go bald or develop prostate cancer and they eat ten times more
soya than we do.
But there is a catch — can your body make equol?
According to a paper published last December in Ob/Gyn
Clinical Alert, only about 30 per cent of the population
produces it in their guts (another characteristic distinguishing
us from other mammals, all of which churn out equol effortlessly
— hair loss is an almost exclusively human affliction).
At first
sight, hair loss appears a depressingly localised affliction.
With an estimated five million hairs on our bodies, most
incredibly fine, why should the 100,000 or so thickest on the
top of the head go into retreat as we age? In fact research
shows that the reason receding hair is so difficult to treat is
because it is intimately connected not just with testosterone
and its action on the prostate, but also with foetal
development.
Last year it was reported that scientists were working on
molecules to target a gene called Sonic Hedgehog which controls
such vital steps in the foetus’s development as making sure that
the baby has two eyes, that the brain forms two hemispheres, and
that hair follicles are created.
This gene is also active in
adults, which is why in October a company patented a drug that
turns on the Hedgehog signalling pathway to kick-start hair
growth.
Meanwhile, researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
at Rockefeller University in New York are studying two other
genes, “wht” and “noggin”, which are involved in altering stem
cells in the skin so that instead of producing more skin, they
become hair follicles.
But the spectre of cancer looms over such
approaches; wht and noggin have both been implicated in the
changes involved in colon and breast tumours.
Meanwhile, you could try saw palmetto berries (available in
health-food shops) which a controlled trial two years ago found
can inhibit DHT: the subjects were given 400mg a day in the form
of two capsules. Silver birch sap probably is not advisable, as
herbalists today use it for rheumatism and bladder problems.
