Using Topical Caffeine to Slow or Halt Hair Loss | Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | [silence]
00:00:02.480 | We all think of caffeine as a stimulant that we drink.
00:00:05.040 | I certainly drink coffee and yerba mate,
00:00:07.080 | the occasional energy drink, things of that sort.
00:00:09.200 | Caffeine does many things besides stimulate
00:00:11.680 | our central nervous system
00:00:12.680 | and make us feel less sleepy, however.
00:00:15.080 | One of the things that caffeine does
00:00:17.060 | is it is a fairly potent PDE inhibitor.
00:00:20.840 | By being a potent PDE inhibitor,
00:00:24.080 | it indirectly stimulates IGF-1.
00:00:26.960 | Why?
00:00:27.800 | Well, because PDE can suppress IGF-1
00:00:32.200 | and by ingesting caffeine
00:00:34.520 | or by applying topical caffeine ointment
00:00:38.440 | or cream to the scalp,
00:00:40.360 | you can suppress PDE sufficiently enough to increase IGF-1
00:00:44.520 | and increase some hair growth
00:00:45.680 | or at least maintain hair growth in that region.
00:00:49.120 | This may come as a shock,
00:00:50.600 | it might seem a little bit esoteric
00:00:52.560 | or even outside the margins of typical treatments,
00:00:55.720 | but head-to-head topical caffeine application
00:00:58.640 | can be as effective as minoxidil application
00:01:01.560 | without actually lowering things like blood pressure
00:01:04.240 | and potentially increasing prolactin
00:01:07.280 | and some of the other negative,
00:01:09.200 | let's call them negative
00:01:10.020 | because they are side effects of minoxidil.
00:01:12.860 | So caffeine ointments and caffeine
00:01:15.480 | present in various hair treatments and creams, et cetera,
00:01:18.900 | is starting to become a more prominent theme out there.
00:01:21.960 | I will include a reference to caffeine
00:01:24.480 | and its uses for offsetting hair loss.
00:01:26.520 | Keep in mind that topical caffeine ointments
00:01:28.360 | shouldn't necessarily be applied every single day.
00:01:30.920 | So this is the sort of thing you might do three times a week.
00:01:33.480 | The concentration of caffeine in different ointments
00:01:35.400 | varies tremendously.
00:01:36.800 | Most of the studies of caffeine on the stem cell niches
00:01:40.160 | that control hair growth
00:01:41.180 | and extension of the antigen phase of hair growth
00:01:43.560 | have been performed in vitro in a dish.
00:01:45.560 | Although there are some clinical studies exploring this,
00:01:48.880 | they are not nearly as extensive in number or duration
00:01:51.880 | as the studies of minoxidil
00:01:53.280 | because this approach just hasn't been around
00:01:55.000 | quite as long.
00:01:56.000 | However, when comparing side effects of minoxidil,
00:01:58.560 | cost of minoxidil,
00:02:00.000 | comparing the efficacy of caffeine and minoxidil,
00:02:02.520 | I think caffeine as a topical treatment
00:02:04.560 | for offsetting hair loss
00:02:06.240 | stands as a pretty good choice
00:02:07.900 | if you're going to start exploring this pathway.
00:02:10.240 | And there's no reason to think
00:02:11.240 | that if you were to try the caffeine ointment
00:02:13.140 | and it didn't work for you
00:02:14.120 | or you didn't like it for some reason
00:02:15.420 | or you needed to stop it for some reason
00:02:17.240 | that you couldn't stop it safely
00:02:18.640 | because it doesn't carry all the other
00:02:20.760 | blood pressure related effects and prolactinemia effects
00:02:24.200 | that minoxidil does.
00:02:25.520 | So if you look out there into the hair maintenance
00:02:28.160 | and hair replacement literature,
00:02:30.480 | you look at the treatments that are being sold,
00:02:31.840 | don't be surprised to see caffeine there.
00:02:34.000 | And also don't be surprised
00:02:35.840 | when I tell you what I'm about to tell you now,
00:02:37.280 | which is no, you can't simply just drink more caffeine
00:02:40.240 | in order to accomplish the goal of offsetting hair loss.
00:02:43.700 | It is true that when you ingest caffeine,
00:02:45.360 | it goes systemically.
00:02:46.720 | However, you have so many adenosine receptors
00:02:49.440 | throughout your body.
00:02:50.320 | Those adenosine receptors and the parking of caffeine
00:02:53.120 | in those adenosine receptors is the main way
00:02:55.200 | in which caffeine exerts its stimulatory effects,
00:02:57.520 | making you feel less sleepy.
00:02:59.520 | So it does that because then adenosine
00:03:01.960 | can't have its effects, which are to make you sleepy.
00:03:04.600 | Well, those adenosine receptors soak up
00:03:07.440 | so much of the caffeine that you would ingest orally
00:03:10.080 | that very, very little would make it to the scalp
00:03:14.080 | and to the hair follicles at the concentrations
00:03:16.260 | that you would want.
00:03:17.100 | So that's why you have to rely on the application
00:03:19.040 | of these caffeine ointments about three times a week.
00:03:22.360 | Keep in mind that no one has really explored the dosages
00:03:25.180 | of caffeine in these ointments in a systematic way.
00:03:27.540 | We're still in the early stages of all this,
00:03:29.920 | but I do think it's important to mention caffeine
00:03:31.620 | because of the lower incidence of side effects,
00:03:34.260 | at least reported side effects,
00:03:35.480 | and the general safety margins and the head-to-head,
00:03:38.640 | essentially comparable efficacy with minoxidil
00:03:40.840 | because minoxidil has a bunch of other issues.
00:03:43.200 | Now, keep in mind that both minoxidil and caffeine
00:03:46.040 | are generally used as a preventative
00:03:48.640 | for reducing hair loss over time.
00:03:51.520 | They are not expected, and they do not, as far as we know,
00:03:55.880 | create new hair growth to any sufficient degree.
00:03:59.440 | If any of you have used caffeine ointments or minoxidil
00:04:01.960 | and observed new hair growth that was robust,
00:04:04.680 | please put that in the comment section.
00:04:06.040 | I'd be curious about those experiences.
00:04:07.960 | But as far as I know,
00:04:08.800 | and from the clinical literature that I read,
00:04:10.960 | there's no examples of that.
00:04:12.600 | One other point about caffeine,
00:04:14.360 | it does appear that caffeine can not only
00:04:16.800 | indirectly stimulate IGF-1
00:04:18.560 | in the antigen phase of hair cell growth
00:04:20.880 | by way of reducing PDE and TGF-beta,
00:04:23.640 | but it also seems to reduce apoptosis,
00:04:26.400 | which is naturally occurring cell death
00:04:28.380 | of that stem cell niche.
00:04:29.920 | We've been talking a lot about the antigen
00:04:31.240 | or growth phase of hair.
00:04:32.380 | We also talked about the catagen
00:04:33.980 | or the recession of that hair from the inside out.
00:04:36.660 | But remember that third phase, the tillagen phase,
00:04:38.980 | where that whole bulb down at the bottom,
00:04:40.760 | the bulges, it's called, gets pinched off
00:04:42.800 | and the whole thing dies
00:04:43.680 | and takes the stem cells off to the grave with it.
00:04:46.120 | It appears that caffeine can offset the death of that niche
00:04:49.680 | and potentially maintain the stem cell population longer,
00:04:53.120 | making caffeine a really good choice
00:04:55.220 | to think about in conjunction
00:04:57.160 | with the various chemical treatments
00:04:58.560 | aimed at directly attacking the DHT pathway
00:05:01.640 | that we'll talk about next.
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