A KITCHEN cupboard staple to could hold the key to preventing hair loss and giving you thick, luscious locks, scientists say.
Hair loss and conditions like alopecia can be distressing for those who go through it, as it can feel like you don’t have control over your appearance.
While there are drugs and treatment options that are effective in improving the symptoms of alopecia, they often come with side effects and might not work for everyone.
Now, researchers from Yokohama National University in Japan suggest that the key to hair growth could be hiding in your spice rack – specifically in cinnamon.
Before you raid your local supermarket for the spice, it’s important to to note that simply eating lots of cinnamon is unlikely to revive your locks.
Instead, researchers said that a key compound found in the warm spice could open up doors for future treatments, in a study published to Scientific Reports.
The same Japanese research team recently discovered that the hormone oxytocin can boost hair growth by targeting a receptor called OXTR in hair follicles.
However, oxytocin itself is too large a molecule to be absorbed by our skin and it breaks down too quickly for use in treatments.
So the team turned their attention to cinnamic acid, a small and more stable molecule present in cinnamon that can activate oxytocin receptor expression, showing potential for mimicking oxytocin’s tress-boosting effects.
Junji Fukuda, the paper’s corresponding author and a professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Yokohama National University, said: “These promising results may be useful for developing hair growth-promoting products targeting oxytocin.”
Scientists grew human scalp cells, called dermal papilla cells, and treated them with various concentrations of cinnamic acid.
They found that treatment with the cinnamic acid led to an increase in the expression of oxytocin receptors, thereby allowing more oxytocin into the system and increasing hair growth gene expression.
First author Tatsuto Kageyama, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University, said: “At concentrations below 500 μg/mL, we observed a dose-dependent increase in the expression of oxytocin receptor expression and the genes associated with hair growth.”
But higher doses started to damage the scalp cells.
The best method to test the efficacy of cinnamic acid would be to use hair follicles harvested from patients.
But collecting enough samples would be challenging and it would be difficult to get dependable results due to variability between people.
Instead, researchers grew their own human hair follicles in their lab using a special 3D culture system, dubbed “hair follicloids”.
The follicloids don’t grow mature hair, but hair shaft-like structures.
When treated with cinnamic acid, they sprouted hair shaft-like structures that were 1.25 times longer than untreated follicles.
This was just slightly below the results seen with treating follicloids with oxytocin, which lead to 1.3-fold increase in the hair-like structures.
Dr Kageyama said: “The identification of cinnamic acid as a specific component with hair growth-promoting properties holds great promise for enhancing the effectiveness of hair growth products.
“In addition, the new understanding of the mechanism of hair growth-promoting effects mediated by oxytocin signaling will provide new insights by hair care science and help accelerate the search for new drugs targeting oxytocin receptor expression in the field of drug discovery,” he added.
The researchers noted that more research is needed before cinnamon extracts are added to hair loss remedies.
They intend to test topical cinnamic acid treatments in mice with hair loss to determine the best doses and identify any side effects.
So-called natural hair growth remedies like rosemary oil and rice water have recently grown in popularity, despite haircare experts advising caution with slathering them on your tresses.
There have also been recent scientific advances in treating alopecia.
After clinical trials showed that nearly 25 per cent of adults and adolescents taking the drug LITFULO saw significant hair regrowth in 24 weeks, NICE approved the alopecia treatment for use in the UK.
About two per cent of the population will experience alopecia at some point in their lifetime, with around one in every 4,000 developing the condition each year.
It can start at any age but is most common in early adulthood and can lead to a lack of all hair including eyelashes and eyebrows, nasal hair and public hair.
Alopecia areata causes patches of baldness about the size of a large coin.
“Alopecia” is the medical term for hair loss and “areata” means that it occurs in small, random areas. There are various classifications, including:
The causes of alopecia areata are not fully understood but the loss of hair is because of inflammation around the hair follicles.
The cause of the inflammation is unknown but it is believed that the immune system, which normally protects the body from infections and other diseases, misfires and attacks the hair follicles.
Therefore, it is understood to be an autoimmune condition, says Alopecia UK.
Genetics may be behind the condition, but there are other things thought to trigger it, including a virus, iron deficiency or stress. Studies are not conclusive.
For women, sometimes birth can trigger postpartum alopecia.
In most cases of alopecia areata, hair will grow back in a few months to a year. At first, hair may grow back fine and white, but over time it should thicken and regain its normal colour.
There is no cure for the condition, only treatments that are not guaranteed to work.
People with alopecia may need to take extra precautions, including protecting their skin and eyes when outside and preventing stress.
