Reply #51: Nope.... but this has and will, if you mean by "cueball" a head [View All]

[HysteryDiagnosis]

that has lost most of its hair... :)



1: Acta Derm Venereol. 1998 Nov;78(6):428-32. Related Articles, Links

Proanthocyanidins from grape seeds promote proliferation of mouse hair follicle cells in vitro and convert hair cycle in vivo.

Takahashi T, Kamiya T, Yokoo Y.

Tsukuba Research Laboratories, Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ibaraki, Japan.

For the purpose of discovering natural products which possess hair growing activity, we examined about 1000 kinds of plant extracts concerning growth-promoting activity with respect to hair follicle cells. After an extensive search, we discovered that proanthocyanidins extracted from grape seeds promote proliferation of hair follicle cells isolated from mice by about 230% relative to controls (100%); and that proanthocyanidins possess remarkable hair-cycle-converting activity from the telogen phase to the anagen phase in C3H mice in vivo test systems. The profile of the active fraction of the proanthocyanidins was elucidated by thiolytic degradation and tannase hydrolysis. We found that the constitutive monomers were epicatechin and catechin; and that the degree of polymerization was 3.5. We demonstrated the possibility of using the proanthocyanidins extracted from grape seeds as agents inducing hair growth.
PMID: 9833041

1: J Invest Dermatol. 1999 Mar;112(3):310-6. Related Articles, Links

Procyanidin oligomers selectively and intensively promote proliferation of mouse hair epithelial cells in vitro and activate hair follicle growth in vivo.

Takahashi T, Kamiya T, Hasegawa A, Yokoo Y.

Tsukuba Research Laboratories, Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, Ibaraki, Japan.

We have previously reported that proanthocyanidins extracted from grape seeds possess growth-promoting activity toward murine hair epithelial cells in vitro and stimulate anagen induction in hair cycle progression in vivo. This report constitutes a comparison of the growth-promoting activity of procyanidin oligomers and the target cells of procyanidins in the skin. Results show that procyanidin dimer and trimer exhibit higher growth-promoting activity than the monomer. The maximum growth-promoting activity for hair epithelial cells with procyanidin B-2, an epicatechin dimer, reached about 300% (30 microM) relative to controls (= 100%) in a 5 d culture. Optimum concentration of procyanidin C-1, an epicatechin trimer, was lower than that of procyanidin B-2; the maximum growth-promoting activity of procyanidin C-1 was about 220% (3 microM). No other flavonoid compounds examined exhibit higher proliferative activities than the procyanidins. In skin constituent cells, only epithelial cells such as hair keratinocytes or epidermal keratinocytes respond to procyanidin oligomers. Topical application of 1% procyanidin oligomers on shaven C3H mice in the telogen phase led to significant hair regeneration on the basis of the shaven area; application of vehicle only led to regeneration of 41.7% (SD = 16.3%). In this paper, we demonstrate the hair-growing activity of procyanidin oligomers both in vitro and in vivo, and their potential for use as agents to induce hair growth.

PMID: 10084307