Nothing beats a refreshing cup of coffee to perk you up. Now scientists believe that same cup holds the cure to an age-old male problem – baldness.
A study published in the International Journal of Dermatology showed that caffeine actually stimulates hair growth in men who are starting to lose hair.
“Caffeine is a well-known substance, yet little is known about its effect on human hair follicle growth. But this study shows it’s a promising candidate for hair growth stimulation,” revealed Dr Tobias Fischer of the University of Jena in Germany.
Fischer’s enthusiasm came after he took scalp biopsies from 14 subjects who suffered from hair loss. After extracting hair follicles from the samples, he placed these in test tubes containing different levels of caffeine.
“The samples were left in the laboratory for up to eight days to monitor growth. At the end of the experiment, caffeine had boosted the length of the hairs by between 33 percent and 40 percent,” reported Pat Hagan of the Daily Mail.
“Hair follicles that were treated with caffeine showed a highly significant growth rate at 24 hours, and still showed further significant growth at eight days,” Fischer added.
How on earth did that happen? Researchers believe that caffeine blocks the damaging effects of dihydrotestosterone or DHT – a chemical produced by the male sex hormone testosterone.
When too much DHT is circulating in the blood, this damages hair follicles leading to thinner and slow-growing hair. For some reason, caffeine protects hair follicles from the onslaught of DHT.
But don’t rush to the nearest coffee dispenser in your office yet. The downside is that for this to work, researchers said you’ll have to down 60 cups of coffee a day – not a good idea if you have high blood pressure.
A better alternative would be a caffeine-based lotion that can be rubbed on the scalp. German cosmetics company Alpecin has already taken the lead with such a product. Whether this works or not remains to be seen.
“The finding could lead to new treatments for a condition that affects half of all British men by the age of 50. A recent survey of five European countries found that British men are unhappier about being bald than most of their European counterparts, but are too embarrassed to do anything about it. More than half said going bald made them feel old and less attractive,” Hagan said.
The good news is you don’t have to put up with this problem. For the fullest, most natural-looking hair possible, go to the specialists at Hair Restoration Doctors Ohio.