I’ve been sent some information from the private forum regarding the SHH trial. I have copied the information in order. My reactions and questions are below.
2013, Thread Name: THE HHAG story
1st user:
Gather round the fire ye balding children I shall tell you the story of the sonic hedgehog.
So one day a brave and foolish guy called jimbo threw all caution to the wind and plunged in head first. Eight weeks later he went from left to right (!):
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It works, it works it, works! ... Doesn't it? 'Yes but it's more of a booster', Jimbo said. No it clearly does, look at your hair! everyone replied. And from there it was a constant battle between Jimbo telling people that it works but doesn't really grow new hair and people telling him that it does grow hair. Odd, normally it's the other way around.
Spurned by follicle greed and wanting to solve the mystery two other idiots bit the bullet and tested it themselves. I'm one of those idiots and I think I've solved at least a few of the question marks hanging in the air.
Just like Jimbo I used it for two months, once a week, same vehicle, same dosage. I was expecting new hairs but there were none to be seen, neither vellus nor terminals. But then something weird happened. Instead of styling my hair for ten minutes in the morning it didn't even take me one, the hair seemed just right. And then the comments started:
Girl I'm dating: "Your hair looks really thick lately, have you done something to it?"
Male friend: "Something about you looks different"
Family member: "Last time I saw you I was thinking you're losing your hair but I must've been wrong."
NW3 guy at work in a group conversation: "My hair is going to sh*t, we can't all be blessed like xxxxxx over here."
My hair did look fuller, denser and thicker. But there were NO new hairs. How can that be? The theoretics of embryonal follice formation stimulation through SMO new hair growth didn't seem to work, at least not at 8 weeks and at that dosage. But something did make my hair look significantly better, at least temporarily. Two weeks after cessation my hair reverted back to how it was before, thinner. This rules out a change to the follicles themselves as I would've had to shed the hair to see it get worse, yet it got worse without a shed. That leaves only one conclusion, that hhag somehow temporarily blows up the hair thickness. A good visual comparison for this is toppik (aka hair in a can) which will make you look like you've got more hair than you do too. A more accurate comparison would be a hair thickener or volumizer althought these will never get you the results that I saw on my head.
And this is how (and why) I think that jimbo kept insisting that is 'more of a booster', despite it clearly 'working'. Because it does work, but it also does not.
2nd user:
For those that don't know, I'm one of the other fools who bought and tested this stuff. Back in August, I applied this at a concentration of roughly 0.3 % (a bit lower than Jimbo's and xxxxxxx) - at the time, I was going through the worst shed of my life (had to take sleeping pills at one point, the itch was *that* bad). Got my HHAg, applied it on a Wednesday and the following Monday... Itch was completely gone after 2 days or so, and a week after the first application my hair in the male pattern baldness region was as thick as the hair in the donor region (I'm a diffuse thinner so for me this was da bomb).
Anyway, just like xxxx, about a week after the last application hair went back to normal without a shed. So last Monday I thought about trying a lower concentration to see if it still had an effect - I used 0.15% and guess what, it worked just as well as the higher dosage.
0.2 mg of this stuff are enough to fully reverse miniaturization of existing hairs after 4/5 days. f*** me, this sh*t is potent.
While it's working my scalp feels exacly like it felt pre male pattern baldness (I don't even know it's there, itch is non existent).To be honest this sh*t scares me and I'd only use it long term if there was no alternative, but it's amazing to watch your hair turn super thick in a matter of a few days, it's like magic. Then it goes to crap just as quick, but still... 0.2 mg, f*****g hell.
Curis was testing several different mollecules, 1.5 being the most powerful and 1.7 (if I'm not mistaken) the least toxic. They used 1.7 in the mice study and it had a local effect only - hair only grew at the site of application and there was no systemic activity. They had two programs at the time: hedgehog agonists (focused on hair) and hedgehog antagonists (for cancer). The agonists program was shelved because the safety profile wasn't favourable, especially considering male pattern baldness is a cosmetic issue (lol). That's about it, there's not a lot of info, sadly.
It's still by far the most amazing thing I've used, though. And yeah, considering that 2 mg cost $140 and would last at least 10 weeks (probably even more) and you only need to apply it once a week, it truly would be the perfect hairloss treatment.
Fast forward from 2013 to:
2020, Thread Name: Hair growth-promoting effect of recombinant human sonic hedgehog proteins - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41702-019-0047-x
1st user:
We have a few old threads around (referring to the one I posted above) on this stuff and have bought an SHH1 agonist in a GB. Me and xxxxxx can confirm it works like magic. But like magic it is hard to explain:
· It stops hair loss dead. I don't remember losing anything while I tried it.
· It does not regrow hair in bald areas.
· It creates a magical effect of hair fullness.
o What do I mean by this? For xxxxx who is a diffuse thinner it seemed SOMEHOW to have increased his overall hair density. For me who had strong temple loss it somehow allowed me to fully and easily cover my bare temples with long hair. Something I had struggled before but on SHH1 just worked. Keep in mind, I don't think I grew new hair. The only explanation I can think of is that it indefinitely prolonged anagen? It's a weird cosmetic effect that set in VERY quickly and eventually waned off a bit slower upon cessation.
2nd user:
Correct. At the dosages I tried it only worked while addressing DHT (RU or finasteride at the time) and there was no difference between lower and higher dosages, takes very little of the stuff to see results.
1 single application and within 2 days my hair became darker and ridiculously thick (and I mean that). The effects were visible for 3-4 days, I think.
1st user:
To be fair the agonist we used was somewhat unselective which was the main reason I was cautious. More selective agonists would be a lot more safe.
So the first guy it looks like his hair is thinner in the crown, but that's the angle. Even with the worse angle the front looks considerably better in only two months.
These guys imo got some good results, but what they say doesn't add up. It doesn't make your hair darker and thicker in 2 days, and the results don't go away after 3-4 days without a shed. There was a powerful placebo effect going on there. It takes time to work just like any other treatment. These guys seem to think that it thickens the hair that is already grown out which it does not. It initiates anagen and increases proliferation, thickening existing hairs at the root. It takes weeks for them to grow out so that it's visible. It takes several days after the initial dose before markers of shh activation rise, and at least ten days before GLI2 expression peaks. As long as androgens are under control this thing should keep upregulating shh activity for well over a week after one dose.
The second user tried different concentrations. He says he used .3% and then .15% the next time, but he also seems to say the second time was .2mg. If he used 1ml that's actually only .02%. So did he use around .03% then .02%? Probably.
The molecule used in the Curis murine study was actually 1.8. I don't know where he got the information that it's the least toxic? It's logical that it is, but I haven't seen that information. I think it's likely similar in potency to 1.5.
The next group titled their thread shh proteins, but I think they used a smoothened agonist? I'm not sure why they would choose to go with recombinant proteins versus a smoothened agonist. It's less effective at inducing GLI1/2 activity, and probably more expensive and risky, with greater difficulty of transdermal delivery. If that's what they did perhaps they would care to chime in if there's some advantage to recombinant proteins that I'm missing here?
The first group seems to have used SAG(HHAG 1.3), but they could have used 1.2(similar potency). I doubt they used 1.1 as it's far too weak to have made an impact at that dose, and there is clear improvement in that picture. The second group probably either used SAG or purmorphamine.
So, what does this tell us? Even a SAG dose of .02% is effective. I think this is the absolute lowest end of effective concentrations though. You'll do much better with a concentration of .2% or higher.
None of these guys microneedled apparently, and they all claimed to only thicken existing hairs. SHH activation has recently been shown to induce neogenesis without wounding, but I wouldn't expect that to happen to a great degree, especially not at such a low dosage. With microneedling you will have a much greater rate of neogenesis, but you probably increase your risk of skin cancer too.
I don't want people to get cancer.
