Come on, it's easy to response to my long posts, i'm just droning on and i really love the sound of my own voice
all you have to do is come back at me with some science, that the great thing about discussion and learning!
Saint-loup, in regards to the papers you posted on the laser comb:
1) The international journal of cosmetic surgery and aesthetic dermatology doesn't even exist anymore - it was discountinued in 2003 so that doesn't bode well for those who published in it
2) The paper in clinical drug investigation on the hairmax laser comb claims: 'significant improvements in overall hair regrowth were demonstrated in terms of patients' subjective assessment.' Subjective assessment of the patient? Not very scientific is it? Where are the hair counts, thickeness, new follicle count etc...?
3) Of the papers you cite, one even says 'more intensive studies are required to clarify the clinical applications of this treatment'
4) One of the papers studied the effects on alopecia in mice, as many people have mentioned many times, mice are not humans, they are a stepping stone and nothing more
5) The lasers used in the successful studies are 1,550-nm fractional erbium-glass lasers that are used to create microcoagulative wounds as they noticed that small wounds would grow extra hair. The lasers used in the hairmax comb (the only fda approved laser comb) are 650nm wavelength are therefore completely different, even the manufacturers of the lasercomb state that it works in a different way to the erbium glass laser, the hairmax laser comb claims to work by stimulating the follicle itself using the laser light, not by causing wound like the studies showed, so these studies have no relevance to laser that one can buy on the market.
I'm still unsold on the laser combs that you can buy, maybe the 1,550nm one has promise and if my lab mice ever go bald, i'll rush them down for a quick blast....
In regards to the transparency of l'oreal, they already have published papers on the subject, heck i even linked to one that was published in 2011. The trademarking of a product has nothing to do with publishing in journals, in fact often the research precedes the trademark and i'm sure before they went to market they will have conducted plenty of research so why do they not want to share more? It certainly would put everyone's mind at rest regarding their upcoming product and just enhance their selling power if they showed us a little more proof...
Boldy's earlier post has the paper on valproic acid that you are citing before. We were already discussing that and i was stating how the delivery agent was the issue that i believed needed to be solved. Also this paper is, once again, a murine model and they also only use human dermal papilla in vitro. Once again they are trying to use this to stimulate the cd34/cd200 progenitor cells, the same thing that histogen are trying to do except histogen seem to be further along. The phase two trial i believe you are referring to is this one
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01548066, with 40 participants that means its probably a phase 2a pilot trial, that explains the small number of participants and therefore this is a very initial test, but however the results go it will be very interesting to see what they come up with and fingers crossed its a positive result.
Odalbak: That's an interesting point, i remember reading somewhere (although i can't reference where so this is only anecdotal) that a hypoxic state caused by lack of blood flow does in fact cause more DHT and lead to increasing levels of hair loss, however the companies that we are talking about are not so much trying to limit blood flow but instead are focussing on using the products of hypoxia that usually stimulate the progenitor cells to signal more hair growth, something which seems to be missing in balding people.