New GB for Proven Treatment: Cyclosporine A

coolio

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Topical Cyclo has been tried before with inconsistent results. IIRC there was once a clinical study on 8 men and 1-2 of them had visible regrowth. Other research results were along those lines too.

Systemic Cyclo is not workable because it's an immune suppression drug. People with organ transplants take it to weaken their system enough to prevent organ rejection. It's way too severe for a cosmetic treatment. IIRC even systemic Cyclo's results on androgenic hair loss were inconsistent.


It's one of these drugs that gets discussed (or clinically studied) again every 5-10 years. But if a lot of the men who took Cyclo for any reason were getting visible baldness reversal, then we would have known about it a long time ago. It cannot be that simple.

In the big picture, there have been at least some positive hair results documented from pushing the immune system in either direction (weaker and stronger).
 

coolio

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This study is in the OP, and I commented on the likely reason for the low response rate. Don't people read before commenting? The molecular weight is 1200 Daltons, and they just squirted it on people's scalps once a week. That wouldn't penetrate most people's stratum cornea. There was no other Androgenetic Alopecia study on humans AFAIK until the recent companies rivertown and aneira who tried to develop it as a topical male pattern baldness treatment. The drug should work very well if you microneedle before applying it, so it can actually reach the follicle. At 50mg daily it should not cause severe side effects in the majority of people from topical application.

IIRC Cotsarelis tested it during the earlier Follica work too.

There were guys in the baldness community experimenting with it in the later 2000s. They were doing topical, microneedling experiments, etc. No shocking results. Maybe they all happened to get the combination wrong (including Cots) or maybe it's not that simple.


We do know. It's common knowledge in the medical community since minoxidil. One poster on here even said that he's personally seen people who took it for organ transplants regrow decades of hair loss.

And I personally know at least two balding men who take it for organ transplants. They have never regrown anything.

The total number of humans with organ transplants on earth is in the millions. Cyclo has been around since the 1970s. If oral regimens were regrowing balded hair with any consistency then we would know about it.
 

StayPositive

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I have moderate skin psoriasis and severe ankylosing spondytilis. Nothing works for my joint inflammation. Maybe i can be put on this thing, it's free here in France.

i have DUPA. Do you think it can work for this type of hair loss?

Regarding where AA and Androgenic Alopecia pathways converge, it's probably at the Reactive Oxygen Species level, no? Since ROS increase PRLR expression by a lot
 
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coolio

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Where did I say Cyclo doesn't work? I've been saying the evidence is inconsistent.


Both of the organ transplant recipients I know are 60+ now. One has a heart transplanted and the other has a kidney swapped. Those organs both require decent immunosuppressants, although I suppose they might be using Tacrolimus rather than Cyclo.

I don't have a citation for Cotsarelis trying Cyclo. I'm pulling that one off my memory and I might be wrong. But I recall it was one of the early things Follica looked at. They were looking at WNT signalling from the early days of that project. Frankly it's an obvious thing to try, which led to a few guys on the hair forums trying it topically with various abrasions/needling. Maybe everyone got it wrong. Maybe they didn't.


Again, I'm not saying it cannot ever work. But we're talking about a 40yo drug that has been given to thousands of older men for many years at a time. A visible & consistent hair regrowth effect would not have remained so far under the radar. It would be VERY well-known to doctors by now even if the drug's safety profile isn't suitable for a commercial baldness treatment.

Look at chemotherapy. It's not commercially marketed as a way to remove hair. But the general public (let alone hair researchers) is very much aware that it causes hair loss. The effect is just common and visible. That's all it takes for it to become well-known.
 
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pegasus2

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Where did I say Cyclo doesn't work? I've been saying the evidence is inconsistent.


Both of the organ transplant recipients I know are 60+ now. One has a heart transplanted and the other has a kidney swapped. Those organs both require decent immunosuppressants, although I suppose they might be using Tacrolimus rather than Cyclo.

I don't have a citation for Cotsarelis trying Cyclo. I'm pulling that one off my memory and I might be wrong. But I recall it was one of the early things Follica looked at. They were looking at WNT signalling from the early days of that project. Frankly it's an obvious thing to try, which led to a few guys on the hair forums trying it topically with various abrasions/needling. Maybe everyone got it wrong. Maybe they didn't.


Again, I'm not saying it cannot ever work. But we're talking about a 40yo drug that has been given to thousands of older men for many years at a time. A visible & consistent hair regrowth effect would not have remained so far under the radar. It would be VERY well-known to doctors by now even if the drug's safety profile isn't suitable for a commercial baldness treatment.

Look at Chemotherapy. It's not commercially marketed as a way to remove hair. But the general public (let alone hair researchers) is very much aware that it causes hair loss. The effect is just common and visible. That's all it takes for it to be come well-known.
I agree that there's insufficient data in Androgenetic Alopecia, but there's a good reason for that, and the data that we do have in Androgenetic Alopecia is promising. AFAIK Cotsarelis never tried CsA with Follica. He tried lithium, SAG, FGF9, and minoxidil. The later three worked, lithium didn't. Minoxidil is already approved for hair loss, so that's what they went with.

I think it is well-known among doctors that CsA causes hair growth. It's probably more well-known to cause hair growth than minoxidil was for more than 20 years on the market before it was finally turned into a topical for hair growth. Not every man who takes the drug is going from NW7 to NW0. If that was the case then I would expect more. Certainly a lot of people get increased hair growth from it, and in trials it does grow hair. Look at the rivertown photos in the OP. That's not just from minoxidil. That's amazing regrowth, but it's not like it's going to be headline news all over the place that people are getting this kind of regrowth when they get an organ transplant.
 

DarkHairHair

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I don't think it's autoimmune, I think it's dht and prolactin. Autoimmune induced hair loss is more easily treatable, and finasteride does work on dupa. Keep in mind finasteride barely works on patterned alopecia too. CsA works on autoimmune and hormone induced hair loss.
Finasteride doesnt work on me and i have dupa. And my prolactin range are normal
 

volinets0

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Does cyclosporine have withdrawal syndrome? That is, if I decide to take a course of cyclosporine for 3 months, grow the right amount of hair, can I maintain that level with duta/bica?
 

indie85

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Interesting, here miniaturised vellus hair turned into thick terminal hair in a single hair cycle in immunodeficient mice.
 
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