Thinning Sucks
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Spearmint Tea
- Thread starter Thinning Sucks
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DammitLetMeIn
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Why didn't it occur to the researchers to test this on men?
smh
edit: its only a recent thing
Tea 'controls female hair growth'
Hirsutism in women can cause embarrassment
Spearmint tea may help to control excessive hair growth in women, say Turkish researchers.
Drinking the tea twice a day, reduced levels of male sex hormones, which can cause excessive hair growth (hirsutism) on the stomach, breasts and face.
Treatment for hirsutism, usually involves drugs to reduce the levels of androgen or male hormones in the body.
Writing in Phytotherapy Research, the Turkish scientists said spearmint could be a good natural alternative therapy.
Hirsutism is rarely caused by a serious illness but excess hair growth in women can cause distress or embarrassment.
This study shows that spearmint could be a good natural alternative for women who have mild symptoms
Professor Mehmet Numan Tamer, study leader
In some cases, hirsutism may be a result of an underlying medical disorder, such as polycystic ovary syndrome.
All women produce small amounts of the male sex (or androgen) hormones, which includes testosterone, but it is the over production of the hormones that leads to excessive hair growth.
According to the researchers, extracts of spearmint plant (Mentha spicata Labiatae) had been reported to reduce libido in men in a town called Isparta in southwest Turkey, possibly due to reduced androgen hormone levels.
To look at the effects in women, 21 volunteers with hirsutism, 12 of whom had polycystic ovary syndrome, were given a cup of spearmint tea twice a day for five days in the follicular (when the ovarian follicle develops) phase of their menstrual cycle.
They made the tea by pouring a cup (250ml) of boiling water over one heaped teaspoon (5g) of dried leaves, and leaving it for five to 10 minutes.
Testosterone
The researchers found a significant decrease in free (active) testosterone in the blood and an increase in several female hormones including follicle-stimulating hormone.
However, there was no decrease in overall testosterone levels, suggesting that more of the hormone was bound to protein in the bloodstream and was inactive.
Spearmint could affect the metabolism of hormones such as testosterone or directly affect synthesis of androgen hormones, the researchers suggest.
More work is needed to test the reliability of spearmint in treating mild hirsutism, warned lead researcher, Professor Mehmet Numan Tamer.
"Current therapies use either oral contraceptives to suppress androgen production, or medications such as spironolactone that prevent the body responding to androgen - but this study shows that spearmint could be a good natural alternative for women who have mild symptoms.
"We now need to do further studies to test the reliability of this finding, and to see the extent to which the reduced androgens do help women with mild hirsutism," she said.
Professor Richard Sharpe, principal investigator at the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh said the study was yet another indication that naturally occurring plant products can have an effect on human hormones.
But he warned that women suffering from hirsutism or polycystic ovary syndrome needed proper medical treatment.
"It's a relatively modest change and they haven't shown in this study if it would have any consequence for the women.
"For a lot of plant derived compounds, it's difficult to take it from this type of general observation to study the mechanisms and finding what the active compound is.
"If you suffer from hirsutism or polycystic ovary syndrome you would want to get a thorough work up and conventional treatment, as it depends what it causing it," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6376599.stm?lspan
smh
edit: its only a recent thing
Tea 'controls female hair growth'
Hirsutism in women can cause embarrassment
Spearmint tea may help to control excessive hair growth in women, say Turkish researchers.
Drinking the tea twice a day, reduced levels of male sex hormones, which can cause excessive hair growth (hirsutism) on the stomach, breasts and face.
Treatment for hirsutism, usually involves drugs to reduce the levels of androgen or male hormones in the body.
Writing in Phytotherapy Research, the Turkish scientists said spearmint could be a good natural alternative therapy.
Hirsutism is rarely caused by a serious illness but excess hair growth in women can cause distress or embarrassment.
This study shows that spearmint could be a good natural alternative for women who have mild symptoms
Professor Mehmet Numan Tamer, study leader
In some cases, hirsutism may be a result of an underlying medical disorder, such as polycystic ovary syndrome.
All women produce small amounts of the male sex (or androgen) hormones, which includes testosterone, but it is the over production of the hormones that leads to excessive hair growth.
According to the researchers, extracts of spearmint plant (Mentha spicata Labiatae) had been reported to reduce libido in men in a town called Isparta in southwest Turkey, possibly due to reduced androgen hormone levels.
To look at the effects in women, 21 volunteers with hirsutism, 12 of whom had polycystic ovary syndrome, were given a cup of spearmint tea twice a day for five days in the follicular (when the ovarian follicle develops) phase of their menstrual cycle.
They made the tea by pouring a cup (250ml) of boiling water over one heaped teaspoon (5g) of dried leaves, and leaving it for five to 10 minutes.
Testosterone
The researchers found a significant decrease in free (active) testosterone in the blood and an increase in several female hormones including follicle-stimulating hormone.
However, there was no decrease in overall testosterone levels, suggesting that more of the hormone was bound to protein in the bloodstream and was inactive.
Spearmint could affect the metabolism of hormones such as testosterone or directly affect synthesis of androgen hormones, the researchers suggest.
More work is needed to test the reliability of spearmint in treating mild hirsutism, warned lead researcher, Professor Mehmet Numan Tamer.
"Current therapies use either oral contraceptives to suppress androgen production, or medications such as spironolactone that prevent the body responding to androgen - but this study shows that spearmint could be a good natural alternative for women who have mild symptoms.
"We now need to do further studies to test the reliability of this finding, and to see the extent to which the reduced androgens do help women with mild hirsutism," she said.
Professor Richard Sharpe, principal investigator at the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh said the study was yet another indication that naturally occurring plant products can have an effect on human hormones.
But he warned that women suffering from hirsutism or polycystic ovary syndrome needed proper medical treatment.
"It's a relatively modest change and they haven't shown in this study if it would have any consequence for the women.
"For a lot of plant derived compounds, it's difficult to take it from this type of general observation to study the mechanisms and finding what the active compound is.
"If you suffer from hirsutism or polycystic ovary syndrome you would want to get a thorough work up and conventional treatment, as it depends what it causing it," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6376599.stm?lspan
michael barry
Senior Member
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- 12
I'd like to see it tested topically................as well as a few other things like tea tree oil and lavendar.
doing spearmint test on self
I have begun using spearmint oil on my scalp, have been for 4 weeks now. I too read this study and wondered what, if anything, it could do for men. I am curious to see what happens after 6 months to a year. I realize probably nothing but I thought I would give it a whirl for shits and giggles. Along with the oil I am going to start drinking 2 cups of spearmint tea daily. I'm just curious about natural cures in general, not just male pattern baldness cures. I am losing my hair, have been since I was 15 years old. I actually had a receeding hairline at sixteen (am 33 now), not a small one either, very noticeable. So I never really had that much hair to begin with. Had very fine blonde hair as a child that was hard to manage, always stuck straight up. Strangely my hair has stayed pretty much the same since I was sixteen though. It doesn't shed that much either. My father's was the same. He died in his late 50s but never went bald, just had a receeding /thinning hairline in the front. You couldn't really notice it that bad the way he combed it. I'm not really that freaked about my hair cause like they say you can't miss what you never had. :lol: When I had hair it wasn't that impressive, so. I'll just do a Sinead-O-Rebellion thing when the time comes, if it does.
But I'll keep everyone posted on my results. I haven't taken any pics yet. But it's so early in the testing. But I will get on the photos before I start drinking the tea. I'll also post photos of me at 16 so you can see how my hairline looked then too.
abcdefg, if you could get the same results as taking finasteride with spearmint, wouldn't it be cheaper to do the spearmint? I have no idea what finasteride cost, so inform me. I'm guessing that drug companies wouldn't bother doing any test on spearmint as it wouldn't make them any money to do it.
I have begun using spearmint oil on my scalp, have been for 4 weeks now. I too read this study and wondered what, if anything, it could do for men. I am curious to see what happens after 6 months to a year. I realize probably nothing but I thought I would give it a whirl for shits and giggles. Along with the oil I am going to start drinking 2 cups of spearmint tea daily. I'm just curious about natural cures in general, not just male pattern baldness cures. I am losing my hair, have been since I was 15 years old. I actually had a receeding hairline at sixteen (am 33 now), not a small one either, very noticeable. So I never really had that much hair to begin with. Had very fine blonde hair as a child that was hard to manage, always stuck straight up. Strangely my hair has stayed pretty much the same since I was sixteen though. It doesn't shed that much either. My father's was the same. He died in his late 50s but never went bald, just had a receeding /thinning hairline in the front. You couldn't really notice it that bad the way he combed it. I'm not really that freaked about my hair cause like they say you can't miss what you never had. :lol: When I had hair it wasn't that impressive, so. I'll just do a Sinead-O-Rebellion thing when the time comes, if it does.
But I'll keep everyone posted on my results. I haven't taken any pics yet. But it's so early in the testing. But I will get on the photos before I start drinking the tea. I'll also post photos of me at 16 so you can see how my hairline looked then too.
abcdefg, if you could get the same results as taking finasteride with spearmint, wouldn't it be cheaper to do the spearmint? I have no idea what finasteride cost, so inform me. I'm guessing that drug companies wouldn't bother doing any test on spearmint as it wouldn't make them any money to do it.
phish said:
Even still, just for a natural cure investigation I'm interested to know what can be done with what comes from the earth and not a lab. I'm never going to use finasteride (don't hold me to that) cause it seems extreme to me. And I doubt it could do much good for me because I'm pretty far gone, or I think I am, maybe I'm just being hard on myself. I haven't looked into finasteride so I don't know how far it can take me back.
Ill say right now i dont take finasteride but i have very little family history. I have been considering it very hard lately. Ill be the first one to say i hate drug companies but the fact is most drugs are based off of natural substances. It may be a synthetic compound but its based in nature. Every single thing is really a natural substance you cant make any synthetic molecule without using atoms or something found in nature so i dont understand when people say something isnt natural. People are just desperate for a safer alternative to finasteride and you cant blame them.
finasteride might take u up 1 norwood if your a very good responder. Finasteride maintains though best i guess. DHT is the first step in a process where the immune system starts to own your hair and make the follicle scar over and disappear. Prevention is the best you can do now short of rogain which might grow some back. Finasteride wont even prevent it forever so really your delaying it.
abcdefg said:
I've had some success with Rogaine, nothing major though. I became vegan in January of this year and not just vegan as I don't eat milk and cheese and chicken and eat vegan chocolate cake for lunch. But vegan as in eating tons of organic fruits, vegetables and organic whole grains. I found that my hair is getting thicker after my diet changed, although I had a shed about 4 months into the diet and freaked out. It has gotten better from there. And I've seen new growth around the temples, and weird stray dark hairs in the temples. I would say 10 stray hairs in different spots in each temple, which is weird. I also started the laser comb at the exact same time, so could be both or one or the other. I have a feeling the laser comb is a joke though (yet I keep doing it). And I've read some things written about vegan diets and hair and someone cited Moby as a good example of a vegan who is bald. But I would argue that he's not a good example at all. Because he's said many times in interviews that he's a "junk food vegan". He's not getting the full benefits of fruits and vegetables, legumes and soy.
I became vegan after reading the book The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. In this book he talks about his discovery he made after doing the largest study ever done on nutrition, which he headed decades ago. In the study he found that milk fueled the growth of cancer, heart disease, arthritis etc. It's an amazing book, you must read it if you haven't. He's literally discovered the cure for cancer and it's purely diet related. The best way not to get cancer (along with a whole gaggle of other diseases) is to eat your fruits and vegetables and stay away from all animal protein. Now, if you can reverse cancer growth and heart disease through diet why could male pattern baldness not be helped by it? I'm not saying it could be but has it been looked into?
With all the heart medications and medical advancements the best way to stay away from cancer and heart disease is to eat plant proteins instead of animal proteins. With all the heart medications and medical advancements they can only delay the inevitable, they haven't cured you, only postponed your illness some. Now why isn't the fact that heart disease and cancer can be prevented and reversed by a vegan diet plastered on the front page of every newspaper? Because big drug companies can't make money from this. Milk and meat industry have smothered the truth with their lobbyist. Hello, America's kids are being given nutritional information written up by the hands of the dairy industry. So knowing all of this it made me curious about male pattern baldness. Could there be something similar happening with male pattern baldness? Could the answer be something just as simple and natural? Is nutrition why there are less Balding Asians? Specifically those who still eat a typical Eastern diet?
And yes, you are right, synthetic is a duplicate of what is found in nature. Which furthers my case even more. However, you can not synthetically copy the apple into a pill. Mother nature is much too complex. Eating the apple to get it's health benefits is the easier way to go. A quote from The China Study...
"Can we say that vitamin C, beta-carotene and dietary fiber are souly responsible for preventing cancers? In other words, can a pill containing vitamin C and beta-carotene or a fiber supplement create these health effects? No. The triumph of health lies not in the individual nutrients, but in the whole foods that contain those nutrients: plant based foods. In a bowl of spinach salad, for example, we have fiber, antioxidants and countless other nutrients that are orchestrating a wondrous symphony of health as they work in concert within our bodies. the message could not be simpler: eat as many fruits, vegetables and whole grains as you can, and you will probably derive all the benefits noted above as well as many others...."
Knowing that we can't copy the genius of mother nature, is finasteride better than spearmint leaves? Just reading that study on spearmint gives me reason to wonder. A pill will never fully capture mother nature's healing properties, just like when it comes to heart disease or any other disease.
Ex-Spearmint begins
I began the spearmint tea ex-spearmint (tehe) on Thursday (August 23 2007) I won't post any pics yet but I have taken pics and will keep them until results show up, so everyone can compare. No point in showing you pics of my receding temples just yet. lol
I am drinking 2 cups of spearmint tea a day. Someone suggested that it would cost me a lot of money to do this and that I should get on finasteride instead. However, I'm actually harvesting my own spearmint leaves. I'm lucky enough that I have a huge herb garden to my disposal. So actual cost will be zero. The amount of dried spearmint leaves I'm using is 1 teaspoon.
Besides drinking the tea I have put 1 teaspoon of pure spearmint oil in a brand new bottle of Fructise shampoo that I will wash my hair once a day, every other day.
It should also be noted that I apply minoxidil just after I drink the spearmint tea and rub the hot tea leaves on my temples and let it absorb into the scalp while I'm drinking it, for an added boost of spearmint.
I began the spearmint tea ex-spearmint (tehe) on Thursday (August 23 2007) I won't post any pics yet but I have taken pics and will keep them until results show up, so everyone can compare. No point in showing you pics of my receding temples just yet. lol
I am drinking 2 cups of spearmint tea a day. Someone suggested that it would cost me a lot of money to do this and that I should get on finasteride instead. However, I'm actually harvesting my own spearmint leaves. I'm lucky enough that I have a huge herb garden to my disposal. So actual cost will be zero. The amount of dried spearmint leaves I'm using is 1 teaspoon.
Besides drinking the tea I have put 1 teaspoon of pure spearmint oil in a brand new bottle of Fructise shampoo that I will wash my hair once a day, every other day.
It should also be noted that I apply minoxidil just after I drink the spearmint tea and rub the hot tea leaves on my temples and let it absorb into the scalp while I'm drinking it, for an added boost of spearmint.
abcdefg said:
lol Well whatever you read was a lie. It's much higher than that. I would say probably more like 99 percent. Who says all I'm eating are vegetables anyway? I eat tons of foods, just as long as they are plant based. You would be amazed at all the things you can eat. Look, if anyone tells you that diet isn't important probably has stock in merck. They want you to pop a pill and forget it. The health industry is bullshit. The news reports are bullshit. They have everyone confused and guessing. Ever wonder why all these articles you read, for instance how broccoli and cauliflower help prevent prostate cancer, end with , more studies need to be done. Why? It's to keep you guessing and wondering what to do. Trust me, read The China Study and save yourself from the bullshit. It's your health, get informed and get educated and stop relying on the bullshit that is dished out to you.
I dont know.
First paragraph in this article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_53389618
This report agrees with my 50 percent:
http://medicalreporter.health.org/tmr01 ... r0197.html
2nd sentence in this collaborates with the 30 percent figure of this first link I gave:
http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity ... cancer/en/
Diet is important nowhere did I say its not. We all know diet is important. Diet alone wont prevent more then half of cancers according to our current knowledge. You have a coin toss chance of getting cancer if you live on spinach, and the healthiest vegetables you can find for the rest of your life. The longer you live the higher your chance.
Now heart disease and many other diseases yes you might be able to lower those chances even more but you cant stop the chance of strokes or heart attacks completely. Just being male raises your chances, then factor in genetics and its not completely for us to decide with environment or in this case diet.
First paragraph in this article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_53389618
This report agrees with my 50 percent:
http://medicalreporter.health.org/tmr01 ... r0197.html
2nd sentence in this collaborates with the 30 percent figure of this first link I gave:
http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity ... cancer/en/
Diet is important nowhere did I say its not. We all know diet is important. Diet alone wont prevent more then half of cancers according to our current knowledge. You have a coin toss chance of getting cancer if you live on spinach, and the healthiest vegetables you can find for the rest of your life. The longer you live the higher your chance.
Now heart disease and many other diseases yes you might be able to lower those chances even more but you cant stop the chance of strokes or heart attacks completely. Just being male raises your chances, then factor in genetics and its not completely for us to decide with environment or in this case diet.
abcdefg said:
I'm going to have to disagree with that. There is some further discussion on this on this post: http://www.hairlosstalk.com/discussions ... &start=120 you may want to check it out.
I see them discussing milk and diabetes. Every source I find says half of cancer best case is preventable with diet alone and im open to good studies that suggest or prove otherwise. Other diseases and diet that varies but the various types of cancer are not all preventable with a rabbit food vegetable diet and thats a fact.
abcdefg said:
The China Study discusses cancer too. I posted the link in my theory post to The China Study book online, click around there til you find it, not all the book can be read online but a good portion of it. It's pretty interesting stuff, might change your mind, don't know. It changed mine. I use to think we were pretty much doomed and diet could do very little too. Read what's online and tell me what you think.