Scientists accidentally discover hair regrowth chemical

Scientists have accidentally discovered a chemical compound which stimulates hair regrowth.

A team of US researchers working on stress and its effect on the gut found that a chemical they had been using unexpectedly caused hair to grow back in chronically stressed mice.

"Our findings show that a short-duration treatment with this compound causes an astounding long-term hair regrowth in chronically stressed mutant mice," said Dr Million Mulugeta, at the University of California, Los Angeles.

As part of their research, the scientists had been using mice that were genetically altered to overproduce a stress hormone called corticotrophin-releasing factor, or CRF. As the stressed mice age, their hair turns grey, eventually falls out and their backs become bald.

The scientists injected the mice each day for five days with a chemical known as astressin B, a compound which has already been shown to block the action of CRF as they wanted to know how this affected gut function.

But when they looked at the mice three months later, they found they couldn't tell the bald mice apart from the other normal hairy mice, as they had regrown the hair on their bald backs.

"When we analysed the identification number of the mice that had grown hair we found that, indeed, the astressin-B peptide was responsible for the remarkable hair growth in the bald mice," Dr. Mulugeta said. "Subsequent studies confirmed this unequivocally."

One injection a day for five days triggered hair regrowth which was maintained for up to four months.

"This is a comparatively long time, considering that a mouse’s life span is less than two years," said Dr Mulugeta.

Although the effect has been seen only in mice, the findings may be relevant to humans, as the stress-hormone CRF and its receptors are also found in human skin.

This article was published on Thu 17 February 2011