Androgenic alopecia, better known as male or female pattern baldness, is one of the most common causes of hair loss worldwide. The most common treatment is the use of topical minoxidil, but it is not a great miracle because its effectiveness is limited by many factors. Now a group of researchers have found a quite unexpected solution in the sweeteners we use on a daily basis to make the treatment more effective.
The problem. As we say, topical minoxidil can be affected by the simple fact of having a low solubility in water, which makes it very difficult for it to pass through the skin. This means that alcohol has to be used as an excipient in the treatment, which generates other side effects such as itching.
That is why the study published in the prestigious magazine Advanced Healthcare Materials reveals that stevioside (STV), a natural compound extracted from the stevia plant, not only dramatically improves the absorption of minoxidil, but can be used to create a much more effective delivery system.
A sweetener. The scientists’ idea was to use stevioside for its dual function. On the one hand, as a powerful agent to dissolve minoxidil (MXD) and, on the other, as the main material to manufacture an innovative microneedle patch that can later be used in the presentation of the medicine.
As. Stevioside is an amphipathic molecule, which means that it has a part that attracts water and another that repels it. This property is very important to be able to create small spheres called micelles in an aqueous solution, creating a nucleus where poorly soluble drugs such as minoxidil can lodge comfortably. To understand it, it acts as the ‘vehicle’ that minoxidil uses to cross customs, which are our biological membranes.
And the results of the research have been quite good. The study found that stevioside increased the solubility of minoxidil by up to 47 mg/ml, which is approximately 18 times higher than that of minoxidil alone.
Microneedling. To overcome the skin barrier, the researchers designed a patch with soluble microneedles made from the mixture of stevioside and minoxidil itself. These microneedles, invisible to the naked eye, painlessly penetrate the outermost layer of the skin and dissolve, releasing the drug directly into the area where the hair follicles are located. This is much better than using it topically with a spray where we have that problem of it not penetrating.
Applying. In this way, we have a much more precise application method that also avoids the effects of having to use a metal microneedle. In the laboratory, it has been seen that a release of 85% of the drug and a retention in the skin of 18% is achieved in 24 hours.
These numbers far exceed the results achieved with a traditional topical application with an alcohol solution where retention is only 2%. And this is the key for the drug to act in the hair follicle for a longer amount of time before it is metabolized.
Put to the test. To see the potential of this new application of the treatment, the test was done on animals in the laboratory. To do this, the animals induced alopecia in the mice and received treatment with the microneedle patch compared to the standard minoxidil solution and a control group.
As days passed, the group treated with the stevioside and minoxidil patch showed significantly more hair growth. Specifically, after 35 days of treatment, the area treated with the patch had 67.5% new hair coverage. In comparison, the conventional minoxidil solution only achieved 25.7% coverage in the same period.
But it doesn’t stop there, since it was also clearly seen that the patch was much more effective in reactivating the hair follicles to quickly move into the growth phase.
A new way. Although human studies are still needed to confirm these findings, this research opens a completely new avenue to combat alopecia. A natural, safe sweetener already approved for consumption could be the key to developing a new generation of hair treatments that are more effective, comfortable and with fewer side effects.
Images | Gustavo Sanchez
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