Reddit Hair Regrowth Serum- What does the research show?

So what does this have to do with hair regrowth serum?

QueerDoc wants to raise the bar in GAC. We want to provide high-quality, individualized care following an informed consent model. Recognizing the limitations in EBM, we try to partner with our patients to develop a treatment plan that achieves their goals. We often rely on expert opinion and clinical experience, and we try to always point out when we are exploring treatment options that lack evidence. A patient recently asked me about trying “Hair Regrowth Serum V 4.0” after reading about it on Reddit. Doing the research gave me the idea for this blog entry!

We frequently recommend NewEra or Care First Pharmacy for treatment of hair loss because they compound minoxidil and finasteride in to a topical solution. There is some limited research that these are effective in restoring hair.^3,4 It is important to remember that this evidence shows some improved hair growth, but only mild to moderate improvement – not drastic!

****ALSO, minoxidil can be toxic to pets!!!!! Wash your hands. Don’t let them sleep on your pillow or near your head.

Version 4 Of Hair Regrowth Serum

The developer of this serum “recipe” used clinical experience to help guide development, and there is some interesting theory at play. Before QueerDoc writes a prescription, however, we want to be able to educate our patients on the risk and benefits, so we dug a little further. Above is a table which shows the ingredients of Version 4 with the research we could find on them.

Ultimately, QueerDoc would say this medicine may or may not work.

There is NO published research on this specific formula. Minoxidil has good evidence supporting it – but at 5% NOT 10% (which was shown to work less well). Finasteride has some limited evidence supporting it. Both can irritate the skin of your scalp, but seem to have few side effects other than that. None of the other ingredients were shown to be more effective than minoxidil alone in what limited research we do have.

Ultimately, we would lean towards recommending minoxidil and finasteride without the other ingredients, but each individual patient’s comfort with risk versus benefit is different and might affect this recommendation.

There are some other interesting options in hair loss/hair regrowth treatment including PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections, amino acid injections, microneedling, and some other topical treatments including PTD-DBM, Zn-Thymulin/GHK-Cu, and Thymosin Beta-4. Tailor Made Compounding pharmacy has a whole treatment protocol with PRP, a home derma roller, and topical treatments they make. They have some pretty impressive before and after photos and have research references, but their reference articles have no human subjects or a very small number of human subjects. PRP has limited-size trials but does seem to be effective and minimal in side effects.⁵ PRP injections and other interventions are not covered by insurance and are often fairly pricey. QueerDoc would lean towards recommending PRP in addition to topical treatments if it is financially available to you based on the limited research available.

If you would like to review some medical literature on your own, we have included references throughout the table and below. A few big papers in the field are: Complementary and Alternative Treatments for Alopecia: A Comprehensive Review, The effectiveness of treatments for androgenetic alopecia: A systematic review and meta-analysis, and Treatments for female pattern hair loss.

1. Shah P, Thornton I, Turrin D, et al. Informed Consent. [Updated 2020 Aug 22]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2020 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430827/
2. Masic I, Miokovic M, Muhamedagic B. Evidence based medicine – new approaches and challenges. Acta Inform Med. 2008;16(4):219-25. doi: 10.5455/aim.2008.16.219-225. PMID: 24109156; PMCID: PMC3789163.
3. Gupta AK, Charrette A. Topical Minoxidil: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Its Efficacy in Androgenetic Alopecia. Skinmed. 2015 May-Jun;13(3):185-9. PMID: 26380504.
4. Lee SW, Juhasz M, Mobasher P, Ekelem C, Mesinkovska NA. A Systematic Review of Topical Finasteride in the Treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia in Men and Women. J Drugs Dermatol. 2018 Apr 1;17(4):457-463. PMID: 29601622; PMCID: PMC6609098.
5. Gentile P, Garcovich S, Bielli A, Scioli MG, Orlandi A, Cervelli V. The Effect of Platelet-Rich Plasma in Hair Regrowth: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2015 Nov;4(11):1317-23. doi: 10.5966/sctm.2015-0107. Epub 2015 Sep 23. PMID: 26400925; PMCID: PMC4622412.