As a hair restoration surgeon, I’ve always been interested in the healing potential of plants to benefit the health of our hair follicles. In my line of work with patients who suffer from hair loss, I knew, deep down that, it would be possible to harness the therapeutic capabilities of botanicals to improve the way our follicles function.
After years of researching and studying the phytochemical properties of various different plants, I made the decision to design a formulation that could actually help men and women experience the changes in their hair that they most wanted.
Due to the results I was able to make possible for five of my patients, my work attracted the attention of a medical journal called Case Studies in Dermatological Medicine. In a report entitled, A Multimodal Hair-Loss Treatment Strategy Using a New Topical Phytoactive Formulation: A Report of Five Cases.
These findings, which are based on paradigms that are novel and unfamiliar to most people around the world, support the idea that natural plant extracts can offer hope for hair loss conditions.
A Closer Look At Hair Loss — The Need to Adopt New Perspectives
Hair loss is a devastating chapter in the lives of men and women all over the world. However, the thinning, shedding, and balding which occurs may be the result of different health conditions. There is a lot going on anatomically behind the scenes of your scalp. So when it comes to treatments, we have to consider a whole constellation of interrelated events, which can differ from person to person, depending on their condition.
There is a high degree of variation at work. Yet, many of the products available to us only address a very small picture, such as DHT and blood circulation to the scalp. This explains why some people benefit from medically approved treatments, while others do not.
And there is also the issue of safety. Synthetic drug chemicals are inevitably associated with risky side effects since they travel throughout our entire bloodstream, and not just the target treatment areas.
Due to all these issues, it may be worth our while to think outside the box of single-molecule active ingredients. Whole-plant extracts may be useful in safely addressing the bigger picture dynamics associated with hair loss conditions.
My work in hair restoration led me to explore these concepts further. I was interested in
There IS A Scientific Basis Behind the Healing Potential of Plants
Andrew Weil MD, who graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in Botany, is a huge proponent of natural plant-based medicine.
While the notion of using plants to heal ailments may seem primitive or unsophisticated to modern Westerners, we have to remind ourselves that many of our current synthetic drug medications have been designed using compound models found in plants.
As an undergraduate, Dr. Weil realized that nature’s botanicals (e.g. leaves, flowers, roots, bark, etc.) may be more beneficial to our health since they contain many variations of a given active treatment compound. Some of these help to neutralize the excessive effects incurred by the primary molecule.
He also notes that our digestive tracts are intelligently aligned with this design. Specific groups of receptors in our gut are activated to receive very specific nutrients and compounds. In other words, our bodies are intelligent enough to know exactly what is needed to restore a healthy state of healing and equilibrium.
Now, more than ever, there is a growing number of physicians and scientists, including myself, who favor this paradigm and the usefulness of plants.
A Natural Approach to Treating Hair Loss Conditions
As a personal passion, I truly enjoyed learning about different types of botanical extracts and how their phytochemistry interacts with the body. I found that some of this knowledge benefits our hair follicles.
In my line of work as a hair restoration specialist, I realized that surgery is not an option for many people. I felt inspired to start applying what I learned about different plants and herbals to improve the health and functioning of our hair follicles.
I realized that most people, including medical specialists, have very limited awareness of what causes hair loss. Approved drugs, for example, only address the issues of DHT and low blood circulation to the scalp.
However, in the scientific community, it is understood that there is a much larger picture at work that involves many interacting pathways and dynamics. While it would be nearly impossible for single-molecule active compounds to address this complex schema, the wide range of therapeutic and neutralizing substances found in plants could feasible
This spurred the development of my consumer hair-wellness line, Dr.UGro GASHEE. When formulating my topical hair lotion, pomade, and oral supplement, I not only worked to select the right sets of ingredients but also made sure to preserve their inherent bioactive healing qualities, by omitting the excessive use of heat which can destroy the efficacy of important plant compounds. Our processing phase only involves close-to-ambient temperatures.
Even the preservatives used were carefully researched and derived from sustainable natural sources.
Results on Real-Life People
The notion of considering a bigger and more detailed view of different hair loss pathways and how they are interrelated is, of course, a novel one for most of us. And the idea of using plant botanicals to improve the health and functioning of our hair follicles may also seem strange or hard-to-believe.
Yet, the only way to understand whether or not these ideas are valid or not is by seeing if they actually produce positive outcomes for real-life individuals.
Our publication describes our observations on men and women who used an all-natural botanical topical application to address various types of unwanted hair loss conditions.
At my office in Los Angeles, the Dr.U Hair and Skin Clinic, we tested the effects of our GASHEE formulation on five of our patients who represented various different hair loss conditions. These included androgenic alopecia, traction alopecia, CCCA (Central Cicatricial Centrifugal Alopecia), and post-menopausal hair loss. Four of the five individuals had used Minoxidil for about a year, only to experience failed results.
After using GASHEE on a consistent basis for 3–15 months, all of our subjects were able to achieve significant improvements in the coverage and quality of their hair.
Nature Offers More Promise For Our Hair and Health Than Most of Us Realize
These documented experiences support my originally held contention that Nature is designed with all the answers and solutions we need for our health and well-being. All we have to do is trust in the intelligence of the natural world around us.
I am very proud of the fact that my plant-based approach to healing the condition of our hair is now starting to gain more attention from the scientific community. I hope that further inquiries and investigations will be made in other areas of applied research on the potential of botanicals to help all of us live in a more connected state of harmony and wholeness with Nature.