Tocotrienol?
Hi Doc,
thanks for your awesome website.
I stumbled across this article – Take this vitamin to halt hair loss
and this website – Tocotrienol.org
What can you comment about this? Would love to hear your comments. Thank you!
There are always new products that come out claiming to be hair loss cures. This is one of them. I cannot say if Tocotrienol works or not, but here are some things to keep in mind when doing your own research. Read the report carefully. Find out how many subjects were in the study group. Is it 10,000 or is it only 10? There is a difference, right? In this case, the study was 38 people. Ask if there was a financial or marketing incentive. Find out if the report was published in a well-respected journal (and realize that even if it is in a published journal, it does not necessarily mean it is good study).
Tocotrienol is an herbal vitamin E treatment, and I really have no significant comment to give other that “buyer beware”.
I imagine vitamin E like many nutrients could contribute to hair loss if they are lacking in the diet (malnutrition) but that’s not to call any of these nutrients a hair loss cure.
Vitamin E deficiency, which is extraordinarily rare, results in neurological problems and not hair loss. Regardless, taking vitamins – whether one is deficient or not -has no effect on male pattern baldness.
This randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled hair loss clinical trial is a human study that showed positive effect from a natural compound.
Tocotrienol is naturally attainable through foodstuffs (barley, rice, oat, wheat, barley, and mostly from palm fruit oil) hence all humans have taken it at one time or another. Tocotrienol has a long history of use in food and beverages in the US (self-affirmed GRAS), even more so in the Asia region since palm fruit oil is a staple cooking oil. Tocotrienol has been shown in human clinical studies to be safe for human consumption with no adverse effects.
The main difference between this tocotrienol supplement (containing Tocomin SupraBio®, Carotech Inc.) and other tocotrienol products lies in the tocotrienol delivery formulation (SupraBio™ system), which is a patented self-emulsifying formulation that guarantees increased absorption of individual tocotrienol isomers by up to 300% via the oral route and independent of food intake.
Briefly, the study reported that 40% volunteers in the tocotrienol supplementation group had greater than 50% hair growth; 5% had 20% – 50% increase; 45% had 10% – 25% increase; while 5% had less than 10%. Only 1 volunteer (5.0%) had a slight decrease in the number of hairs. On average, after 8 months of supplementation, volunteers in the tocotrienol group showed 34% increase in hair growth compared to baseline.
However, in the placebo group (soybean oil capsules), 6.7% of volunteers had more than 20% increase hair growth; 46.7% had negligible increase; whereas 46.7% had a decrease in the number of hairs.
Facts about tocotrienols (Tocomin® and Tocomin SupraBio®)
1. Tocotrienol is more potent in antioxidant function than alpha-tocopherol (conventional vitamin E).
2. Tocotrienol is rare in nature, it is practically impossible to get the biologically active concentration of tocotrienols from diet alone, for example, one has to take a cup of palm oil per day to achieve this. Therefore, supplementing tocotrienols is necessary to achieve beneficial levels in the body.
3. Like all fat-soluble vitamins, tocotrienols are poorly absorbed when taken empty stomach or with a fat poor diet. The oral absorption of tocotrienols is low and erratic. Its absorption efficiency also depends on the type and amount of dietary fats present. The patented SupraBio® self-emulsifying system ensures a rapid and consistent absorption of tocotrienols independent of dietary fat or food intake.
Taken together, it is suggested that due to tocotrienols’ potent antioxidant activity, increase uptake of tocotrienols helps “reduce lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress in the scalp, which are known to be associated with alopecia / hair lossâ€.
Please visit http://www.tocotrienol.org for other clinical trial updates of tocotrienols (Tocomin® and Tocomin SupraBio®).
Thank you.