The hair-growth combination

GHK with 5-aminolevulinic acid

A 2016 trial followed 45 men with androgenetic alopecia for 6 months. The topical preparation combined 5-aminolevulinic acid with the GHK peptide. The active groups showed a statistically significant increase in hair count compared with placebo.

The combination is the point that earns a pencil mark from me. The experiment gives the combined preparation credit for the observed result. To divide that credit between its ingredients, I need comparisons designed to separate their contributions. The ingredient list is doing real argumentative work here.

A straightforward copper-peptide story was the expectation I brought to these hair papers. The human study instead makes the formulation itself the interesting object. That seems a more useful starting point for another experiment.

Concentrations in the trial

The tested topical preparations contained 50 mg/mL or 100 mg/mL of the complex. Reported hair-count increases were 71.5 at 50 mg/mL and 52.6 at 100 mg/mL, compared with 9.6 for placebo. These figures describe the trial’s preparations and outcomes.

The lower tested concentration recorded the larger gain. I resist supplying an explanation that the comparison itself cannot establish. For me, that ordering weakens the casual assumption that a stronger preparation must deliver a larger result.

Those concentrations describe the tested combination in these men over the trial period. I see no route from that comparison to a concentration choice for another person.

The larger hair-count gain occurred in the lower-concentration group of this combination trial. That ordering is worth preserving.

AHK-Cu in the follicle experiment

A separate human hair-follicle and cell-culture experiment tested AHK-Cu, the alanyl analog of GHK-Cu. It reported elongation of human hair follicles studied outside the body and proliferation of dermal papilla cells in culture. The compound distinction comes before any attempt to connect that result to the GHK combination trial.

I admire an interesting laboratory result more when it retains its own name. AHK-Cu supplies evidence about AHK-Cu under those laboratory conditions. It gives no clean way to allocate the effect of the combined GHK preparation in men.

Trial tolerability

The combination trial reported no adverse events in any group. I welcome that report while keeping the participants and the observation period attached to it. A wider safety claim would ask the trial to cover people and circumstances it did not observe.

For a follow-up, my vote goes to a study that separates the ingredients’ contributions while preserving a meaningful hair-count outcome. The concentration ordering adds another question to investigate. Until then, the most defensible credit goes to the particular tested formula.

The reading list includes both the combination trial and the AHK-Cu experiment so their identities can be examined together.