Hair cells from balding scalps have been shown to secrete significantly lower IGF-1 levels compared with non-balding scalps.
You can actually buy IGF-1 on websites like Alibaba, but it’s very expensive. Instead, you can achieve similar results at a fraction of the cost using the following ingredients:
Red Velvet Deer Antler
Deer antler was applied to the wounded skin of rats at varying levels to test its effects. A clear and significant correlation was observed, demonstrating that deer antler applied to wounded skin caused an increase in IGF-1.
This is of course very exciting for hair loss sufferers because deer antler can be used to improve wound-induced hair follicle neogenesis. If you’re not familiar with that term, what it means is we can generate completely new hair follicles in the scalp tissue. You can learn more about it here.
By creating tiny wounds in the scalp and increasing growth factors like IGF-1, FGF9 and VEGF we can increase the likelihood that new hairs will develop in the new tissue.
Sandalore
The synthetic perfume chemical was recently discovered to increase hair growth. It binds to olfactory receptors in the scalp, which causes the growth phase of hair follicles to increase, resulting in less hair loss and more hair growth. It also seems to cause increased IGF-1 secretion — which may be the reason for its positive effect on the anagen phase.
Sanadalore has had a lot of attention recently for its hair growth-promoting effects: particularly because it’s an approach to hair growth science that has not previously been studied much.
Vitamin D3
Vitamin D3 has been shown to increase blood levels of IGF-1. Although that doesn’t necessarily mean it will increase IGF-1 when applied to the scalp, since I have seen strong evidence that topical vitamin D reduces hair loss, an increase in scalp IGF-1 might be at least partly the reason for the increased hair growth. It seems likely that if increased blood vitamin D levels are strongly linked with higher IGF-1, the same might be true of application to the scalp.
Chamaecyparis obtusa (Hinoki Cypress) Oil
The below abstract is from a study conducted on Chamaecyparis obtusa essential oil (I must admit I’d previously never heard of the plant). In the below quote Minoxidil (MXD) and Chamaecyparis obtusa (CO) were tested to see how they affect IGF-1 and VEGF levels. Interestingly CO increased showed a 426% increase in IGF-1 expression at week 4! What’s more exciting is the CO group also experienced an increase in VEGF expression of 96%. Surprisingly CO outperformed MXD in both cases!. However there is one downside: the study also noted CO caused a decrease in Epidermal Growth Factor. This is a shame but the increase in IGF-1 and VEGF warrant further investigation into its effect on hair count — which I shall be doing shortly and will publish the findings here in a separate post about Chamaecyparis obtusa.
For insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) mRNA expression in the skin tissue, at week 4, the MXD and CO groups showed a significantly higher expression by 204% and 426% respectively, as compared to the SA group. At week 4, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in the MXD and CO groups showed a significantly higher expression by 74% and 96%
Via PMC
Also worth noting:
If you’re here because you want to know how to increase growth factors in your scalp in order to increase hair growth (a very good idea by the way!), I recommend you read How to Increase Scalp VEGF.
Conclusions and what to do next
IGF-1 seems to play an important role in scalp hair growth. Increasing scalp IGF-1 is clearly an important treatment for increasing hair growth — particularly in combination with wound-induced hair follicle neogenesis.
Read next
Whats the best shampoo for hair loss? If you want to increase your scalp IGF-1 (as well as increasing VEGF and PGE2) try using my incredibly powerful new hair loss serum, Ultra Strong Hair Growth Treatment, which contains a combination of ingredients designed to increase scalp growth factors.
This treatment is not available for purchase and is for research purposes only. However, if you’d like to learn how I increase scalp growth factors and induce hair follicle neogenesis, contact me here, post a comment below or sign-up to my email newsletter.
