Name Ingredients:
Ecklonia cava (E.cava) is an edible brown seaweed found off the coast of Korea and Japan. Commonly used in supplements, E.cava is claimed to have antioxidant, anti-cancer, and anti-hypertensive properties.
Key insights:
- The in vitro evidence suggests that E.cava has properties that might enhance circulation as well as reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, which can all be beneficial to hair growth. Furthermore, E.cava contains compounds such as dieckol which has been found to effectively inhibit 5α-reductase (a key enzyme involved in the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone), and improve the growth of dermal papilla cells (however this was a very small effect – less than 10% improvement). Furthermore, some isolated E.cava compounds were found to enhance the expression of key growth factors involved in hair follicle growth (vascular endothelial growth factor and insulin-like growth factor-1), however the researchers would have benefitted from looking at an array of relevant genes involved in hair follicle growth.
- The ex vivo (isolated rat hair follicles) evidence suggests that E.cava may enhance hair follicle growth at a 1 µg/ml treatment, even over 1 µM minoxidil, however, there were issues with the experimental design (hair follicles were cultured for 21 days which is way over the normal length that hair follicles are grown for). In human hair follicles, four compounds isolated from E.cava were tested and their effects on growth were compared to 1 µM minoxidil. The isolated compound ‘purified polyphenols from E.cava enriched with eckol’ (PPEE) was found to increase hair follicle growth the most – even outperforming minoxidil – however, the effects were not statistically significant.
- The in vivo evidence suggests that 0.2 ml of 0.5% E.cava extract applied topically to the backs of mice can induce the growing stage of the hair follicle cycle faster than the control alone, however, minoxidil was able to induce this faster than either the control or E.cava alone.
- There is no clinical data to suggest that E.cava can promote hair growth effectively.
- Our experience tracking members: by itself, Ecklonia cava alone is not enough to improve hair loss outcomes.
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