Health
Related: About this forumThe whiff of sandalwood makes the human head sprout more hair (New Scientist)
Daily news
18 September 2018
By Yvaine Ye
There are all sorts of potential treatments for hair loss, including pills, injections, and even the suggestion of plucking the hairs that remain. Now comes a new idea: the odour of synthetic sandalwood may promote hair growth.
The nose is the obvious place to look for the olfactory receptors that detect odours, but researchers now know that similar receptors are found in many parts of the body. This includes the skin around hair follicles, where cells produce an olfactory receptor called OR2AT4 that plays a role in various physiological responses, such as fixing a cut.
Ralf Paus at the University of Manchester, UK, and his colleagues say there is already good evidence that forming a new hair uses a similar set of molecular tools as forming a patch of new skin after a wound. This made them wonder whether activating OR2AT4 could promote hair growth.
To test the idea, the team used samples of human scalp donated by volunteers who had undergone facelift procedures, and immersed them in synthetic sandalwood odorant for six days. They chose the synthetic sandalwood scent because it is an odour molecule particularly likely to bind to the OR2AT4 receptor.
The researchers found a 25 to 30 per cent increase in the secretion of a growth hormone in the scalp. In other words, the hormone plays a key role in promoting hair growth.
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more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2179973-the-whiff-of-sandalwood-makes-the-human-head-sprout-more-hair/
Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05973-0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandalore
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)That's kind of cool. I'll be interested in hearing more as it progresses.