Although there may not be formal (blinded RCT) studies very often with herbs that have been in traditional medicine you can find at least some anecdotal reporting. My view is that if I stick to commonly used herbs that don’t have negative reporting then that is reasonably safe.
Ashwagandha has quite a bit of negative reporting in terms of liver damage.
EMA assesement reports doesn’t only use RCT’s afaik, but also mice studies looking at single dose toxicity, repeat dose toxicity, genotoxicity, carcinogenicity, reproduction toxicity, ecotoxicity, etc. Of course there are some herbs that have quite a clean mechanism of action, large scale use, and no young health people flooding into ICU’s with liver damage.
Dose. Frequency. Brand. Source. Oral/topical. These things are relevant to any assessment of potential toxicity.
Talking about ashwaganda as if there were one manufacturer, as if all products had the same quality and toxicity profile, as if everyone were taking the very same dose at the very same frequency, makes all these conclusions and warnings… weak.
For some people, no amount is safe. For others, high doses are probably fine.
But am I talking about ashwaganda or coffee or aspirin? Acetaminophen? Maybe chocolate?
Dose. Frequency. Brand. Source. It matters.
Unfortunately, case reports and clinical trials come out years and even decades too late, after the damage has been done.
One lesson I learned from the cancer field, where there is no time for an abundance of case reports or clinical trials as patients don’t have much time nor options left before they pass, is that anectodal reports have a lot of value. So in the end, we are left experimenting on ourselves.
In terms of liver support, I would anyways recommend TUDCA and Artichoke Extract to mostly everyone. Milk thistle is ok unless you have hormonal issues or hormonal cancers.
If you loose an organ, you loose the fight, so it is important to keep organ function optimal.
There are occasional reports of liver damage from ashwagandha, and turmeric and green tea, too. But the reports are rare. We had discussion about turmeric and liver damage here in the past.
According to a report, ashwagandha is now the fifth most popular supplement. And on a global scale that suggests that millions of people are taking it daily.
There was a literature review published earlier this year titled, Effects of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) on Hematological and Biochemical Markers, Hormonal Behavior, and Oxidant Response in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review. (*)
A couple excerpts:
“This is the first systematic to assess the potential health benefits of Ws supplementation in adults without chronic conditions. The evidence presented in this systematic review showed that Ws supplementation is safe. Given improvements in certain biomarkers, it may also benefit healthy individuals. Although Ws may act as an adaptogen to counterbalance and adjust some physiological markers outside the normal range, e.g., hematological and hormonal, it may exert a more potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect, even in low inflammatory and oxidant status, that could further be utilized to prevent chronic inflammatory conditions.”
“Supplementation doses administered in interventions ranged from 240 mg to 1,250 mg from 2 weeks to 6 months without reports of any serious adverse events. We were not able to identify a clear duration pattern to ensure that long-term supplementation affects outcomes differently. Moreover, researchers reported no substantial changes in ALP, ALT, and AST levels, markers frequently used to assess drug-induced liver toxicity.”
Other published reviews have commented that ashwagandha is generally hepatoprotective:
From a review titled, Pharmacological evaluation of Ashwagandha highlighting its healthcare claims, safety, and toxicity aspects:
" W. somnifera has demonstrated various biological actions such as anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-microbial, anti-arthritic, anti-stress/adaptogenic, neuro-protective, cardio-protective, hepato-protective, immunomodulatory properties." (**)
References:
(*) Gómez Afonso A, Fernandez-Lazaro D, Adams DP, Monserdà-Vilaró A, Fernandez-Lazaro CI. Effects of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) on Hematological and Biochemical Markers, Hormonal Behavior, and Oxidant Response in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review. Curr Nutr Rep. 2023 Sep;12(3):465-477. doi: 10.1007/s13668-023-00481-0. Epub 2023 Jul 10. PMID: 37428341; PMCID: PMC10444651.
(**) Mandlik Ingawale DS, Namdeo AG. Pharmacological evaluation of Ashwagandha highlighting its healthcare claims, safety, and toxicity aspects. J Diet Suppl. 2021;18(2):183-226. doi: 10.1080/19390211.2020.1741484. Epub 2020 Apr 3. PMID: 32242751.
Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) causes the regression of human hair follicles in the parietal scalp, leading to androgenic alopecia (AGA). Sulforaphane (SFN) increases the expression of DHT degrading enzymes, such as 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases (3α-HSDs), and, therefore, SFN treatment may improve AGA. To determine the effects of SFN on hair growth, we administered SFN (10 mg/kg BW, IP) or vehicle (DMSO) to ob/ob mice for six weeks and examined hair regeneration and the plasma levels of testosterone and DHT. We also tested the effects of SFN on the expression of two forms of 3α-HSD, aldo-keto reductase 1c21 and dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR family) member 9, both in vitro and in vivo . SNF significantly enhanced hair regeneration in ob/ob mice. The mice treated with SFN showed lower plasma levels of testosterone and DHT than those treated with vehicle. SFN increased the mRNA and protein levels of the two forms of 3α-HSD in the liver of the mice and in cultured murine hepatocyte Hepa1c1c7 cells. These results suggest that SFN treatment increases the amount of 3α-HSDs in the liver, accelerates the degradation of blood DHT, and subsequently blocks the suppression of hair growth by DHT.
Paywalled paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006291X16302881
Related: How to Increase Sulforaphane in your Diet, Cancer Prevention, etc
I asked my nephrologist if I could take ashwagangha and he said “no” bc it may cause acute kidney failure.
Out of curiosity @Agetron, when you fell off the tonic and noticed some regression did you also stop oral Minox? Or keep up with that?
Hey Dan - So after discontiuning my tonic – I continued to use 5 mg oral Minoxidil daily and Finasteride every other day. I could feel my hair had really thickened and remains that way, so I think the oral medication has done a lot for maintaining thicker and healther hair - which is why I discontinued my tonic. Felt the oral was enough. It was not.
The region that the tonic helped was the very front of hair or forlock and crown. new fine hair growth was there and mid scalp.
That area is where I slowly lost ground.
Now… back on the tonic for a few months and the fine hairs are back in both regions. Can feel them with my fingers.
Just took these for you.
And lot of new growth - which is now black hair - never had black hair in my life.
Crown area is thickening again with the tonic.
Over all my hair is fairly thick on sides and back! At almost 66 years I guess I can’t complain.
So there is the update. Need a haircut really bad - been over a month… will look better trimmed up. LOL
The fine hairs are probably vellus hairs. You meed them to convert to terminal which requires the deminiturisation of the hair follicle. This is a protein production issue.
I start out a lot more bald than you somethink like Norwood 6 or 7. The area where hair is regrowing at the moment, therefore, has been bald for over a decade. DMT has damaged the mitochondria in the cells and that damage has to be reversed.
You can see near the centre of this image some hairs which were initially vellus (with white tips) that have turned terminal. What I am finding is that once hairs start growing strongly in a pigmented form as long as I keep improving mitochondrial quality the miniaturisation process reverses (very slowly) and the hairs very slowly become thicker.
I have a photograph of this area from May that shows the changes. It is really slow and there is some form of cycling in that hairs appear to start up and then stop (and fall out) and then start up again.
The strong really short hair in this photo is the hair in the centre of the bottom of the picture above.
Has anyone here tried Adegen for hair loss?
Good stuff @Agetron. Doesn’t look like you lost much. I know how that feels to go backwards though and it is nerve provoking.
I have been keeping up with the ‘formula’. I added a weekly dose of micro needling and I added dutasteride to a bottle of the formula. I use right before the session. Apparently dutasteride is too big for topicals so micro needling helps get it into the scalp. Too soon to report much other than to say my hair feels thicker a day or two after treatment.
I built a LLT helmet a few years ago when they were super expensive. Been doing that 6 mins a day too.
Aka fighting the good fight. Here is to thicker fuller hair in 2024!!!
Exactly Dan…
Losing your 6 months gains sucks… but I am back on track to retain and even add some.
I see dudes in their early 30’s with bald crowns and extreme frontal loss. I really can’t
complain…even with my higher testosterone from TRT, I am holding my own.
Very happy where I am at… definitely don’t want any losses. Trying to get maximum retention with little effort. I am kinda lazy… diet, gym anything that takes time and effort. Lol.
Keep me posted on your progress.
In the end, however, if it takes me 50 years to get my hair to a state similar to when I was in my 30s and my other bodily functions continue working effectively (I am currently stronger then I was in my teenage years for example). I will live with that.
Dear experts,
adding a similar post in this thread as well, copied from a different thread about skin cream
I am planning to make a scalp serum based on products I have available.
see tab on “Available products”
Would anyone be so kind to comment on my suggestion below?
Should I add or change anything, in particular the dosing?
| For daily application to scalp with dropper | ||
|---|---|---|
| Product | Amount | Comment |
| Minoxidil (Rozino) Topical solution 5% | 50g | |
| Propylene Glycol | 35g | Mixed with grinded Rapamune-tablets |
| Rapamycin (Rapamune 1mg tablets) | 10mg | In total, ca. 0,01% concentration in 100g serum |
| Hyaluronic Acid 99% | 5g | |
| Astaxanthin 10% powder | 5g | Astaxanthin 10% powder concentration yields 0,5% Astaxanthin concentration in serum |
| Biotin | 100mg | 0,1% biotin concentration. Copied from biotin skin cream, see link. |
| Ru58841 PSK3841 Powder | 5g | 5% concentration |
I am based in Norway, and Propylene Glycol was easiest to get ahold of.
Thanks for any advice on the scalp serum.
If you’re using RU you might as well just add topical finasteride on top unless you’re on oral finasteride/dutasteride already.
Where do you get this?
