Vitamin D Stimulates Hair Growth

Vitamin D3 analogs stimulate hair growth in nude mice

2002 Nov

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center/University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90048, USA.

The active form of vitamin D3 can regulate epidermal keratinization by inducing terminal differentiation; and mice lacking the vitamin D receptor display defects leading to postnatal alopecia. These observations implicate the vitamin D3 pathway in regulation of hair growth. We tested the ability of 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D3 and its synthetic analogs to stimulate hair growth in biege/nude/xid (BNX) nu/nu (nude) mice exhibiting congenital alopecia. Nude mice were treated with different vitamin D3 analogs at doses that we had previously found to be the highest dose without inducing toxicity (hypercalcemia). The mice were monitored for hair growth and were scored according to a defined scale. Skin samples were taken for histological observation of hair follicles and for extraction of RNA and protein. Vitamin D3 analogs dramatically stimulated the hair growth of nude mice, although parental 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D3 had no effect. Hair growth occurred in a cyclical pattern, accompanied by formation of normal hair follicles and increased expression of certain keratins (Ha7, Ha8, and Hb3). Vitamin D3 analogs seem to act on keratinocytes to initiate hair follicle cycling and stimulate hair growth in mice that otherwise do not grow hair.

Whenever I increase or come back to my D supplementation, I notice positive effects in my hair growth. I know this may sound hard to believe, but when I increase my D, or maintain an adequate daily intake of 4K+ IUs per day, I start to see new hairs popping up in the center of my chest, most noticeably.

Interestingly, they concluded that 1,25D3 did not have any affect. It isn't encouraging to see such a conclusion about regular 1,25D3... but clearly I am proving this to be inaccurate, perhaps, as I'm supplementing with D3 and seeing hair growth, and not with D analogs. Could this mean that my body is also producing these variant analogs, or do we just convert it to regular good old 1,25D3, and this study is mistaken? Or we humans have a different reaction to 1,25D3?

I'm taking this as just another sign that I'm obviously still struggling with D deficiency symptoms when I'm not supplementing. My theory here is that growing new hairs is a sign that I am doing a better job of becoming D replete, and that my cells are desperately sucking up the activated D and engaging in long awaited differentiation activities, now that it has the raw material it needs. Here again is a clear sign that D is upregulating genes in the skin and that the skin and hair follicles harbor a large number of VDRs.