The Belgravia Centre Blog

If you plant a flower, all it needs is water to grow. But no one can doubt the added benefits provided by sunlight and fertiliser. You can think of hair growth in the same way. It’s clinically proven that minoxidil can singularly promote growth and help prevent hair loss, but some people find that there are certain things that give this treatment an added boost which may help improve their results.

Minoxidil is a topical liquid and a clinically proven and MHRA-licensed treatment for hair loss. However, its limitation lies in its inability to combat the production of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a hormonal bi-product that causes genetic patterns of hair loss in men and women. Propecia is a hair loss treatment that is effective for this purpose, but the MHRA have only licensed it for use in men, not women.

Now, if you plant a flower and provide it with water, sunlight and fertiliser, it will grow, but not as well as it should if the soil contains a parasite. Women need an alternative to Propecia that can help block the production of hair loss causing DHT, so they too can address the cause rather than simply try to make the most out of a bad patch of soil. Equally, some men may prefer to use just one product rather than incorporate two into their daily routine, and adding certain ingredients to minoxidil might be a desirable alternative for them.

The Belgravia Centre finds that male hair loss is most effectively stabilised and reversed when Propecia and minoxidil are correctly prescribed and synchronised for an individual and supported with a variety of hair growth boosters. Belgravia has found the clinically proven products complement each other because they work toward the same outcome but in different ways. When Propecia is not an option, Belgravia sometimes incorporates either medroxyprogesterone (MPG) or azelaic acid (AA), depending on the findings of an individual diagnosis, into the minoxidil formula to substitute the action of Propecia. When these products are added to minoxidil, or the concentration is increased above 2% and 5% for women and men respectively, it becomes a prescribed treatment. The Belgravia Centre has found that by adding these ingredients to minoxidil, results achieved tend to be superior and there may be a number of reasons for this.

Azelaic acid is a licensed medicine used to treat acne and sold under the brand name Skinoren, but it is also thought to have properties that may be beneficial in the treatment of hair loss.  Azelaic acid kills bacteria associated with acne and also reduces the growth of keratin surface (the harder, outermost) skin cells, thereby working to prevent sebaceous oil build up from blocking the hair follicle, reducing inflammation and allowing for normal hair growth.

Medroxyprogesterone is a licensed medicine sold under various brand names such as Climanor, Premique and Provera. It is it is normally taken in tablet form to help regulate irregular periods and is an active ingredient in some birth control treatments. But it is also an anti-androgen and, when applied topically to the scalp, is a competitive inhibitor of DHT for 5-alpha reductase as it replaces or supplements the naturally produced hormone progesterone. At the base of the hair follicle is an on-off switch, more commonly referred to as a “receptor”. Three things compete for binding to the hair follicle receptor – testosterone, DHT and progesterone. If the latter is bound to the receptor, it is accepted that DHT cannot be bound and therefore will not interfere with the hair follicle lifecycle and lead to hair loss.

Though minoxidil is itself clinically proven to help treat hair loss, both men and women can benefit from a fully comprehensive approach. The Belgravia Centre has found that adding certain ingredients and supporting the clinically proven medicines with other selected products can help augment the treatment, nourish the follicles, and provide  an optimum environment for the renewal and maintenance of healthy hair growth.

After years of successfully helping men and women combat hair loss, The Belgravia Centre has developed and fine-tuned their hair loss treatment programmes, and tailors them to suit each individual. By taking the most effective and proven hair loss products and employing a range of other beneficial elements, Belgravia’s approach aims to provide both men and women with the best opportunity to manage and reverse the effects of thinning hair and hair loss.

For further information, or to arrange a free consultation with a Belgravia hair loss specialist, call on 020 7730 6666 or message the centre. If you can’t make it to the London centre, you can still take advantage of the online consultation service.

More Information:
Hair Loss in Men
Hair Loss in Women
Licensed Hair Loss Treatments

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