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CONSUMER EDUCATION

NITROXIDES (Minoxidil, Nicorandil)

These are blood vessel dialating hair-growth stimulators. OTOH, most dialating agents don't stimulate hair growth. So, vessel dilatation is not directly related to hair growth stimulation.

Possible explaination: Nitrovasodialators mimic some natural messenger substance mediating both dialation and hair growth. Currently, the best candidate is nitric oxide ( aka, EDRF or NO ). NO is a ubiquitous transmitter which has identical effects to minoxidil on blood vessels. The action of both these agents and nitric oxide seems to be secondary to opening "K-channels", important for regulating a variety of cellular processes.

Whenever you see NO ( as in miNOxidil or naNO ) in the name of a drug, it probably has the nitric oxide chemical group in it. Similarly, as you might expect if nitric oxide is an important stimulator of hair growth, inhibitors of NO production reduce hair growth. See: "Reduction of Hair Growth", US pat# 5,463,478.


The journal Science pronounced nitric oxide its "Molecule of the Year" in 1992. Nitric Oxide is also so important that it now has its own home page.

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