said its a botanical alternative..i have no clue and wanted to know if anyone has even tried it.
im gonna start propecia soon next few weeks

thanx all

shmutzy

It's junk, just check on some of the other hair loss websites, save your money.

Greetings, since I am the guy who invented this product, I can probably answer questions. I am surprised to see anyone refer to the line as "junk" since HairGenesis?„? represents the sole example of a non-drug hair loss treatment that is supported with published peer-reviewed IRB-monitored placebo-controlled clinical data. In all events, I'm happy to address whatever questions you folks may have about our product line.

kind regards,

Geno Marcovici, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
HairGenesis?„?

Geno,

Without promoting your profuct, please feel free to educate this community about your profuct including sharing its ingredients, any clinical (preferably not anecdotal) studies, its benefits and limitations, and compelling before/after photos.

I must warn you that our community is very good at pointing out misleading photos whether intentional or unintentional.

I look forward to learning more about your product.

Best wishes,

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Hi Bill-

Okay, you asked, so I'll go through some of the background on HairGenesis?„? that will hopefully provide useful context. I apologize because this is going to be a LONG response. But I think you'll find it informative. The fact is, the product was created in response to a need that I perceived in our surgical clinic population. As most of your forum members realize, transplanting donor hair into a recipient zone that is actively thinning can sometimes accelerate hair loss in the untransplanted tissue around the newly transplanted grafts. Alternatively, transplanting into a denuded frontal area will also leave the untransplanted hair behind it thinning. So you often wind up chasing a receding hair line. Another problem is donor supply. What happens if/when you run out of donor? Or, put another way, how should a person best use their donor hair to provide the greatest cosmetic benefit.

All of these issues were top of mind for many years in our clinic and probably most other transplant clinics worldwide.

Obviously, one possible solution is to use pharmacotherapy concomitant with transplant surgery. Good idea, but not without a downside.

Because the drug-based treatment options also come with known side effects, --- some quite serious, many patients, then as now, were reluctant to incorporate them into a surgical treatment plan.

Interestingly, in 1994 I attended a research lecture that happened to mention some of the herbal treatments being used in Europe for BPH.

Specifically, saw palmetto was being used to treat BPH patients, with reasonable clinical outcomes, and an excellent safety track record. As you may know, BPH shares a striking degree of etiological similarity to AGA.

This is when I had a "eureka" moment. The thing that was running around in my head was that biochemically speaking, nature is extremely conservative and frugal. So, metabolic pathways --- such as for example, steroid hormone-mediated pathways --- are repeated across different organ systems. By the same token, treatment agents that work well in one system may offer interesting therapeutic benefit in another.

Long story short, we began by testing saw palmetto for hair loss in our clinic. It sometimes worked, but usually not very well. But it was a start. So we began looking at the constituent fatty acids and sterols that make up saw palmetto. This provided some useful clues that allowed us to refine the initial composition into a better formula. Then we started looking at different naturally-derived reagents to see if they might offer additive or synergistic benefit.

However, in so doing we ran into another problem. The useful fatty acids and sterols (e.g. betasitosterol) derived from saw palmetto did not like to stay in solution very well with some of the other things we were testing. Also, the compositions tended to denature. There were pH issues and solubility problems galore. These were technical challenges that, by soliciting some very sharp collaborative assistance, we were eventually able to overcome.

We kept working and ultimately got to a point that our clinic results were positive and reproducible. At this point we engaged a third-party clinical site to test the formula in an IRB monitored, placebo-controlled, randomized trial. For a small independent clinic like ours, this was an ambitious and expensive gamble but we were hopeful that the positive results we were seeing in our clinic would hold up. They did.

Hoping that our fellow clinicians and scientists would find merit, we then submitted the work for publication in the peer-reviewed literature. Happily, the manuscript describing our pilot study was accepted for publication in the Journal of Alternative & Complimentary Medicine in 2002.

Now here's the thing. I'm a pretty good scientist. But I'm a lousy businessman. Unfortunately, the business partners I became involved with turned out to have a different philosophy than I did. This meant that instead of working in the lab to make newer and better formulas, I spent the better part of eight years in business litigation.

Another thing your readers should probably be made to understand. The fact is, there are very very few dedicated scientists working in this area of research. If you don't believe me, look at all the hair products offered for sale today. Now look at, or rather try to find, the hard science that supports them. An uncomfortable number of these products actually quotes my study in support of their products!!!

There is an excellent Yiddish word for this. It's called chutzpah.

For the hair loss affected public, this meant that nothing much new in the category has been brought to fruition for a number of years.

Good news. This is all about to change. Now that I am past my litigation, my hands have been untied and I have been hard at work with some very gifted collaborators to take the non-drug hair loss treatment methodology forward in a substantive way.

I can't say too much right now. But I will tell you that, hopefully before the year is out, we will issue a press release that will probably be of interest to the folks who frequent this website --- and other hair loss focused websites.

More on this at the appropriate point in time.

best wishes,

Geno M.

DocGMarcovici

I am aware of the particular study you are referring to. I applaud you in attempting to legitimatize your product but it falls way below the standards science has established for a true double blinded placebo controlled study.

Hopefully in the future you will be able to fully comply with scientific standards and prove or disprove the efficacy of your product.

If you have further scientific evidence please do not hesistate to provide us with it.

I tried this stuff a while back, did nothing and they refused to refund my money too, very bad experience. It doesn't work.

Geno,

I appreciate your ellaborate explanation and description of products you are working with.

Without knowing much about your company, you (personally) strike me as someone who is working hard to find better treatments rather than a self promoter. I find that refreshing.

In my research, saw palmetto berry extract has very little evidence and support showing any real success in those suffering from any kind of hair loss. Read more on our research on saw palmetto.

It will be interesting to see what you uncover in future research. Of course, our community demands proof (both clinical and visual) rather than blindly believing in claims of success. I trust that as a scientist, you will be able to share this when you uncover new viable treatment options.

Feel free to contribute your expertise and experiences on our forum as long as you adhere to the terms of service.

Best wishes,

Bill

__________________
Managing Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network, the Hair Loss Learning Center, the Hair Loss Q&A Blog and the Hair Loss Forum and Social Community

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Subscribe to our Newsletters | How We Recommend Physicians

-----

To learn about how I restored my hair, view my my hair loss website.

Remember, true beauty radiates from within, not from the skin.

I am not a medical professional and my words should not be taken as medical advice. All opinions and views shared are my own.

Hi Bill-

Thanks for the kind words. Thanks also for your comments on saw palmetto. Actually, I concur with much of what you say. Saw palmetto is an interesting substance, but it is not, in and of itself, "the" answer to pattern hair loss.

However imperfect as a monotherapy, there is in our view, something useful to be learned from LSESr (the liposterolic extract of serenoa repens).

To cite but one example, mechanistically, the sterolic fraction of saw palmetto (e.g. betasitosterol) seems to operate by modulating the target cell membrane rendering it a less efficient "door" whereby androgen receptor may translocate to the cell nucleus.

This is in contradistinction to drugs like finasteride which actively block the conversion of T to DHT causing modification in the endogenous level of androgen steroid hormone (thus triggering the potential for negative side effect).

This data point also helps explain the pharmacodynamic differences between botanical and drug drug (i.e. renal clearance).

Also noteworthy are basic science experiments, for example the work conducted by DeLos et al. (J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 1995 Sep;54(5-6):273-9.) wherein the authors observed a manifold greater 5 alpha-reductase enzyme inhibition profile for LSESr than finasteride.

Equally interesting, in my opinion, was the fact that LSESr targeted both isoforms where finasteride selectively targeted only type 2 5AR. For those who would scoff by noting that [type 2 5AR is the sole relevant isoform in AGA], I would caution that the jury is still out on that "fact".

Although 5 alpha reductase occurs in two isoforms distinguished by their respective pH, there is mounting evidence that each may play a role in a number of steroid hormone mediated metabolic cascades --- including those pertaining to the skin and its ectodermal appendages --- e.g. the underlying structures which produce scalp hair.

However, your primary point remains valid. LSESr is one tool against a complex trait disorder system (AGA) that cries out for want of a whole tool box.

This is an important reason why the more recent versions of HairGenesis?„? have incorporated substances and not just LSESr.

Our work continues. We're learning new things almost every day. You may rest assured that when the time is right, we will submit our new information in the form of scientifically objective data.

kind regards,

Geno M.

Geno M,

You seem to overlook my post about being ripped off by your company. I purchased the product and returned the unused merchandise and you never refunded me, are you a thief? You are trying to push your snake oil on this forum and ignore this. The litigation you speak of is probably dissatisfied customers suing you for a refund. Respond to this.