This European Prescription Restores Hair and Nails

One of the most common and one of the most difficult problems that doctors deal with is hair loss.

I’m not talking about the male pattern hair loss which is genetic, and for which there is no cure.

I’m talking about the hair loss and hair thinning that millions of men and women experience as they get older.

Up until a few years ago, I had no idea how to stop this kind of hair loss.

And then, as fate would have it, I met Mariana.

Mariana was a beautiful young woman who came to see me with the following problem. She was visiting Carson City all the way from Italy. It turned out that several years before, although she was completely healthy, she started to lose hair. It was “coming out in buckets in my brush and when I washed it.” She went to see various doctors and tried the different medications that they gave her to no avail.

Finally, one of them prescribed her a medication that worked. Within four weeks of taking it, the hair loss stopped. But here was the problem. Not long after she arrived in the U.S., she lost her pills, and her hair was starting to fall out again. She wanted me to prescribe them for her.

At that point, she showed me the box that the pills had come in. The information on the box was entirely in Italian. So, I had to go to Google Translate to figure out what the medication was. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the pills didn’t contain any medication at all. They simply contained one single amino acid called l-cysteine. Each capsule contained 500 mg of l-cysteine. She was taking two capsules a day. I told her that in the U.S. you don’t need a prescription to get l-cysteine. It’s available over the counter. In fact, I had some in the clinic. So, I gave her what she needed, and off she went out into the land of beautiful hair.

But that was not the end of the story. Because now I wanted to know what was going on. I immediately went to the literature to learn more about l-cysteine and the nutritional aspects of hair loss in general. Here’s what I found out.

A German research study from 2000 looked at the role of l-cysteine in hair loss and hair regrowth. The researchers divided people who were suffering from what they described as “massive” hair loss into two groups. They treated one group with a combination of l-cysteine, millet seed extract, and pantothenic acid (vitamin B5). They gave the other group a placebo. Within a matter of eight weeks, the people in the l-cysteine group stopped losing hair. And that’s not all. Their hair also started to grow back. Not surprisingly, there was no improvement in hair loss or in hair regrowth in the placebo group. But why? What’s the big deal about l-cysteine?

L-cysteine is an amino acid that’s critical for the formation of the tissue-building proteins in the body. These proteins build muscle, bone, skin, and yes, hair. Your body gets l-cysteine in two ways. Certain foods are high in l-cysteine. These include soybeans, beef, lamb, sunflower seeds, chicken, oats, pork, fish, cheese, eggs, legumes, and kamut. The other way we get l-cysteine is that we can make it from another amino acid called methionine. But there are a few problems here.

One is that not everyone has a great diet, and some people just don’t get enough l-cysteine or methionine in their diets. Another problem is that even when a person’s diet is high in foods that have l-cysteine, the digestive system might not be able to digest the amino acid effectively. This is especially true for the over-50 crowd. Lastly, for genetic reasons, some people cannot effectively convert methionine into l-cysteine. And if any or all of these factors are present, hair loss can be the result. But why is l-cysteine so important for healthy hair?

It’s because it is one of the few amino acids that has the ability to form disulfide bonds in the body. These disulfide bonds hold together the keratin strands within the hair. This directly helps in maintaining the texture and thickness of hair.

Hair consists of three layers – the cuticle, the cortex, and the medulla. The outer layer is the cuticle. The middle layer is the cortex, and the inner layer is the medulla. The most prominent of these layers is the cortex. It makes up almost 80-90% of a single strand of hair. It’s the cortex that’s so abundantly supplied with the keratin molecules that bundle up to give strength to the hair follicles. And get this. L-cysteine makes up a whopping 75% of each of these fibrous filament bundles. So, it’s pretty easy to see how hair loss can occur when there is not enough l-cysteine around. But l-cysteine is not the only important substance for healthy hair and skin. Studies also show that the B vitamin biotin is critical.

Biotin is specifically needed for the production of keratin, the substance I just mentioned that makes hair follicles strong and healthy. And this is why it’s so important for healthy hair growth. There are all kinds of reasons why people may be low in biotin besides just having a diet low in it. One is eating raw eggs. Eggs contain a protein called avidin, which cooking destroys. However, when uncooked, avidin binds to biotin tightly and prevents your body from using it. Additionally, patients taking anticonvulsant medications, such as valproic acid, can also become deficient. Other causes of biotin deficiency include alcoholism, pregnancy, impaired digestion, and other medications (such as isotretinoin and antibiotics).

One review study looked at the effects of biotin supplementation on healthy hair and nails. To do the study, the researchers looked at all of the published literature that reported on biotin and hair growth. Here’s what they concluded. “We found 18 reported cases of biotin use for hair and nail changes. In all cases, patients receiving biotin supplementation had an underlying pathology for poor hair or nail growth. All cases showed evidence of clinical improvement after receiving biotin.” In addition to biotin, I found other studies showing that supplementing zinc and copper also can be helpful.

Well, armed with this information, several years ago, I started to give any of my patients complaining of hair loss and/or weak, fragile fingernails a combination of l-cysteine (1,000 mg) and biotin (1 mg) daily, along with zinc, copper, and silica. Silica is a mineral found in various plants that has a long history of helping create strong, healthy hair and nails. In general, I found that about 8 out of 10 of my patients with hair loss were telling me that their hair stopped falling out within six weeks of starting the program.

If you notice that your hair is coming out in your brush or comb, or if you see your hair getting thinner as the years roll by (especially if your nails are starting to weaken), do yourself a favor and try this combination. If it’s going to work for you, you will see the hair loss completely stop within four to eight weeks. Once it has stopped, you can then reduce the dose to what is needed to keep it healthy and strong.

I also suggest trying Advanced Amino Formula. It contains the essential amino acid L-Methionine. As I said earlier, that is the precursor to L-cysteine. I’ve heard from many users that Advanced Amino has improved the health of their hair and nails.

Yours for better health,

Frank Shallenberger, MD