Lasercap
New Hair Clinic offers a Hair laser treatment with significant advantages over stationary lasers or laser combs.
Behind the U.S. patent is known names in the research on biological effects of laser light, including Professor Michael Hamblin. LaserCap is equipped with 224 diodes, each emitting 650 nm red laser light and a power of 5mW. One of the most common stationary lasers on the market, LHC 6000XL is fitted with diodes 30 and has a total output of 120 mW. Treatment can be done at home watching TV. Obviously this is a great practical advantage, which saves time.
For whom can Lasercap be a good option?
New Hair Clinic will primarily offer LaserCap to men and women who want to improve their quality of hair. With proven experience, we know that all young men in the early stages of hereditary male pattern baldness, like many women of different age groups with thin hair for different reasons, responding well to treatment. These will continue to be the main target group.
But there is another large group, which we believe would greatly benefit from a LaserCap, and there are all those who undergo hair transplants. LLLT has a beneficial effect in wound healing.
One could imagine that even people with very modest or no balding security problems could have a particular advantage of laser treatment. When we speak of a purely cosmetic use. However, there are clear limits: If you have “too good” hair, a large portion of the laser light that is absorbed by pigment in hårsstrån on its way down to the scalp. And then you can not expect an equally clear quality-enhancing effect as if you are balding. This limitation also applies of course in the treatment of stationary laser.
LaserCap should be used every other day (or three times a week), half an hour each time. That one restricts the treatment to about 50 x 20 minutes in a year on stationary lasers depends largely on the recognition that the customer is hardly willing to sacrifice more time than that. We have experience since 2006, and know that we often have to enter periods of extra sessions to maintain the effect. Maintenance therapy is said to have done every 3 to every 5 weeks, but the optimum is to continue with regular power-ups about as often in the long run, as the first year. Maybe try to go down to once or twice a week, you would notice a renewed hair loss, it’s only to return to the previous schedule.
New Hair Clinic is the only clinic in Sweden selling the LaserCap, and we sell it for 22 500 SEK, including VAT. It is important to note that all laser treatment in Sweden takes place in the segment “beauty treatments and cosmetics”, not as medical treatment. There are no side effects and the technique has been used since the 80s. By LaserCap can be modified so that only one half (right or left) works, it will soon be published data, where treatment efficacy can be tested with the patient’s head half untreated as a control. I have seen the preliminary data from a patient, but we’ll have to wait until next ISHRS congress for a complete presentation.
New Hair Clinic met with representatives of LaserCap in Boston, the ISHRS congress in 2010, and has entered into a partnership. Until further notice, we can not assert that the treatment is medical, it falls in the segment “cosmetics and beauty care.” It is likely that LaserCap in the near future has FDA approval as medical treatment at tunnhårighet in both men and women. Such approval is available today for two other devices, that have existed longer on the market.
At the ISHRS congress in Amsterdam in 2009 was Associate Professor Michael Hamblin, Harvard Medical School, a long lecture, which he summarized the state of knowledge for Hair care treatment. The No 3/2010 of the Hair Transplant Forum International is an article written by Nilofer P. Farjo, and designed as an interview with prof. Hamblin.
In order to understand the contents you need previous knowledge, the article’s primarily written for physicians. Therefore I decided to write an abstract of the contents, which you lacking this background should be able to understand you.
Recommends LaserCap – which he helped develop
Not surprisingly, believes Professor Hamblin to LaserCap today is the most practical and effective method of Hair care treatment. He has been part of the expert panel behind LaserCap. This implies on the other side that you can be sure that the design took into account the present-day science on the subject. That it is user-friendly to perform their treatment at home, completely passive, is hardly debatable. Moreover, one can take his LaserCap traveling.
Trichologi in a new dimension
One of the doctors who developed LaserCap is Michael Rabin, he has also developed a new method to study the effect over time by measuring the cross dimension of the two planes as well as total cross-sectional surface with high accuracy on individual hairs. If you cut of 10-20 hairs as close to the scalp as possible from a small area when treatment is started, it can be after one or two months to make comparative measurements of hair from the hair follicles. According to Dr. Rabin is the accuracy of these measurements are so large as to permit scientific conclusions.
Personally, I am much more positive about LLLT today than when we got our own stationary laser at New Hair Clinic in Lund in 2006. This is due to our experience of over 70 patient treatments, but also that there is indeed an ever more solid scientific basis. “This is not magic or snake oil”, to quote the original article.
Biological effects known since the early 60′s
The red light at wavelengths between 630-670 nm can be absorbed by living cells. Not only plant cells are photoreceptors, but cells in general can absorb energy from certain wavelengths of light. This has led to the so-called kallasrar (not burn) have been used in medicine for a number of purposes, particularly for accelerating wound healing, and reduce inflammation.
Cells exposed to red laser light immediately tightens its store of energy in the form of ATP molecules. It can be described as a real boost. This biological effect requires that the red light can be absorbed (taken up, picked up) by special molecules. The immediate effect of this is that we are seeing an increased consumption of oxygen, while the synthesis of ATP. But nitric oxide (NO) and Ca2 + (calcium ions) are released. A number of different signaling pathways will be activated – this is a complex area in cell biology. But Professor Hamblin made it clear in his interview that the research on photo-biological effects have come a long way, and is down at the molecular level.
The signaling ultimately leads into the cellular “factory”. A cell has in its genome DNA, which is really detailed descriptions for the production of a very large number of proteins (albumin). Thus a supply of drawings! The cell signaling regulates the small segments of genetic material (genes) to be permitted to give instructions for the manufacture of a given substance at a given time. Only a very small fraction of all genes in a cell are activated simultaneously.
Arndt-Schultz curve
The long term effects of the light treatment of biological tissue, the cells survive better different stressors, reducing inflammatory responses, increasing tissue repair. If a cell has the task to produce a certain product will increase this production. For the hair follicle cells, it is tempting to translate this to “better hair”. And that is how more than 20 years experience in laser treatment for hair loss can be summarized.
The relationship between the biological effect of the laser on the one hand and the amount of energy delivered per unit area on the other are divided into two. Up to a certain level, the effect will be better and better and then leveled off. If you increase the energy load will further the biological effect to subside more and more.
According to Professor Hamblin is likely that you have to overdose on his laser treatment significantly to risk falling on the wrong side of the curve optimal part. There are probably substantial individual differences. In recent years, the evolution of stationary lasers has been towards more powerful machines. LaserCap is a continuation of this trend, with its 224 LEDs on each of 5 mW power.
Beneficial for wound healing
Professor Hamblin has devoted much research to studying the effect of laser treatment on wound healing. He argues that the effects are particularly beneficial in the complex healing process. But even on tests of young volunteers has been demonstrated more rapid healing of superficial wounds.
According to Hamblin, one can expect to Hair care treatment given during the healing and growth phase of hair transplants will have a range of positive effects: Faster healing in both time and recipient areas (the grafted surface), and faster growth of the grafts. In particular the USA, some clinics offered such a post-treatment, and the experiences reported to be good – although not scientifically documented. With LaserCap will be able to study the effects of a better way, because right or left half of the helmet can be disabled.
Dr. P. Nilofer Farjo multi showed a few years ago the likely mechanism of mioxidil (Rogaine, Recrea etc.). Agent acts to regulate the flow of ions through certain so-called ATP-dependent potassium channels of cell membranes. Now it turns out, that LLLT also has an effect on these channels in the mitochondria, at least in heart and brain. It is possible that the same mechanism may be relevant to laser light effects on hair follicles.
New approach to hair follicles
One of the many interesting talks at the ISHRS congress in Boston 2010 gave a partly new approach to hair follicles oscillation between active (growth) and vilofas.Matematisk chaos theory is not my forte, but I think I still have felt that one should look at the hair follicle condition that they are at different energy levels. And then it suddenly becomes more understandable why the “energy-kick” that red laser light in the wavelength range around 650 nm gives, may affect the hair follicles tend to stay in the growth phase.
ATP supplementation increases the growth percent
It is tempting to compare ATP with a type of “battery” molecules, but it should be insert to the case of very short-lived “batteries”. ATP is a perishable commodity inside the cell. The molecule may be stored in liposomes, which can be, for example, the medium of its storage in the hair follicles, when they are waiting to be transplanted. A lecture in Boston on ISHRS Congress described it. With the liposomal ATP had to be 60% of hair follicles to grow after 5 days of storage. Without this extra ATP was growing up after all this time nonexistent./M.I 2011/