Ashwagandha- It is touted as a treatment for hair but can it cause liver damage?

Recently several new  hair loss companies  have been promoting the use

of Ashwagandha for the treatment of hair loss. Unfortunately these companies develop 

pills and capsules by layman without any medical background or knowledge. Basically 

experimenting on consumers with untested formulas and then later doing some testing

that they pay for which creates a bias. But any claims for hair regrowth is set against a

background  of ingredients such as Ashwagandha which are wrought with

medical issues.

Unlike a drug , any layman can open up a company in the USA and make claims that

their supplemental products work. They can even get a company to publish their articles with

standardized testing that allows for a great deal of subjectivity since they use

"Global photography" and allow a "independent" panel to decide if growth occurs.

However whether their products actually work is dubious and the open market will

decide if it fails or succeeds.  Even worse is the fact that some of the ingredients that

are touted for hair growth can have serious medical consequences. 

A study in the NIH  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK548536/ Ashwagandha has shown that:

"Recently, however, several cases of clinically apparent liver injury have been reported in

patients taking commercial herbal products that are labelled as containing

ashwagandha. The liver injury presented 2 to 12 weeks after starting ashwagandha with

a cholestatic or mixed pattern of injury, jaundice and pruritus. Immunoallergic and

autoimmune features were not prominent. Jaundice tended to be protracted but ultimately

resolved without fatalities or chronic injury. "

The issue remains that unless a product has been time tested it should not be released

to the general market just like a drug unless the ingredients have been shown to be

generally safe.

Unfortunately there are incidences of Ashwagnda adulteration and this may be a factor.

https://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/view/ashwagandha-standardization-increasingly-important-adulteration-grows-say-suppliers-supplyside-east

Most of the hair loss companies do not even have their own factories and turn it over to

third parties contract manufacturers so they do not even know with certainty what the 

purity, bio-availbilty or even sources of their ingredients.  

So besides the purity of a product  the efficacy of Ahswagnada is dubious for hair

growth but may be a big player in the muscle building market since as we have

previously written it is extremely anabolic  and great for lifting weights but can also 

lead to hair loss, nipple sensitivity and mood swings.

But just because you spend millions in marketing does not mean that you have a

product with the best efficacy. It just means that you have investors with deep pockets. 

And their goal is to get a customer to sign up to an automatic re-billing system and they 

are told that it takes a year to get "results".

If you spend 2 million in advertising and your return on investment for a year of 

supposed results is ROI 4x that amount then you have a winning company that may not

have a product that even has  minimal results. 

The customer is out thousands of dollars and  unfortunaltey there is little recourse.

Truly Buyer beware.

Our company, Help hair products tested the shakes and vitamins for a period of 3 years

prior to releasing the formula and products on the market back in 2008. It was 

developed by a hair transplant doctor with over 30 years experience who has treated

thousands of hair loss sufferers and published his research in a hair restoration

textbook with over 100 scientific references. By screening thousands of patients and 

getting proper feedback. Dr Shapiro could make an actual clinical assessment for

providing the best results.

We have no Ashwagnda and avoid anabolic products that can cause hair loss.

Our products are sourced and purchased and manufactured by our sister company in 

an FDA compliant facility and all are tested for purity and potency along with established

FDA guidelines.