Monthly Archives: October 2018

Hair Loss Japan, Fuji Maru Kagurazaka, Shiseido

Hair Loss Cure Japan: Fuji Maru Kagurazaka

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Update: Please go to step 1 listed further below once this issue is resolved:

Based on current hair loss research trends, The US and Japan are the countries that are the most likely to come out with a hair loss cure. This lengthy post focuses on Japan. Please read through it in its entirety, since I cover the latest news from Shiseido (Japan) at the bottom.

Also, after reading ALL of this post’s content, if you appreciate Tokyo based Mr. Fuji Maru Kagurazaka (FMK) as much as I do, please do the following:

  1. Go to Japan’s top hair loss blogs and websites ranking page.
  2. Translate into English if needed via right clicking on your browser and selecting the translate option (or you might get a pop-up asking you as such).
  3. Please vote for him. As of today, Mr. Kagurazaka is ranked number 7. His entry is titled “Hair Loss Cure Japan” — see image further below. The other sites ranked above him are nowhere near as useful to our cause as is his site.
  4. I am not exactly sure how the voting works, but I asked Mr. Kagurazaka and he stated the following (although he does not care too much about his ranking): “There are two kinds of voting methods. When you click on the banner installed in the article, it is a weekly IN point. Clicking on the ranking page (I THINK HE MEANS THE LINK ITSELF) will result in a weekly OUT point. Fuji Maru Kagurazaka is the administrator’s name, I think that you can introduce. Readers can vote with just clicks without registration or installation.” Previously, he also replied to me that: “Clicking on the ranking banner at the top of the article, IN point 10 UP, clicking my blog on the ranking page, OUT point 10 UP, will.”

The image below is off poor quality because of my shrinking it, but it should still be obvious what I mean. If you can figure out a more simpler way in which the voting works, please post about it in the comments. Do not vote for someone else by mistake!

Hair Loss Japan

Fuji Maru Kagurazaka — Introduction

For the past  two years, a Japanese person (or anime or manga character) by the name of Fuji Maru Kagurazaka has been prolifically Tweeting and blogging about hair loss news and developments. Half of his blog articles and posts are summaries of news that he gets from other blogs such as this one. However, it is the other half of his posts where he truly shines in his originality.

I find his blog to be very unbiased. Moreover, he does not even seem to have any major regular advertisers and might be doing all this work for little to no compensation. One of the posts I read about FMK suggests that he has been involved in the online hair loss sector since the early 2000s, although I can’t find this information anymore.

Fuji Maru Kagurazaka
Mr. Fuji Maru Kagurazaka

Mr. Kagurazaka has a knack for finding unique information, especially in relation to developments in Japan. He also has very good coverage of work from other Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan. Unfortunately, his blog does not seem to load half the time when accessed from the US, so be patient. Some of his posts can also get lengthy and confusing after translation into English, but your patience will be rewarded.

You can also read all of Mr. FMK’s past comments on HLT. This should be done after you have had a few drinks for the most enjoyment. FMK also had an older hair related site on Geocities, prior to the latter’s closure.

Fuji Maru Kagurazaka’s Recent Highlights

Among Mr. Kagurazaka’s blog’s very unique news items and revelations from just this past one month include:

    • Both Dr. Takashi Tsuji and Shiseido are presenting at the 23rd Annual Meeting of Japan Society of Clinical Hair Restoration (November 24-25 2018). This will be huge.
    • Mr. FMK  discovered a new company from Taiwan called Energis Biomedical that is working on a hair loss treatment product called ENERGI-F701. They recently started Phase 2 clinical trials. Their 2017 youtube video suggests that the trials will occur in the US and Taiwan.
    • Mr. FMK has written a recent post about Rohto Pharmaceutical (Japan) presenting its latest findings regarding adipose-derived stem cells (ADSC) plus minoxidil (and their synergistic effect on hair growth and gene expression).

Mr. Kagurazaka also messages me on Twitter every now and again and provides some interesting views and information. For example, a while back he sent me an image of Zagallo (generic Japanese Dutasteride), which was approved to treat hair loss in Japan.

Zagallo -- Japanese Dutasteride

Cutting Edge Hair Loss Research in Japan

Two of the companies that are among the most likely in the world to come out with a hair loss cure are based in Japan. See my post on RIKEN/Dr. Tsuji and Shiseido’s hair research centers being located right next to each other in Kobe.

In years past, there was a Japanese commentator on this blog by the name of “nosyu” who provided us with important updates about hair loss news from Japan. However, he disappeared several years ago and I now rely on Mr. Fuji Maru Kagurazaka for a lot of my Japanese news.

Shiseido in Bio Japan 2018

Talking about Japan, it seems like there was an important conference over there these past two days called “BioJapan 2018”.

Shiseido is presenting there per something that I found online:

Shiseido at Bio Japan 2018

 

Also of significance, Shiseido’s partner Replicel (Canada) made this useful comment on Twitter a few days ago.

Update: Replicel’s latest press release. Key Quote:

“With sufficiently positive data from the RCH-01 clinical study in Japan, Shiseido may be in a position to launch the product in Japan for the treatment of patients with androgenic alopecia.”

Some other interesting news from Shiseido:

— Shiseido is now embracing English as its in-house workplace language. A majority of the company’s sales occur outside of Japan.

— Shiseido is tackling neck wrinkles with Retinol. A number of readers use Retinol (Vitamin A1) in combination with Minoxidil for better scalp absorption and hair growth results. Note that there are significant possible side effects that can occur from using Retinol regularly.

Mitochondria, Mitochondrial Function

Mitochondria and Hair

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Mitochondria are the powerhouse of every cell in the human body. I am surprised at how little importance hair loss researchers (as well as interested parties such as ourselves) have given to this important subject.

Update: June 2022 — A new study from Singapore finds that there is altered dermal papilla mitochondrial function in androgenetic alopecia. Balding dermal papilla cells were also found to be under significantly higher oxidative stress than non-balding dermal papilla cells.

Note that mitochondria is the plural of the actual organelle known as mitochondrion.

To date, I have only covered this important subject twice on this blog. Moreover, both instances only occurred earlier this year.

New Mitochondrial Hair Treatment Patent

Yesterday, someone on Twitter messaged me about a highly interesting new patent application from Israel. This patent was filed on March 22nd, 2018 and was published on October 4th, 2018.

The scientists involved seem to be highly qualified. All have high levels of education, have started their own companies, and have many patents to their names:

Going back to this particular patent, the scientists make numerous claims in regards to hair loss reversal, new hair growth, hair follicle size and cycle elongation, hair cell proliferation and more. The main method for doing so seems to be via:

“Administering a composition comprising an effective amount of about 1 μg/ml to about 100 μg/ml of intact mitochondria, ruptured mitochondria and/or mitochondrial constituents selected from the group consisting of mitochondrial protein, mitochondrial nucleic acid, mitochondrial lipid and mitochondrial saccharide.”

Writing this post at 11pm, you will have to forgive me for not putting in the effort to try to figure out any further details regarding the above (or the rest of the lengthy patent).

Hopefully, the few scientists among this blog’s commentators will do the hard work for me this time.