Minoxidil as a Sublingual Tablet

Earlier today, a reader named Chris posted a very interesting video about a new hair loss treatment from Australia that entails putting some kind of dissolvable listerine-style strip underneath the tongue. Chris asked me for my opinion about this treatment. At first, I thought that this seemed like an obvious scam since the title of the video includes the word “breakthrough” in it. Moreover, the video does not even mention what ingredients are in the sublingual strip or patch itself.

However, since the famous Dr. Rodney Sinclair appears in the video, I decided to conduct further research. Dr. Sinclair is an extremely well respected researcher in the hair loss world. In the above video, he is honest and clearly says that this treatment will not bring back hair in totally bald scalps. Having said that, so far it seems that the results from this treatment on people who have moderate levels of balding have been very positive. And this got me curious about what magic concoction was in the strip itself?

Clinical Trial for Minoxidil Tablets (or strip underneath tongue)

I did not have to conduct much further research to figure out what this new potential breakthrough hair loss cure entailed. On Dr. Sinclair’s blog, the latest post from today discusses a new clinical trial they are conducting that is recruiting both men and women. Volunteers will be treated with low-dose oral Minoxidil that will be given as a sublingual tablet (which will dissolve under the tongue).

I would not be surprised if the tablet is actually the strip/patch that was shown in the video I posted earlier. It would be very uncomfortable to put an actual tablet underneath the tongue and wait for it to dissolve, unless the dissolution happened very rapidly. On the other hand, a strip would be much easier to keep in place underneath the tongue for a longer period of time.

I discussed oral Minoxidil for hair loss in detail last year. While I often use topical Minoxidil foam, I would not take the oral version as I do not want more body hair as a potential side effect. However, oral Minoxidil clearly seems to be a superior option to topical Minoxidil when it comes to hair growth benefits.

If you live in Australia or in the nearby vicinity, perhaps it is worth volunteering for these trials. Today I finally learnt the definition of “sublingual”.