'Atrophic telogen effluvium' from cytotoxic drugs and a randomized controlled trial to investigate the possible protective effect of pretreatment with a topical vitamin D analogue in humans.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To investigate the process of cytotoxic hair loss and any protective effect on the hair of pretreatment with topical calcipotriol.

Why It Was Studied

Hair loss from cytotoxic drugs is classically ascribed to the loss of fractured hairs (anagen effluvium).

Telogen hair loss has also been described but some authors have denied any effect on the hair cycle.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and double-blind.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Shed, plucked and cut hairs were sampled.

Absolute shed rates, the proportion of major hair types, the presence of proximal hair shaft changes, regrowth (using the new anagen hair count) and hair density were assessed.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Administration, Topical, Alopecia, Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols, Breast Neoplasms, Calcitriol, Cyclophosphamide and Dermatologic Agents.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Its findings take up roughly 11 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2005 (The British journal of dermatology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.