Interview with Dr. Khadavi of Revivogen

Read about and discuss general hair loss topics.

Moderator: moderators



Post Reply
User avatar
HairLossFight.com
Site Admin
Posts: 1218
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2003 3:24 am
Hair Loss Type: Androgenetic Alopecia (Male Pattern Baldness)
Norwood Level: Norwood III Vertex
Have you had a hair transplant?: Yes

Interview with Dr. Khadavi of Revivogen

Post by HairLossFight.com » Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:17 pm

You can read this from the main page of the site as well as here:

News: Interview with Dr. Alex A. Khadavi, creator of Revivogen


Morphollica.com: Dr. Khadavi, Let's start with a question about yourself. Please tell us about yourself and your background.


Dr. Khadavi: I'm a board-certified Dermatoligist. I've done my training at the University of California, San Francisco and went to medical school at George Washington University. Currently I'm in private practice in the Los Angeles area focusing on dermatology, dermatological surgery, hair loss, and cosmetic dermatology. Also, I'm an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the University of Southern California, where I teach residents and medical students about dermatology.


Morphollica.com: Wow... you are keeping yourself quite busy!


Dr. Khadavi: Well, it's exciting! Dermatology is a advancing field we have a lot of interesting developments in not only diagnoses but treatment, and new treatment modalities; not just in cosmetic dermatology but surgical dermatology and general dermatology. In particular, a lot of new avenues are coming up in hair loss, which you want to be abreast of and be able to teach other people about.


Morphollica.com: Is there anything that you see coming down the pipe in the next few years?


Dr. Khadavi: In regards to hair loss, I think the biggest advance is going to be follicular neogenesis. Athough there are other developments in stimulation of the hair follicle in anagen phase, through different sources of what we call peptides, which is not specifically gene therapy but it's manipulating genes through protein derivatives which are able to put the hair into the growth cycle. However, this is not the ultimate solution to hair loss. The ultimate solution for hair loss is going to come in the way of gene therapy, specifically follicular neogenesis, where you're able to isolate hair cells from non-DHT sensitive areas--for instance, the back of the scalp, or side of the scalp, grow these cells in the laboratory, as we call it, in vitro, and inject it back into the scalp in areas where hair density is lower, particularly the front or the crown of the scalp, and regrow hair.


So I think within the next 3 to 5 years it [follicular neogenesis] is really going to bear fruit, in that we are going to see advances in F.D.A. trials, particularly Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials where there will be thousands of people that will be able to take advantage of it. Hopefully within the next 3 to 5 years we are going to have it available to consumers.


Morphollica.com: Wow, that's a very optimistic timeline. I hope you're right with regard to that. I you involved directly with research into follicular neogenesis?


Kr. Khadavi: I was involved in [the cases of] two patients, but I did not directly do the study. I was witnessing what another doctor was doing with regards to follicular neogenesis. The great thing about follicular neogenesis [research] is that there are 4 laboratories which are doing the studies right now. There are 2 laboratories in the United States, there's one laboratory in Japan, and there is one laboratory in Europe, which are performing these studies. They all have the same basic idea and the same principles; however, there are little minor alterations in their methods, and hopefully one of them in the next few years is going to advance in the F.D.A. trials and hopefully come into Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials.


One caveat however though is one of the laboratories which I cannot readily disclose has run into some problems in that when they had taken the injections and injected them into the front of the scalp they developed benign tumors. These are not necessarily cancers or skin cancers or hair follicular cancers but they were benign growths and so they [the undisclosed laboratory] are changing the principles of how they are growing the cells in the culture, and the growth factors which they are putting into the culture to stimulate these cells. So it's a little bit of a setback, but I still think that within the next 3 to 5 years we are going to have really solid advances in these studies, and hopefully within 5 years or so we are going to have it available to consumers.


Morphollica.com: That would be a great thing. I have done some reading on it and it does seem like it is a very complex process. They were saying that it's about as complicated as trying to regrow limbs. So I hope you're right.


Dr. Khadavi: When we are born, all cells in the body have the potential to become anything. They can become brain cells, they can become skin cells, they can become hair cells, they can become kidney cells. Its the ability of our research to stimulate these cells and promote them to become either those hair cells or limb, or heart or kidney cells, and that's a complicated issue. That's why you need to have the right growth factors put in with the culture at the right times, and the correct sequence of growth factors, because if you don't do that correctly obviously you're going to develop bad cells and these benign tumors are going to grow somewhere or your limb is not going to grow correctly. Nature [requires] a very delicate balance of stimulants and stimulation at the right times to produce the right effects.


Morphollica.com: Thanks for that prime on this topic. I truly hope that what you have said bears fruit. I'm sure that this is something good we all have to look forward to. Now, let's talk a bit to your Revivogen line of products. What are the key ingredients?


Dr. Khadavi:Well, Revivogen is a unique formula where we have taken all the known mechanisms of hair loss and addressed all of those mechanisms in one product. The reason why hair loss occurs is because of the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone or DHT which results in the miniaturization and ultimately the hair loss and hair being permanently gone. So what we have done with Revivogen is take these active ingredients, which are all-natural, inhibit the conversion of testosterone into DHT, much like the mechanism of Propecia yet make it in a natural formula that is used topically where it is not going into the rest of the body.


Those ingredients that are extremely powerful in inhibiting the conversion of testosterone into DHT are the fatty acids that we have. And the highest concentration of the fatty acids include the GLA [gamma-linoleic acid] and ALA [alpha-linoleic acid]. These have been shown to be the most powerful inhibitors of DHT production. Even more powerful than Propecia and as powerful as Dutasteride which is [also known by the drug name] Avodart. Now, another advantage of using these fatty acids, is not only that they are natural, but when they go throughout the body they get broken down so you don't have any systemic effect or any effect throughout the rest of the body [where it hasn't been applied]. Additionally we are delivering these right to the hair follicles, concentrating the active ingedients to the hair follicles and not not everywhere else. You don't have to take a handful of these ingredients by mouth in order to have the effects within your scalp.


The second mechanism that we address is, if there is any DHT left over, or any DHT within the circulation that comes into the hair follicle, we're blocking the DHT from attaching to the hair follicle. And this is basically what we call an androgen receptor blockage mechanism. This mechanism works by inhibiting any remnant DHT. The active ingredients include saw palmetto extract. These include Phytol, Ethyl Laurate, and Beta-Sito-Styrol. These are very powerful inhibitors of androgens to the hair follicle, particulary DHT.


The third, method of how Revivogen works is via stimulation of the hair into the anagen or growth phase. As you know, the longer the anagen phase the longer the hair grows, so the hairs that are miniaturized or baby or peach-fuzz hairs have a very low anagen phase. Those are hairs that have become suppressed by DHT. We have included Procyanid Oligomers and these procyanids stimulate the hair to go into anagen phase much like minoxidil does. All these three methods that we have discussed are included on our website, and all of these have been shown in peer review journals to do just what I have said here.


Morphollica.com: Thanks for the detailed description. What studies are being done on Revivogen itself? Are you in the process of doing any studies at all, or have you completed any studies?


Dr. Khadavi: We have completed one initial pilot study. It was not an independent study, but was done within our laboratories, in which we have shown that patients between the ages of 18 and 50, men and women, after a 9 month period of use of Revivogen, had shown that 88% not only had prevented further hair loss but actually noted regrowth. What we noted as regrowth is conversion of those little baby fine, peach-fuzz hairs into thicker, longer hairs. Currently we have a large study [being conducted] which is both private practice and and university-based, that is working on having a hundred patients, ages of, again, 18 to 50. This is going to be placebo controlled and it's going to be completely independent, and this is an ongoing enrolment study. So hopefully we will know within the next 6 months to a year what the results will be.


Morphollica.com: Excellent. We look forward to seeing that in the near future. What can be expected in terms of maintenance of your hair and possible regrowth, if you stay on the product for the appropriate amount of time? And I guess with regard to that, what would be an appropriate amount of time before one can guage the results that one is obtaining from the product?


Dr. Khadavi: Well that's a great question because Revivogen (or any other product) is not going to regrow your hair overnight. Any product that claims that is basically not going to really work for you. So what you should expect in 3 months is that your hair loss, or hair shedding should start decreasing, and after 3 to 6 months you should start noticing that your hairs--those little baby hairs, or fine hairs--are going to grow longer, they're going to grow thicker, and they're going to grow darker. Now, this process continues for up to a year and a half where you're able to regrow or re-stimulate those hairs that have been susceptible to hair loss to grow back to 3 to 5 years [worth of hair loss]. So the maximum you can expect, while being on the product is while being on the product for the last year and a half your hair is going to go back to what it was 3 to 5 years ago. Once you've obtained those results you can taper off of Revivogen use but you cannot completely stop it because your body and your hair follicles are continuously producing DHT. You still need to suppress the DHT. However you will not need to use it everyday, you can use the product every other day and still maintain your results. And the important point, again, to say is that this product is not going to regrow the hair that you have lost over 20 years. The maximum we have seen is people regaining the hair that they have lost 5 to 8 years ago. Most commonly you are going to regrow hair that you have lost within the last 3 to 5 years.


Morphollica.com: That sounds reasonable given the similar sort of response that people see with Finasteride or Minoxidil type treatments.


Dr. Khadavi: One difference with Minoxidil however is that, Propecia and Revivogen work to turn back time--that is, if you stop the product you are not going to lose all the hair that you have gained right away. So you're basically turning the clock back to those years. With Minoxidil, however, all the hairs that you have gained, once you stop using the product, because your hairs become addicted to the Minoxidil, all your hairs start to shed right away. That's the basic difference of how Propecia and Revivogen work when compared to Rogaine.


Morphollica.com: Would you recommend that people that use Revivogen also supplement or use Revivogen with any other treatments like Minoxidil or Propecia? Will they see better results by combining the treatments?


Dr. Khadavi:There are a lot of people that have been using Rogaine or Propecia and start using Revivogen and we don't get them to stop using those products because they have been using them for many years and we have a lot of Revivogen users that have been successful without using any other products. You just basically need to use Revivogen because Revivogen basically addresses the 3 methods of hair loss, the Propecia and Minoxidil methods and a method that neither one of those work against.


Morphollica.com: Do you plan on adding any new products to the Revivogen line?


Dr. Khadavi: Well we have a scalp therapy, a shampoo and a conditioner. We are not planning on adding any other products to the line because the most important factor is using the Revivogen scalp therapy. That has the active ingredients and if you allow it to stay on your scalp for three hours, the ingredients will absorbe into your scalp. The shampoo and conditioner are great in that they are a gentle shampoo and conditioner that thicken your hair while you use the products, but there is no other [Revivogen] product that is going to accelerate the effect of the Revivogen scalp therapy so we don't intend to add any other products to the line.


Morphollica.com: What about extra ingredients. You did mention that there is research being done on various proteins and compounds that may stimulate the growth of hair. Anything like that in the works for Revivogen?


Dr. Khadavi: Well, there are 50 proteins that are currently being studied--over 50 actually--that are involved in the hair cycle and hair loss. These are basically called proteins, peptides, or oligomers. All of these work to recapitulate or stimulate the hair to the hair growth cycle. Revivogen itself is not doing any studies based on any of these proteins. I follow the research both in the journal reviews and through friends of mine which have laboratory studies, but Revivogen is not focusing on adding any of these ingredients. Revivogen, however, is testing within my laboratory to see what are even more powerful natural stimulators, not specifically proteins, that can be used to stimulate the hair to go into growth phase. I'm not working specifically on the proteins but I am looking at natural derivates. These natural derivatives are derived from both plants and fruit. Once we have further studies on these we will be disclosing that to the public and including you and your site.


Morphollica.com: Thank you very much for the interview. I'm sure this information will be very useful to our viewers.

Armando
Regular Poster
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2003 11:53 pm
Hair Loss Type: Androgenetic Alopecia (Male Pattern Baldness)
Have you had a hair transplant?: No

Dr. Alex A. Khadavi Interview

Post by Armando » Wed Jan 21, 2004 2:05 am

Dear friend Sam,

Tks for your good job in the interview to Dr. Khadavi. Please continue in this way.

Armando

User avatar
HairLossFight.com
Site Admin
Posts: 1218
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2003 3:24 am
Hair Loss Type: Androgenetic Alopecia (Male Pattern Baldness)
Norwood Level: Norwood III Vertex
Have you had a hair transplant?: Yes

Post by HairLossFight.com » Wed Jan 21, 2004 4:09 pm

Thanks Armando, will do!

hotdillon

Post by hotdillon » Thu Jan 22, 2004 9:03 pm

cool interview sam! :D

Post Reply


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests