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EGCG Inhibits 5-Alpha-Reductase in Cell-Free Assays

EGCG is epigallocatechin-3-gallate, the major catechin in green tea. Folli-Activ lists EGCG from green tea as one of ten oral ingredients. Two different kinds of experiment sit behind that line, and they do not say the same thing. One is an enzyme assay. One is a mouse drinking-water study of a mixed tea polyphenol fraction. A third, on human follicles in culture, has its own essay. None of them used a Folli-Activ capsule.

Cell-free inhibition, and the whole-cell result beside it

Hiipakka, Zhang, Dai, and Dai mapped polyphenols against human 5-alpha-reductase, the enzyme that reduces the double bond of testosterone to make 5-alpha-dihydrotestosterone. They named EGCG as a natural-product inhibitor. The result that has to be stated in full is this: EGCG showed potent inhibition in cell-free assays and did not show that inhibition in whole-cell assays. Replacing the gallate ester of EGCG with long-chain fatty acids produced inhibitors that worked in both the cell-free system and the whole-cell system. Other flavonoids in the same paper were potent against the type 1 enzyme, including myricetin, quercetin, baicalein, and fisetin. Biochanin A, daidzein, genistein, and kaempferol inhibited type 2 more strongly than type 1.

The EGCG sentence is a split sentence, and both halves are the finding. In a broken-cell enzyme preparation, EGCG inhibited 5-alpha-reductase. In intact cells, that same inhibition was absent. A formula that includes EGCG is including a catechin with a documented cell-free enzyme effect and a documented failure to carry that effect into the whole-cell assay used by Hiipakka. Fatty-acid esters of the gallate, which did work in whole cells, are a different molecule from the EGCG in a green-tea extract.

Hiipakka and colleagues also noted that 5-alpha-reductase activity is critical for parts of male sexual differentiation and is involved in benign prostatic hyperplasia, alopecia, hirsutism, and prostate cancer. That sentence connects the enzyme to alopecia as a biological context. It is not a hair-count result for EGCG. The genetic picture of that enzyme, from Peterson, Imperato-McGinley, and colleagues, is men with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency who lack temporal hairline recession. The enzyme matters for hair pattern. EGCG's relationship to the enzyme, in the assay Hiipakka actually ran, stops at the cell-free preparation.

Mice, a polyphenol fraction, and a 33 percent regrowth count

Esfandiari and Kelly studied polyphenolic compounds from non-commercial green tea in female Balb/black mice that had developed spontaneous hair loss on the head, neck, and back. Sixty mice were split into two equal groups. For six months the experimental group drank water containing a 50 percent fraction of polyphenol extract from dehydrated green tea. Controls drank regular water. Both groups ate the same rodent chow and were housed individually. Significant hair regrowth occurred in 33 percent of the mice in the polyphenol group, P = 0.014. No hair growth was observed in the control group.

The test article was a polyphenol fraction in drinking water, not a measured dose of isolated EGCG in a capsule, and the subjects were mice with spontaneous loss rather than men with androgenetic alopecia. The 33 percent figure is real inside those limits. It is the wrong figure to print as if a human capsule had been the drinking water. Thirty-three percent of the treated mice regrew hair. Sixty-seven percent of the treated mice did not, on the report as written. Both halves belong in an honest summary.

How this sits next to the follicle paper

Kwon and colleagues, discussed in the follicle essay, cultured human hair follicles with EGCG and recorded elongation and dermal-papilla proliferation, with changes in phosphorylated Erk, Akt, and the Bcl-2/Bax ratio. That work is about cell survival and growth signals in the papilla. Hiipakka's work is about the DHT-making enzyme, and only in the cell-free condition for unmodified EGCG. A 10-in-1 formula can include EGCG for the follicle-culture record and still tell the enzyme truth: whole-cell 5-alpha-reductase inhibition was not what Hiipakka observed with EGCG itself.

Reading the two papers as one sentence, "EGCG blocks DHT inside living follicle cells," is a merger the data do not support. This page keeps them apart. Cell-free enzyme inhibition is Hiipakka. Follicle elongation in organ culture is Kwon. Mouse regrowth with a mixed polyphenol drink is Esfandiari. Folli-Activ includes EGCG from green tea as the ingredient those three papers discuss, each inside its own design.

Packs

Folli-Activ is an oral bottle of 90 capsules under the brand MY NPM FOLLI-ACTIV. Packs on this site are 1 bottle at RM169, 3 bottles at RM447, and 6 bottles at RM699 with free shipping. Checkout is by card. EGCG from green tea is in the formula because the cell-free enzyme result and the human follicle-culture result both exist. The whole-cell enzyme gap is part of the same citation, and it stays in the description.

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