New Antioxidant Supplement To Treat Compulsive Hair-Pulling

By Margarita Nahapetyan

For those who are tired of compulsively pulling out their hair, the experts from the United States have discovered new treatment, a common antioxidant called N-acetylcysteine, widely available as a health food supplement.

The investigators from the University of Minnesota Medical school in Minneapolis, say that this simple nutritional supplement could provide the first medical help for individuals with trichotillomania, a disorder characterized by compulsive hair-pulling from the scalp, eyebrows, lashes and other parts of the body to the point of baldness. Those who suffer the condition receive eiher pleasure, relief or gratification from the act. The compulsion can result in bald spots, as well as in anxiety if the victims try to resist the urge to pull out hair. Some even pull out the hair of other people.

It is believed that the condition affects up to 5 per cent of individuals in the United States, the majority of them being female. Victims often suffer a reduced quality of life and experience a had time to go to work because they feel ashamed to be seen in public. There is no specific medication for the disorder, antidepressants and other drugs are generally not helpful for the condition, but cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) appears to be helpful in some cases.

Hair-pulling, like many other compulsive behaviors, is a result of an imbalance of chemicals - decreased levels of glutamate, a chemical that triggers excitement, and serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical most commonly associated with compulsive behavior. N-acetylcysteine supplement works by affecting levels of glutamate in a specific part of the brain, thus making it easier for patients to put the breaks on their harmful behavior. In the previous studies it was found that this antioxidant also helped people with other compulsive disorders, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and was thought to work on the glutamate system, the largest nerve signal transmission system in the human brain.

For the new double-blind 12 week study purposes, a lead author Dr. Jon E. Grant, M.D., J.D., a University of Minnesota associate professor of psychiatry, and his colleagues from the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, involved 50 people with the disorder, 45 women and 5 men. The average age of the participants was about 34 years old, and most of them started pulling their hair compulsively by the age of 12 years.

During the experiment, the subjects were randomly assigned into two groups, half receiving 1,200 milligrams of N-acetylcysteine on a daily basis for 6 weeks, while the other half in the control group were given a placebo. For the subsequent six weeks, the dosage of N-acetylcysteine was increased to 2,400 milligrams per day.

The results revealed that nine weeks later, the participants in the supplement group demonstrated significantly reduced desire to pull out their hair, and by the end of the 12th week of the study, 56 per cent of all the subjects reported that they felt much better. As to the people in the control group, only 16 per cent of those who took the placebo, reported less pulling. Researchers said that not a single participant experienced adverse effects. And as for the remaining 44 per cent of people who took N-acetylcysteine supplement but did not respond to the treatment, the investigators said there are types of hair-pulling that may respond better to other drugs and to talk therapy.

The findings are published in the July issue of the journal the Archives of General Psychiatry.