--- title: "Doctors Say a Random Cheap Pill May Actually Reverse Balding" description: "Low doses of minoxidil, the active ingredient in Rogaine, may reverse balding super cheaply — and yet most of us still haven't heard of it. " date: "2022-08-22" modified: "2022-08-22" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/minoxidil-rogaine-hair-loss-dermatologists" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "RX and Medicine" tags: - "baldness" - "cure for baldness" - "hair loss" - "minoxidil" - "rogaine" --- # Doctors Say a Random Cheap Pill May Actually Reverse Balding ![Low doses of minoxidil, the active ingredient in Rogaine, may reverse balding super cheaply — and yet most of us still haven't heard of it. ]() *\Image: Getty Images/Futurism\* Low doses of the active ingredient in a famous hair-loss product may reverse balding super cheaply, some doctors say — and yet it's only rarely prescribed in the form they recommend. As [the *New York Times* reports](), low doses of minoxidil, which is the active ingredient in the over-the-counter Rogaine hair loss treatment, appear to work way better at treating hair loss when taken orally than when applied via a sticky lotion onto the scalp. Minoxidil's on-label usage is as a blood pressure drug, but one that has a huge warning for causing other heart problems. After [being discovered by accident in the 1980s](), Rogaine's minoxidil lotion has been used by both men and women since the early 90s and is now generic. As these things often go, the efficacy of lower-dose minoxidil pills over Rogaine's lotion and foam products — which, as anyone who has pattern baldness in their family knows, doesn't work particularly well and feels quite gross to boot — was also discovered by trial and error. As the *NYT* notes, this discovery was the result of a dedicated Australian dermatologist named Rodney Sinclair. To circumvent a rash in a female patient for whom Rogaine actually did work, Sinclair found that doses of minoxidil much lower than the blood pressure treatment — down to one-fortieth, he eventually discovered — both helped with hair loss and had none of the side effects of either topical Rogaine or normal-dose minoxidil. That first Australian patient and others who see Sinclair still take the super-low-dose minoxidil, but until recently, it was dermatology's best-kept secret, the *NYT* reports. The "off-label"-ness of low-dose minoxidil has, as one can imagine, spooked some users, even though as dermatologist Robert Swerlick, of the Emory University School of Medicine notes told the newspaper that "most things we \[dermatologists\] do are off-label because there is nothing on-label." That off-label designation is likely to remain that way, however, because as Yale School of Medicine dermatologist Brett King told the paper, there's little reason Big Pharma would be interested in conducting formal trials, due to the grim economics of the industry. "Oral minoxidil costs pennies a day," King told the *Times*. "There is no incentive to spend tens of millions of dollars to test it in a clinical trial. That study truly is never, ever going to be done." So for the foreseeable future, low-dose minoxidil for treating hair loss is going to stay off-label — which, to some dermatologists, isn't a bad thing. "I call us the off-label bandits," George Washington University dermatology chair Adam Friedman told the *NYT, "*a title I am proud to bear." There are some caveats, of course — it doesn't work for "fully smooth" baldness a la Jeff Bezos, and although there's lots of real-world evidence for its efficacy, some doctors have found that it simply doesn't work for some patients. Unless someone decides to conduct a study into low-dose oral minoxidil as a baldness treatment, we won't know why that is. But until then, a growing number of dermatological acolytes attest to its magic. **READ MORE:** [An Old Medicine Grows New Hair for Pennies a Day, Doctors Say]() \[*The* *New York Times*\] **More bald science:** [*New Genetic Discovery Could Finally Explain Balding*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()