The primary useful ingredient in Brotzu is s-equol, as described here:
https://www.hairlosstalk.com/intera...-and-the-primary-ingredient-in-brotzu.113209/
However, of the two types of equol, s-equol is the weaker one for hair. A racemic equol (r-equol & s-equol) topical would be far more effective. Though this added effectiveness is coming from the 5-AR downregulatory effect of r-equol. In prostate studies, r-equol does very well at shrinking prostates. This is another variation of how finasteride/dutasteride work.
But s-equol by itself should be expected to be weak and this is no surprise.
I have long thought Brotzu was a meme/joke on this forum. People talking about "Lord Brotzu", etc. It's unfortunate some people actually believed the hype. All that's in it is:
- s-equol - almost no effect against prostates or skin, and unproven for hair.
- DGLA - a PGE pre-cursor, selected primarily so they could call this a "natural product" and escape regulation.
- carnitine - an amino acid for which I am aware of one in vitro study showing a stimulatory effect, but unproven on actual heads.
This was never going to be a "game changer" for the hair loss industry, and while I found the enormous thread on it and memes funny, it's unfortunate some people truly didn't get what this was or wasn't and ended up with unrealistic expectations.
That said, there is definitely some improvement from before-after in those pics. It suggests in my opinion just how much more effective racemic equol mixed into 5% minoxidil would be as an "alternative hair loss solution".
If I were to propose such an "alternative hair loss solution", it would be:
- 5% minoxidil base
- 5% niacinamide for anti-sebum, anti-inflammatory, pro-collagen effect
- 1% desloratadine (anti-histamine)
- 1% racemic equol
I would strongly bet that would beat Brotzu's formulation head to head.
