Gray hair injections, a controversial way of reversing hair discoloration, recently went viral on Chinese social media, sparking a heated debate regarding their efficacy.
The secret of reversing age-related hair discoloration has long eluded scientists and doctors all over the world, but Chinese medicine-inspired ‘gray hair injections’ are currently getting a lot of attention in China for their alleged ability to turn graying hair back to its original color. Although such products have been on the market in China for a while now, they’ve recently gone viral after a popular Chinese actor announced she had started a gray hair injection treatment in order to regain her original hair color. Her video went viral, causing an increase in online gray hair injection sales, but dermatologists and other health experts warn that the products’ efficacy has not been scientifically proven, and their potential side effects are currently unknown.
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Chinese actress Guo Tong recently took to Douyin (China’s version of TikTok) to inform her fans that she had started a gray hair injection treatment in June to hopefully reverse her graying hair to its original color. A month later, she followed up her original clip, claiming that the positive effects had not kicked in and that the doctor who had recommended the injections told her she needed to use them for up to six months.
“I felt a little pain after the first shot,” Guo Tong admitted. “It is definitely not that fast. Gray hair does not grow in a day or two. The doctor said the treatment course is three to six months.”
According to Yangtse News, Guo Tong received the gray hair injections at Shanghai Yueyang Hospital. A dermatologist there told the media outlet that the injections are based on the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) technique of adenosylcobalamin injection, a type of vitamin B12 known as adenosylcobalamin. Its main ingredient, adenosylcobalamin, is a cyanocobalamin analog of vitamin B12, and the idea is that vitamin B12 stimulates melanin synthesis. The treatment consists of regular injections administered once a week for three to six months.
But how effective are these gray hair injections? According to Kong Yulong, deputy chief physician of the Department of Dermatology at Nanjing Jiangbei Hospital, adenosylcobalamin is similar to vitamin B12 in that it does have certain positive effects on nerve nourishment, regulating nerve secretion, and improving circulation, but “there is currently no further research on its use in treating gray hair. If you are deficient in B12, it may have some effect on gray hair, but if you are not deficient, it is almost useless.”
In spite of the lack of scientific evidence regarding the efficacy of gray hair injections, the interest in the controversial treatment is definitely on the rise in China.
