A recent study published by Milani et al in Skin Research & Technology has found that oral supplements containing amino acid may promote hair growth in patients with androgenetic alopecia or chronic telogen effluvium who are receiving treatment for hair loss. Researchers enrolled 83 patients into a prospective trial, 59 of whom had androgenetic alopecia and 24 of whom had telogen effluvium. They then used a 7-point global assessment score ranging from +3 (much improved) to –3 (much worsened), with 0 representing no change, to analyze patient outcomes after randomly assigning patients to receive either a 300-mg amino acid supplement—containing hydrolyzed fish-origin collagen, taurine, cysteine, methionine, iron, and selenium—in combination with a hair loss treatment or hair loss treatment alone once daily. Among the 26 patients who completed the study, global assessment scores were 0.5 ± 0.2 in those who received the combination treatment and 0.0 ± 0.1 in those who received hair loss treatment alone after 6 weeks of follow-up. After 12 weeks of follow-up, the patients in the combination treatment group had scores of 1.67 ± 0.16 compared with 0.66 ± 0.20 among those in the hair loss monotherapy group. The researchers concluded that amino acid supplements may improve the effectiveness of hair loss treatments.