Use of Emu Oil for Stimulating Skin and Hair Growth
Here is the full text on the patent for low temperature processed Emu Oil as a hair loss treatment filed by Dr. Michael Holick MD, PhD of the Boston University Medical Center.

Use of Emu Oil for Stimulating Skin and Hair Growth

Some excerpts of interest:

“It has also been discovered that emu oil can be topically applied to stimulate melanogenesis in the skin and to stimulate hair growth. Thus, emu oil is useful to treat pigmentation disorders such as hypopigmentation, stimulating melanogenesis to enhance skin tanning, and treating disorders relating to disturbances in hair cycling such as alopecia, male pattern baldness, female baldness, and chemotherapy-induced alopecia.”

“The natural diet of the emu consists of seeds, berries, grasses, leaves and plants present within the Australian bush which would be expected to contain a large variety of carotenoids, vitamins, terpenes, saponagens, flavones and other naturally occurring bioactive occurring compounds.”

Comment: this underscores the importance of using Emu Oil from free range roaming birds, virtually all Emu ranching operations in the US use a grain, typically corn based feed.

“In one embodiment, the present invention relates to a method for treating skin conditions of skin slackness, wrinkles, dry skin, and insufficient sebum secretion.”

Comment: Emu Oil out-performs Retin A in its ability to stimulate collagen production.

“In a fourth embodiment, the present invention relates to a method for enhancing skin tanning.”

“In a fifth embodiment, the present invention relates to a method for stimulating growth of mammalian hair”.

“A third aspect of the present invention generally involves enhancing hair follicle development and growth in mammalian skin tissue by contacting the skin tissue with emu oil.”

“This aspect of the present invention has particular utility in the promotion of new hair growth or stimulation of the rate of hair growth, e.g., following chemotherapeutic treatment or for treating a form of alopecia, e.g., male pattern baldness and female hair loss.”

“It can be concluded from these studies that the topical application of emu oil increased the synthesis of DNA in the epidermis which is a measure of increase in the proliferative activity of the epidermis. The increase in pigmentation and hair in the photograph of animals receiving emu oil demonstrates that the topical application of emu oil can stimulate melanogenesis and hair follicle development and growth. The histological analysis demonstrating an increase in the thickness of the epidermis and size and length of the hair follicle provides strong evidence that the topical application of emu oil stimulates skin growth, hair growth and induces the proliferation of the cells around the hair follicle.”