2014: oral randomized placebo-controlled trial
In a 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 76 men with mild-to-moderate AGA received either 400 mg/day of pumpkin seed oil or placebo. The pumpkin-seed-oil group showed a mean hair-count increase of about 40%, versus about 10% in placebo.
That is a legitimate human signal. It is also an oral supplement study. It cannot be silently converted into a claim that topical pumpkin seed oil—or Scalp Defense—produces a 40% hair-count increase.
2021: topical randomized comparative trial
A 2021 study randomized 60 women with female pattern hair loss to topical pumpkin seed oil or 5% minoxidil foam for three months. In the pumpkin-seed-oil arm, dermoscopic measures including hair-shaft diversity and vellus-hair proportion improved, and upright regrowing hairs increased.
The authors concluded that pumpkin seed oil showed promising potential. That is stronger topical relevance than the oral study, but it still does not establish equivalence between the study preparation and Scalp Defense.
Why it is in the formula
Pumpkin seed oil earns its place because it is a useful emollient with unusually relevant human hair research for a botanical oil. We treat that as supporting evidence—not as a licence to copy the study outcome onto our label.
Primary references
- Cho YH, Lee SY, Jeong DW, et al. Effect of pumpkin seed oil on hair growth in men with androgenetic alopecia: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Evidence-Based Complement Altern Med. 2014:549721. DOI: 10.1155/2014/549721.
- Ibrahim IM, Hasan MS, Elsabaa KI, Elsaie ML. Pumpkin seed oil vs. minoxidil 5% topical foam for the treatment of female pattern hair loss: a randomized comparative trial. J Cosmet Dermatol. 2021;20:2867–2873. DOI: 10.1111/jocd.13976.