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Gluten has the potential to improve hair quality
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
Gluten peptides have proven to be an excellent means for smoothing out damage to hair ends – the so-called split ends.
Human hair (as well as nail plates) is represented by a large number of protein substances – keratins. Keratin molecules are linked by specific disulfide chains, each of which is a chemical compound of sulfur atoms, which are present in the composition of cysteine.
The elasticity and resilience of hair depend on the number of such disulfide chains in them. As a result of all sorts of external irritations (frost, wind, blow-drying, dyeing), such chains are damaged, which can be noticed by the appearance of split ends.
It would seem that the solution should be simple – the hair structure is normalized by the restoration of the chemical protein compound. However, in reality, everything turned out to be more complicated. For many years, developers of washing and caring products for hair have not been able to achieve the necessary effective hair restoration. Why is that? The point is that a certain electric charge is present in both amino acids and short peptides, as well as long proteins, and this depends on the acidity level.
To smooth out the damage to the hair tip, animal and plant proteins and peptides are needed. They must be placed directly into the "gap", after which the sulfur in the keratin molecules must be combined with the "new" sulfur. One of the conditions is that the keratins and connecting peptides must have a neutral charge. It is very difficult to provide such a level of acidity, so almost all specially developed cosmetic products are ineffective.
Specialists representing Jiangnan University were able to create a method according to which it is possible to smooth out split ends. Gluten (gluten) became a kind of "glue" - a protein group that is present in cereal grains.
Scientists split gluten extracted from wheat grains into a number of short peptides and combined them with a chemical component, which allowed them to bring the isoelectric points of keratin and peptides closer together. The specialists added the resulting substance to a detergent, treated their hair with this product, and intensively combed dry and wet hair. As a result of the experiment, it became noticeable: the hair ends became smoother and healthier. After conducting additional hair diagnostics, the scientists were convinced that the damage at the ends had connected and evened out.
Skeptics claim that the study may have been inaccurate. After all, the description says nothing about the type of hair on which the experiments were conducted, whether it was oily or dry, dyed or natural, etc. Indeed, the success of this method may largely depend on other unaccounted factors.
However, the approach to solving the painful issue was recognized as correct: perhaps the new method of combating split ends simply needs to be improved.
Details of the scientists' research are described on the pages of Royal Society Open Science.
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