Biochemical Approach on the Conservation of Drug Molecules During Hair Fiber Formation
January 1997
in “
Forensic science international
”
TLDR Drugs can be incorporated into hair based on their chemical properties and hair pigmentation.
The document presented a biochemical concept for the endogenous incorporation of drug molecules into growing hair, based on principles of transport across biomembranes, biotransformation, and drug melanin affinity. It explained various phenomena observed in hair analysis, such as the ratio of parent drug to metabolite in hair, the dependence of incorporation on the physico-chemical properties of the drug, the independence of drug incorporation on active melanogenesis (incorporation into non-pigmented hair), and the dependence of drug content on hair pigmentation.
