new thread
The "NewScientist" from 13 october 2001 dedicates one of its articles to hair, especially hair loss caused by male pattern baldness and alopecia areata. Link: www.newscientist.com. The article is already stored in the archive.
The article states that "the two anti baldness drugs currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration will not
transform a comb-over into a mop".
"The best, finasterid (Propecia, a hint from me, not in the original article mentioned) offers 50% chance of a few extra
hairs after one year of use, while it's a mystery why minoxidil (Regaine resp. Rogaine, a hint from me, not in the
original article mentioned) , originally sold as a treatment for blood pressure, works at all."
"About 15 per cent of men have lost an obvious amount of hair by 30, and 50 per cent have by 45."
It seems so that the focus of scientific interest in future will be "drugs and therapies that target the actual genes, proteins and
hormones that conspire to turn some men into slapheads."
Scientific research yields the result that "contrary to expectations, baldness is not about having no hair, it is about having the
wrong sort of hair."
"When a man goes bald, the fresh hairs become progressively finer and less coloured until they are practically invisible, at
which point the scalp looks bare."
"But the man still has as many follicles as a hairy man, it's just that the hairs have been miniaturised."
"The follicles of bald men go through just as many cycles as those of their richly maned counterparts,..,they go through them
much faster."
There are lot of comments about special genes that may be read by someone who is interesting in it.
They also made a remark about alopecia areata, which leads to hair loss. "Immune cells attack the follicles".
"One in fifty people is struck by alopecia areata at some time during their lives and it affects both sexes and all ages."
"The treatments are limited, it is usually treated with painful injections of immunosuppressant steroids into the scalp.
Minoxidil is also used. In addition, a few clinics are trying a newer treatment in which chemicals that cause allergic skin
reactions are rubbed on repeatedly. Noone knows why this may work. One idea is that the immune system becomes
overhelmed, causing it to simultaneously pull the plug on both the allergic reaction and the autoimmune reaction."
The good news they give: "alocpecia areata causes no damage to health" (from apure physical point of view).
"For now, hair transplants remain the most effective treatment going, despite the fact that they suffer from one major
limitation: the procedure doesn't add new follicles, it just rearrange them".
"Unfortunately, getting enough cells to grow one new follicle means destroying 20 donar follicles."
Ongoing resarch tries to reproduce new follicles from a single donar follicle.
wolfgang
Yep, I sure wish they'd figure something out. A fix-all, good as new sort of thing. Baldness sounds like a deeply disturbing experience to me.
A Hair Club for Men commercial mentioned hair cloning. I wonder if that's as good as it sounds.
Now *that's* dicey! Get the wrong gene, or process it in the
wrong way, and such an error could result in a nasty death for
the follicularly-challenged.
OM
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... therapies that target the actual genes...