new thread
This news item just in:
Reversing baldness
I saw this on the news - encouraging, but still quite a way into the future before it is something proven effective (and so, for me - it will probably not be timely - or affordable)
For the younger guys, though - great hope to reverse the curse
Cloning hair follicles provides an unlimited supply of hair to restore to the scalp. Hair transplants are limited when DHT kills the follicles on top, leaving a meager supply of resistant follicles on the bottam and sides to move.
But replicating cells then implanting these needs to make sure that cancer is not carried with this. The cloned follicle cells need to be turned off on replication before implanting these.
The procedure still sounds like the long term. Even transplants wre orginally thought to be the new thing with the big plugs in the l980s. These turned out to be too bunched, unnatural. The technique then evolved to use follicle cell units of one to three hairs in a single graft. Thirty years later, the procedure is very effective, perhaps the only way to restore hair on bald skin, but still expensive, although less so recently.
The best way is to take the DHT blocker drugs to keep the 120,000 hair folicles that boys have prior to entering puberty. DHT production multiplies up to 10 fold at puberty, destroying hair follicles on top depending on the inherited predisposition. Side effects need to be acknowledged and then countered, with lower doses depending on inheritance. But keep the follicles going. Otherwsie, baldness is likely in later years. Long hair needs a full scalp to look presentable.
Still, long term research is by cloning the hair follicles.
Don
Well, at least we'll have hairy mice!