It seems funny to me that we live in the 21st century and still, even today, there is no definitive cure for baldness. There is no overnight pill which when you wake gives you a healthy, full, thick head of hair that you had in your early teenage years. It takes time and effort, trying different products to see which work best, mixing and matching products to give the best results. It’s all a bit difficult and time consuming to find the baldness cure.
The first possible baldness cure, is known as hair multiplication, or hair cloning. And it does exactly what it says on the tin, a process which involved cloning the healthy hair follicles and transplanting them back into the scalp into the balding areas. This sounds very much like a hair transplant, and in essence, it is. The difference in this and a true hair transplant is that this is actually the baldness cure. When a patient undergows a hair transplant, hairs are taken from the back of the head (those which arn’t effected by baldness) and then replanted into tiny holes into the balding areas. The problem is, that what happens when the patient begins to lose the rest of their hair?. There is only so much ‘donor’ hair which can be transplanted before being used up, so this isn’t a true baldness cure. However, the same process but by using an unlimited amount of transplanted hairs – is a baldness cure. This is a very exciting time for the baldness cure, finally we are in reach of something magical indeed. Hair multiplication is expected in the next five – ten years, the process is being refined now
The second viable option for a baldness cure, is when one of the causes of baldness had been discovered recently – a breakthrough which could produce a remedy within a decade. It could allow men to sport a thick thatch of their own hair until they are a ripe old age. Scientists have found that stem cells do not develop properly in balding scalps compared with normal full heads of hair. Working out a way to make the cells mature properly could allow hair to regrow.
Dr Cotsarelis has spent years studying a baldness cure using follicles – the tiny structures that sprout hairs in a bid to get to the root cause and ultimately develop a baldness cure. By using cell samples taken from hair transplant patients, he examined and compared the follicles from balding parts of the scalp to those from hirsute regions. Tests done included counting the number of stem cells – the immature cells that turn into hair-producing cells. This revealed the bald areas to have as many stem cells as hairy areas but discovered that these bald areas were less likely to mature
Dr Cotsarelis, of the University of Pennsylvania, said: ‘We asked: “ Are stem cells depleted in the bald scalp?” ‘We were surprised to find the number of stem cells was the same in the bald part of the scalp compared with other places but did find a difference in the abundance of a specific type of cell, thought to be a progenitor cell.‘This implies that there is a problem in the activation of stem cells converting to progenitor cells in the bald scalp.’
Working out a way to reactivate the stem cells and coax them into maturing could allow hair to regrow, thus giving a baldness cure to the world and giving men natural-looking locks. Possibilities include a cream or lotion that is rubbed onto the scalp, or a technique that involves removing the stem cells from the scalp, kick-starting them in the lab and transplanting them back. Dr Cotsarelis, a dermatologist whose work was part-funded by the U.S. government and by L’Oreal, said he would also like to investigate whether his findings equally apply to women.
It’s always the case with finding a baldness cure. Men always take priority, and this is generally because baldness effects men in a much higher percentage than women. The other way at looking at it, is that it much effect women on a deeper level – and a baldness cure for women is equally as important as it is to men. Many products on the market are dangerous for women to consume because of the chemicals they contain. Why are usually linked to male hormones. But in the next five to ten years, hopefully we will have a fully fledged baldness cure for both sexes in the market.
Related articles