Month: January 2023

Snippet from the article:

They are already talking with pharmaceutical firms about making the product, which would work by stopping the effects of a single guilty enzyme.

US-based dermatologists announced earlier this year that they had found that an enzyme, called prostaglandin D2 (PGD2), instructed follicles to stop producing hair. They identified it by screening 250 genes implicated in hair loss.

George Cotsarelis, head of dermatology at Pennsylvania University, said the one responsible for levels of PGD2 played “the major role”. He said he was now talking with several drugs firms about creating the anti-baldness product.

Read the rest – Baldness cure could be on shelves in two years

Two years seems like a bit of a stretch, considering there is no actual product yet… but the media is easily excited about hair loss “cures” as anyone that has been waiting for new treatments has surely seen. Apparently this new hype is based on a study of 17 people, but I don’t know where this idea came from about a proven safe and effective product being available by 2014. Whether or not PGD2 will be the next great hair loss treatment, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done first.

Just to sum this article up — apparently we went from a small study on PGD2, all the way to the miracle hair loss “cure” being on the shelves in a couple years even though there is no product just yet. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Snippet from the article:

Men going thin on top may be more likely to have heart problems than their friends with a full head of hair, according to researchers in Japan.

Their study of nearly 37,000 people, published in the online journal BMJ Open, said balding men were 32% more likely to have coronary heart disease.

However, the researchers said the risks were less than for smoking or obesity. The British Heart Foundation said men should focus on their waistline, not their hairline.

Read the rest — Male baldness ‘indicates heart risk’

This paper was actually based on meta-analysis of more than 850 existing observational studies, and it found that vertex balding (not frontal hairline balding) lead to an increased heart disease risk.

Whether there is anything to it, I couldn’t say… but coincidentally (or not), I had someone ask me just last week if having a hair transplant into his crown would reduce his risk for coronary disease.

I’ve been reading more of the news items about yesterday’s publication of the two studies in Nature Genetics, and pulled some key quotes from various news sites that are worth highlighting.

From the BBC —

“Analysis of DNA from 5,000 volunteers with and without male-pattern baldness found two stretches of the genome linked with the condition.”

“One was the androgen receptor gene and has already been linked to male-pattern baldness. The other region is on chromosome 20 and is nowhere near any known gene.”

We’ve long known that genes were responsible for hair loss, but now they’ve finally been identified.

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From the Scotsman —

“Until now, the only known genetic link with male baldness was on the female chromosome, meaning it could be passed down to men from their mother’s father.”

“Dr Richards said so far they had only identified a cause of hair loss.”

In other words, the cure isn’t here and this is still the very early stage, so don’t cancel your hair transplant just yet.

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From the Wall Street Journal —

But dermatologists say that looking at hair shafts under a microscope can spot shrinkage years before it’s apparent. “We can pick it up when kids are teenagers,” says Robert Bernstein, founder of Bernstein Medical Center for Hair Restoration, a treatment clinic in New York. He agrees that medication can slow hair loss only if it isn’t too advanced. Once an area is devoid of hair, only a transplant can restore it.

This is what I’ve been talking about all along — mapping your scalp for miniaturization.