Category: Other

Hello, I would like to know often do the editors/writers of this blog actually meet in person, and if there is any other collaborative efforts they have. I am aware of the connection between Pak and Rassman.

Dr. Pak and I (Dr. Rassman) write the bulk of the posts here, probably split almost down the middle, and we work together at NHI.

Our newest contributor is Dr. Jino Kim, and he maintains the Korean version of BaldingBlog along with heading New Hair Institute in Seoul, Korea, where Dr. Pak recently visited to work with him.

Dr. Bessam Farjo is our UK-based contributor and provides his insight with some of the cloning related questions and other specific questions in areas of his interests.

Hello Rassman – I have been following your site for sometime and I have a question about my hair loss. My hair(Asian) has been graying since I was 17 years old and I started using some hair colors as a result of which I believe I lost a lot of my hair. Now I am NW Class 5. I believe you always attribute hair loss to genetic reasons. Now I am 33 yrs old and I see that the hair on chest also started greying since 4-5 months. Isn’t it too early that I see the grey hair on my chest. Is that also related to genes. Is there any diet that I can follow to avoid this early graying on the body.

As always thanks for your attention to my question and I hope you can answer my question.

Graying scalp, body, pubic hairs are all due to genetics. Some people go gray in the 30s, some don’t gray until much later. There are no foods or medications proven to stop the graying process at this time, though there are products that claim to do this (like this one).

Not hair loss news, but interesting health stuff…

The first study to systematically separate out the effects of red unprocessed meat from processed-meat products has shown that eating the former is not associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or diabetes.

But eating 50 g of processed meat per day—the equivalent of one typical hot dog in the US, or two slices of deli meat—was associated with a 42% higher risk of CHD and a 19% increased risk of diabetes, say Dr Renata Micha (Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA) and colleagues in their paper published online May 17, 2010 in Circulation.

Read more of the article at Processed meat, not red meat per se, linked to CHD, diabetes

This is good news for those of you who are meat eaters, but not permission to go overboard. The researchers believe that the increased salt and other preservatives in the processed meat could explain the added risks. So while sausages, salamis, and hot dogs are the foods to avoid, all meats do lead to higher incidences of some cancers (especially colorectal).

Snippet from the article:

A vaccine treatment for prostate cancer has become the first therapy of its kind to win approval for use in U.S. patients.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Provenge, a novel technique for fighting prostate cancer, on Thursday. The treatment involves taking a patient’s own white blood cells and using a drug that trains them to more actively attack cancer cells.

Read the full article — ‘Landmark’ cancer vaccine gets FDA approval

The most recent issue of Scientific American has a wonderful review of the stem cell opportunities and updates on what is going on in an article titled “Your Inner Healers”. I will try to summarize this article for those of you who do not have access to this publication…

Throughout history, researchers have wanted to escape from aging and disease. They have looked for way to to crease embryonic cells from adult cells in the body. In experiments in mice, some researchers have been successful in creating stem cells from mouse skin cells. These cells have contributed to better understanding of diseases like Type 1 Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease. There are 220 cell types in the human body that are created by embryonic stem cells and the stem cells can be extracted before they differentiate into their adult state. These cells can generate into any tissue type (pluripotent).

The goal for today’s scientists is to reprogram the adult cells into going backward to their embryonic state. Cloning is but one example of the reprogramming process where genetic material from one cell is transferred to another (Dolly the sheep). Although we have successfully cloned a variety of animals, no one has cloned a human being. A group of Japanese researchers have attempted to create pluripotent cells from adult cells without the use of eggs or embryos, but with the use of a retrovirus. Eventually they identified 4 genes that were critical to the process (Oct-3/4, SOX2, c-Myc, and Klf4 — read more about those here). Researchers have found that some of the creation of these pluripotent cells became cancers and the ability to control that process was clearly a risk that was not understood well. Controlling these cells’ ability to produce cancer is critical to what will be the eventual human work that will follow, in time. The goal is to create chemical activators that will do what the gene transfers do without the risks. Growing pluripotent cells in a petri dish could eventually produce an endless supply of stem cells for whatever purpose we need. Control of the reprogramming process will eventually lead us to create organ and tissue types. It may even give us the hair that genetic balding has taken away.

The Scientific American website has a fantastic interactive presentation about this for those interested in learning more — Your Inner Healers: Progress in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Made Interactive.

Snippet from the non-hair loss related article:

New results from the United Kingdom show that a single examination with flexible sigmoidoscopy in healthy individuals between the ages of 55 and 64 years, and removal of any polyps that are found, reduced the incidence of colorectal cancer by one third and deaths from the disease by 43% over a median follow-up of 11 years.

Read the full text at Medscape — Single Sigmoidoscopy Could Prevent One Third of Colorectal Cancers

And if that link requires you to login, try this article at ABC News.

I am passing this on to our readers because colon cancer is a killer disease and is so simple to catch it early. This new research suggests “that flexible sigmoidoscopy will save 1 life for every 400 people who undergo this test”. Considering that this site gets literally millions of visits per year, if just one person is helped in any way by reading this, I will consider this message a great life saver!

Here in the US, colonoscopy is the “popular” choice for checking colon health, but flexible sigmoidoscopy is safer and easier. But as the article points out, more research needs to be done. I realize the younger segment of our readers might not find this information all that beneficial to them yet, but just you wait…

my situation is – I’m a 28 year old male. I’ve been balding since i was about 21. i’ve been using rogain with pretty good success but in the last year it seems like it just stopped working and i’m developing a pretty noticable bald spot about 3″ in diameter. I’m going to try out propecia and see how that goes. that said if it doesn’t regain enough hair i would really like to get a transplant to sturdy things up in the back. my problem is the cost. i just graduated college and really don’t have much money, but my degree was in motion graphics and i was wondering how receptive transplant doctors would be to do trade for service, doing instructional videos, info graphics or graphic design…is it worth asking?

A trade, in these recessionary times, is difficult. The recession has impacted all forms of cosmetic surgery and hair transplantation is no different. I suppose it is worth a shot if you want to try contacting various clinics, but I wouldn’t expect trading design services for cosmetic surgery to be a tantalizing offer amongst surgeons. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, though.

Give the Propecia a try (or to save money, ask your doctor for a prescription for the generic 5mg finasteride and cut the pills into 4 pieces).