Long story short – While trying to study a treatment for gastrointestinal disease, researchers accidentally found out that a newly developed stress blocking hormone managed not only to help mice regrow their hair, but also helped younger mice to prevent hair loss in first place.
Baldness Cure Finally Found? Even George Costanza is Happy!
New Cure For Baldness Found ?
Are we finally about to witness a cure for male pattern baldness? A bright and hairy future seems to be laid in front of bald men around the world, as scientists from UCLA “accidentally” found a potential new cure for baldness while conducting stress hormone experiments.
The researchers found that bald mice grew back full hair in three months, after being treated with the stress-blocking chemical compound for just a jab a day, for five days. The excited research team repeated the experiment a few times, to ensure it’s liability, and got the same results each and every time. As stated in The New York Times:
“Dr. Mulugeta said he is hopeful the findings will lead to new avenues of hair-loss research. The team decided to repeat the experiment several times. Each time, bald mice treated with tiny doses of the compound for five days grew new hair in just a few weeks. In another series of experiments, the compound was injected into young mice before their hair fell out. Those mice never went bald, suggesting the compound not only has the potential to grow hair but may also prevent age-related hair loss.“
What Can We Learn?
So, is there a cure for baldness? It’s officially unknown whether the treatment would work the same in humans or not, but the researchers applied for an hair loss treatment patent on the compound, called astressin-B, and also established a company for raising money for further testing and development, so it seems like although no official “New Cure For Baldness Found!” statement has been released, there’s a decent place for hope among bald people, and especially men, who are the vast majority of people suffering from baldness.
Also, Dr. Mulugeta told the Discovery News that it is somehwat difficult to say whether this will also work for all forms of hair loss, and “What is promising is that this turned on the hair cycle. It triggered the hair follicles to start again working“.
He also noted that it might be possible for this mechanism to be common for other forms of hair loss as well, and that their next step is to find out how this hormone actually works, and what cells are affected, as well as what is it that turns on and off to cause the dramatic effects that the researchers have seen in terms of hair loss reversal.
Mulugeta also noted that the mice’s skin pigment was also affected, and thus suggesting that the compound might also affect hair color, including grey hair.
“The evidence to show that hair loss is not a permanent loss is shown very strongly in this study, and that by itself is very important[...]We certainly intend to continue the research.’’’
The research team also tried to test Rogaine, a known and common hair loss treatment, as a comparison to their discovery, and Dr. Mulugeta said that Rogaine showed some “patchy” effect, but nothing like what they have just discovered, so there is much to expect, and we will soon probably see whether a new baldness cure for humans has been indeed found.
How Impressive Were The Numbers?
Dr. Mulugeta also stated that the dosages given to the mice were pretty low, while the effects were very long lasting, in terms of mice age standards, and most importantly – success rate was 100%.
Currently, men have 50% of experiencing hair loss by the time they reach their fifties, and it’s no surprise that thousands of millions of dollars are currently spent each year for baldness treatments. While many of them claim to be a natural cure for baldness, none of them really is. We sure hope to have further news regarding this medical breakthrough, and some of the researchers themselves estimate they will have a cure within the next decade.
Having a hard time with your hair loss issues? Can’t believe a cure was found? Share your thoughts using the comment box below.
Reference:
CRF Receptor Antagonist Astressin-B Reverses and Prevents Alopecia in CRF Over-Expressing Mice
