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Gene Research Gives Hope of Reversing Baldness
Hair loss in humans might not be irreversible, suggest scientists who have helped create new hair cells on the skin of mice. It was thought hair follicles, once damaged, could never be replaced. A University of Pennsylvania team, writing in the journal Nature, say hair growth can actually be encouraged using a single gene.
Actually, it doesn't.
If you're lucky, Rogaine (minoxidil) will help you keep the hair you have, and maybe grow a little hair back (not to mention, grow hair -on- your back, because the drug is absorbed systemically).
It also tends to work only on your bald spot. Receding hairlines do not suddenly un-recede (proceed?).
Also, what grows back tends to be a thin and sickly kind of hair. That is because, at the cellular level, baldness is actually an inflammatory condition, and while Rogaine addresses the symptoms of arrested hair growth, it does nothing to cure the underlying disease process, for which no effective treatment exists currently.
In a nutshell, Rogaine tricks dying hair follicles into sputtering out a little more mane, but they're still dying at the root.
And (the best part), if it works at all, it's good only as long as you use it religiously. Lapse, and what hair you were maintaining with the drug, promptly falls out within a few months.
The follicle inflammatory response in baldness seems to be triggered by genetic sensitivity to a metabolite of male hormones (androgens). The other drug you've probably heard about, Propecia, attempts to block these sensitive androgen receptors, whose activation by the metabolite precipitates the inflammation. But it too is imperfect and rife with the potential for sexual side effects, no matter what the literature says.
Rogaine, like so many other medicines, is a crude, high-cost, brute-force fix to a complex, genetically predisposed condition, so perhaps a genetic fix is the best hope.
You are funny. First, death is normal and natural, but only the mentally infirm, religious zealot, or deluded refuse to think it's a bad thing.
Second, nothing says "obsessed with looking like a lie" more than "razz[ing] it all off with a grade 2 every couple of weeks".
Third, like it or not, people in modern western culture embrace the styling, coloring, cut, and decoration of hair as a significant expression of one's individuality, identity, or alliance with others. It's something of a tradition amongst homo sapien societies, dating back at least a few millenia, if not a few hundred. It's also normal and natural, by the way, to feel really f-ing pissed off when you are involuntarily deprived of participating in such a tradition.
But hey -- maybe you are consistently rude. If so, don't waste your time with baldies -- I hear there's a bunch of radical mastectomy survivors wearing falsies. Talk about an easy target, eh? Go get 'em, tiger!
I started going bald at 17. After 4 years, I had the classic 'George Costanza' crown - a fringe of hair around my head at the level of my ears, and a big old bald spot on the top. That seemed to be the equilibrium, and how things stand today, 15 years later.
Needless to say, it made me look significantly older, and not in any good way. I keep my head entirely shaved now, something I started at 19.
Nowadays, having your head completely shaved in western society is completely acceptable for a young person. It hasn't always been that way - when i started, the smallish community where I lived was full of people who took that to mean I was a skinhead, punk, or other 'undesirable' (in their estimation). That sort of thing can have a profound impact - from employment options to social interaction.
Would I have been interested in a legitimate, functioning option to restore natural hair growth? Hell yes.
The assumption that all 'cosmetic' therapies are meritless is narrow minded. I concur that plastic surgery, beauty treatments, hair loss and so forth are things which are abused to a great degree in modern society, but that doesn't eliminate the legitimate need for the development of these treatments.
I agree with your assesment of what makes people look 'old'. Not picking on you directly, just the trend of negative comments I see in this thread.
Forgetting my own trivial hair loss problem - my sister had a car accident that DESTROYED her face. Amazingly, to this day you can barely tell. They pretty much rebuilt her jaw and nose from scratch. The re-constructive surgery that made her 'human' again was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, and it was all done by a team of plastic surgeons who make their day to day living giving strippers bigger boobs.
As always, no topic is strictly black and white.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -