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Baldness Gene Discovered — 1 In 7 Men "At Risk"
FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers conducted a genome-wide association study of 1,125 Caucasian men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness. They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness. They then confirmed these findings in an additional 1,650 Caucasian men. 'If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold. What's startling is that one in seven men have both of those risk variants.'" So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose.
Mom?
I hope I'm not the only one misreading the title as "Badness gene found".
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
This is un-American! This is going to kill jobs, because wig makers will go out of business! Damn commie scientists!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
We could use some of that gene therapy on the 21st chromosome as well. In fact, I'd rather see work there. Though it wouldn't likely be as profitable...
Can't they focus the research on something more important than baldness?
Bald and you can't dance. No Tang for you......
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
I don't see any mention of the "main" male hormone testosterone, in the article. From what I have read in the past, even if you are genetically predisposed to lose your hair, if you don't have enough testosterone, you won't.
With a bald pate, you'd have a better platform to mount a black silicon solar cap to power your wireless cranial Internet connection. C'mon, geeks, see the possibilites here! When life hands you shit, make shit sandwiches!
My understanding (and my observation, for that matter) is that roughly 50% of men end up going bald. So how is it news that 1 in 7 men have both of these traits?
BTW, here's a bonus hint to help you find those young guys that are already going bald - look for baseball caps being worn backward. Although a completely shaved head (on a white guy, anyway) is a dead giveaway as well, and gaining in popularity as an alternative to the baseball cap.
#DeleteChrome
If it's not, then it's awfully discriminatory to try to 'fix' it. Isn't there a genetic cause for black skin too? How bad would the summary be if we replaced "male pattern baldness" with "black skin" or "homosexuality"? Why is it ok for baldness?
About 20 years ago, I could see that I was going to go bald like my dad did, and I decided to just live with it. No drugs, plugs, or rugs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
First they find the monogomy gene and then they find the baldness gene. How much longer before women insist on genetic pre-screening before they put out?
we all know what will happen if we let our scientists focus on hair-loss
Because baldness research and treatment is a multi-million (if not billion) dollar industry. It's sort of like asking "who would market Viagra?" that flashes the big *DUH* factor.
Face it. Anything sex related and superficial is a huge money maker. Investors would be retarded not to tap into these markets.
Life is not for the lazy.
Sure, all research is good, but really - who as a kid thinks "I want to cure baldness"? Really, aren't there more pressing areas for research money?
All those cures for baldness...will we finally be rid of their purveyors? Good riddance to bad rubbish.
No sig today...
Works for me, and it's a real cheap haircut.
No sig today...
And they found the premature ejaculation gene.
Such important stuff! And people were complaining about pink ribbons a little while back, about how research is so female oriented...yeah.
It's the only way. A lot of balding celebrities are considered sexy. Absolutely all of them have extremely short hair.
God only made so many beautiful heads; the others he covered with hair.
Scientists are testing an additional hypothesis that the same gene might expose men to greater risk of having a long career in Wall Street finance.
If the newer hypothesis is found to be valid, it could be a stronger and more socially acceptable impetus for development of a laboratory tests to help women to decide whether to proceed with their pregnancies.
What about the co-relation between baldness and suicide?
Whatever treatment they come up with, will probably end up doing a better job treating yeast infection.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Everyone knows baldness is caused by your heading banging on the headboard during sex. I've been trying hard to work on a shiny patch on top of my head, but I seem to be in the wrong company here for that.
Not many people change color with age.
Those that do are real weirdos - look at MJ.
Being gay is a bit closer. Some people just don't care but for most there's a phase of acceptance and some spend their whole lives fighting it (and making themselves very unhappy in the process).
No sig today...
Reading your comment brings up images from an old comedy western where a tribesman raises his tomahawk while grabbing the hair of his adversary, the toupee comes off the guys head and the tribesman dances about in loud celebration holding the toupee up as a sign of his victory.
It's not a defect, it's a feature!
That's what I'm going for....
No sig today...
should be shot. With all the baldness genes. Then we'll laugh too.
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
Now all we need is gene therapy for Male Pig Syndrome.
... Braincap or Braincop?
My Italian ancestry pretty much overrides any chance of baldness. I'm serious - plus if I look at my family the only balding coot was my maternal-maternal-great grandfather. Everyone else went into the grave with a full head of hair.
So the hair in my nose and ears starts falling out? I would pay for that gene therapy. Or how about a replacement for this endless bikini waxing sessions. Genes, the final frontier...
and I say it is a waste of money. I d not care that I am bald. I do not care if others are bald. I used to have a lot of hair. Now I don't. Started pretty you to get a higher and higher implant. I would not care if I would loose the rest or if it stays like I have it now. It only becomes an issue if you make it an issue.
To me people who are doing comb overs, buy wigs, hairtonic, have implants and what not because they are bald are wasting their time and money. People doing studies on it should be trying to figure out not how to get hair back, but how to let people accept that they and others are bald. That would be like having a cure, instead of taking away the symptoms.
(Obviously if you have a bad scars and such, this might be somewhat different, but I am talking about standard baldness)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Its called ESS-TROOO-GENNN vs TESS-TOST-O-RONE!. Estrogen is why women don't go bald. Testosterone poisoning causes male pattern baldness. All of you men are DOOMED! Us of the female kind have to worry about looking at your bald head. I'm not sure which is worse.
All I have to say is "REALLY?"
Thank you.
L.
Just accept it and join me. Cleaner, cheaper, and manly.
"So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose."
If you take a look at advertising, sales and profit margins, as well as how fast a drug can go from one prescribed use, through clinical testing to an entirely different use which used to be a side effect, and then on to over-the-counter sales (higher profit margins, due to no insurance discounts), you can only come to one conclusion: the most important pharmaceutical developments are directed towards boners and baldness.
And people say women are vain.....
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
.... that's no moon!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I myself have eaten pretty poorly at times in my life, and that seems to be when my hair line begins to retreat the most prominently. The worst was when I weighed the least, and at 6'3" 165 lbs trying to be a vegan for the gf my hair line crawled back almost a full inch in 6 months, along with my first job; graveyard sysadmin and a few rough times in my life I have seen my hair come and go like the rest of you. The one thing that I can recommend eating 3-4 times a week is an egg, I like mine mixed with frozen veggies curry and some hot sauce. You know the old wives tail about giving dogs a 'shiny coat', well imho it works for human folk as well. Some people that think they are eating healthy aren't and some people don't realize how unhealthy the processed crap they are eating really is. Hey, I eat a hamburger or two a week from fast food places too (usually Burgerville), but that is a 'hamburger with double mustard' not the 1/4lb one with cheese, avocado and chili. I am glad for some of you that this economic downturn is letting you take a new look at life and getting realistic about the crap you put in your body, how that affects your well being and you will be surprised how much easier it is to be happier with it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Good point and one a lot of balding guys fail to realize. If you don't look good or can't pick up girls bald more than likely you won't be able to with hair either. 'Sexy' has nothing to do with the hair on your head.
They need to find the genes that cause bald men to spend hundreds or even thousands on a toupee that looks like a dyed dead rat while insisting that it looks real and that people can't tell.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Since Captain Picard is bald in the 23rd century it appears this idea went nowhere.
This puts us one step away from discovering how baldness leads men to become financial analysts!
Grandpa told me that God made just so many perfect heads..... the rest he covered with hair.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Ummm, and how is a shit sandwich better than shit? Are you perhaps running for government (after all, they often seem to "resolve" shitty situations by creating different forms of shitty situations).
Hair challenged, please.
As somebody who is inflicted with an increasingly receding hairline, I'd have to say that a "picard" (or hell, full baldness, even Jean-Luc had *some* hair) is probably an improvement. Trying to find the right haircut and style to adjust for receding sidelines is a real annoyance. I'd be tempted to shave the whole damn thing off, if not for the fact that I've seen others do so and then have the same hassles dealing with the parts that come back...
Well, I've never seen somebody change from being "white" to being black (though I suppose in odd Michael Jackson like cases, it can go the other way).
The eventual change from full-haired to bald is a lot different that being born with certain characteristics. Are we going to next argue that having a strong predisposition for cancer shouldn't be "fixed" because that's the way you started genetically?
... at least, I THOUGHT they were women. That's what's scary! What? Oh, right. No, it's men I've known that are bald. I'm a woman. Sometimes I forget. Nothing scary in that so nevermind.
The scary thing is that there is footage of that on the internet
Jerry: She lives with her parents.
George: Really? Maybe this will become like a cool thing, living with your parents.
Jerry: Yeah, then maybe baldness will catch on.
Look if you are starting to go bald you had might as well
get used to it because no matter what you
eat or do your hair is as good as gone.
You will not mind being bald anyhow it makes
life much simpler. I have my head shaved to the
skin every month or two. No need for shampoo
conditioner and all that crap just rub a bar
of soap across like the rest of your body
an you are good to go.
I'm trying to figure out your poem. There doesn't appear to be any consistent rhythm, nor do the words for which you chose to end each line rhyme or even come close to rhyming. There's no significant use of metaphor, imagery, and so on. Can you help?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Yep.. for me it's a twice-weekly date with the headblade.
I prefer the "Sport" model.
It's nature's way of telling a man to hurry up and settle down with a woman instead of being a playboy all his life. If you're still acting the playboy while your hairline is receding, the pressure's on to find a mate that you want to raise kids with. Hence, the baldness gene remains in the gene pool. That's my theory anyway.
(No funny mods please, I'm being serious.)
Drill baby drill - on Mars
It's good to see some experimental verification of the Sevalas-Stewart effect.
when exactly did baldness become a risk? it's not a curse, it's a privilege.
Do not trust this signature.
Where would we be today if it weren't for Bald's Rights patriots, such as Lex Luther and Kevin Spacey? Is this some vein attempt to undo everything they've done?
...hair raising!!
have a big dick in their ass. fucking faggots.
I'm quite annoyed with paniq for scooping me with this post.
God made some perfect heads. The rest he covered with hair.
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Now if you have Myopia, like me, this IS what is important. We are much smarter that you balding scums.
And I still have my hair, although it is turning silver, but I still have it.
Now I have a reason to be special today.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Ah finally, we can use gene therapy to cure all those afflicted people. Now everyone can be bald!
It's actually closer to 27% or so for "premature" baldness... that is, guys who aren't 60 years old with thinning hair. Not that it's definitive, but here's the Wiki page on the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness
First paragraph gives you the numbers.
Baldness is often cited in psych studies as one of those weird cultural perception items that people accept as very normal but which is actually more uncommon than you think.
Next time your in a public environment look around and do a count of the 20-50 men in the room who have hair loss (not a very slight receding of the hairline, but actual loss). You'll see that the majority of guys actually have their hair. It's weird when you realize just how much less common premature baldness is than you think it is.
rt
I didn't RTFA but I'm already buying champagne for the big party I'm going to throw for my big pony-tail re-inauguration!
Now that they've discovered the gene responsible for baldness, i wonder if there is one for UNIX Systems administrators growing neckbeards
There's a wrinkly old bald guy who would like to be an alternative for you...
The cure for male baldness has been known for quite some time, perhaps millennia. The cure comes with side affects, though. It's been long known that testosterone causes male pattern baldness, remove the source of that hormone and you reduce the chances of baldness immensely. That's right gentlemen, eunuchs do not go bald.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Shampoo and conditioner stocks are gonna skyrocket when the market re-opens!
People who get worked up about going bald have issues. Go bald and don't worry about it.
Frag the combo over and squirrel wearing goat fragers.
However, is there any progress on that stupidity gene?
Since Captain Picard is bald in the 23rd century it appears this idea went nowhere.
I'm sorry, but Captain Picard was born in 2305. That's the 24th century. Perhaps your typo was merely the result of brain overheating due to hair overgrowth. I suggest you shave your head.
...losing my hair only made me look tougher and has saved me a LOT of money on haircuts. So I really don't care that much about it except for one thing:
I live in Texas. It gets HOT. Damned direct sunlight will fry my head like an egg. So I have to wear hats. Absolutely have to. That gets annoying sometimes though.
So if I were to pursue some sort of remedy, it would be because I hate wearing hats all the time to cover my head from the Texas sun. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it at all... still, if it's expensive (which you know it will be) then I still wouldn't worry about it -- hats are bound to be cheaper.
why isn't this money being spent on something more important? It's just hair!
> I'm sorry, but Captain Picard was born in 2305.
*was* born?
Surely you mean WILL be born? Will have been born? Will have been going to be born?
You'll have to rely on Viagra and money like everyone else.
That was solely so he would be more aerodynamic while traveling through the vacuum of space.
Profits made from gene therapy to fix the balding males can go towards fixing our subprime crisis. Heck, let's tax it. There is likely a direct relationship between the density of balding men and the density of bad debt. A man with hair that lives in an condo is sexier than a bald one that lives in a McMansion.
I'd be surprised if he can tell which is which.
I think it'll be great if they find a cure for baldness -- though I can certainly think of a few hundred actually serious medical problems that probably deserve more attention than what is, after all, a harmless cosmetic defect.
Of course, when the day comes that I can grow my hair back, that's only half the battle. Even with a full head of hair, the average 28-year-old woman is still going to think of me as a creepy old guy when I make a pass at her. ;)
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Cool. As someone who started going bald at 16, and eventually shaved my head, I'm pretty pleased to hear this. Baldness isn't awful, but I've been flat out laughed at by chicks earlier on (hard to find a date as a bald 19 year old), and even now I would be a hell of a lot more attractive with hair.
On the other hand, it's really nice from a functional perspective to not have any hair at all. But from a societal standpoint, I'd much rather be normally-haired.
what's wrong with being able to have more control over it? A lot of people here have made the case that we should concentrate on accepting baldness instead of changing it. But is that so different than accepting beards instead of developing a shaver?
Whether it's a matter of personal taste, societal standards, or inherent genetic cues - where is the downside to people having more control over how they appear visually to themselves and others?
Yes, it's possible to go too far with this as it is with anything. Spending $300,000.00 on an outfit instead of just dressing nicely, devoting your life to the gym, or jumping into not-ready-for-prime-time plastic surgery techniques (ex: Micheal Jackson). But just because you *can* go overboard with something, doesn't mean that's your only choice.
Frankly, where technology sits right now I think we'd be better off having stayed with powdered wigs for the time being. You get any hair style you want, and everyone does it so there's no out-cast factor. But we should be working towards having the level of genetic control over our hair that people want. Both in terms on more on our heads, and less pretty much everywhere else. There's a reason that the classic Greek statues bore zero resemblance hair-wise to either Dr. Katz or that fat guy from the Borat movie.
All men in my family are going bald at 20/25 with the same pattern. The news for us is that we can now safely stop trying shampoo/massage and whatnot : we are screwed.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
How bloody annoying -- its all over the morning news as though its a disease. Just because a gene has been found. People who are likely to be bald are not at "risk" of anything -- they are just more likely to be bald. I guess a bit of scaremongering on people's vanity helps with corporate profits though if they can push "cures", huh!
True that. In the case of Patrick Stewart and Bruce Willis, it probably helps that they both play alpha males, and are highly successful in real life.
Hair challenged, please.
Hell No. We're normal, it's those non-slapheads who are Hair Challenged.
And don't get me started on Syrup wearers. (Syrup of Figs = Wigs)
She who must be obeyed sent me to a hair loss clinic for a consultation. I don't care (expect for the extra sunburn risk)My wife is concerned about my image in interviews etc. The quote was $6000 for the initial six month treatment with ongoing costs after. They even offered a payment plan. That's one big money maker with guaranteed residual income.
And based on Captain Kirk's hairpiece, it seems wig tech didn't progress much either.
I had food poisoning this past weekend. I could have ran a shit buffet!
In all seriousness, this is "good research" in the sense it is an easy to identify condition with a harmless negative outcome. It is easy to identify someone who is bald or balding where you don't need extensive tests to confirm it. It is "easy" to identify if the treatment is working or not. Are they still bald? Did they have more or less hair? Importantly, baring "gene damage" if the treatment fails baldness is a fairly harmless to be stuck with unlike cancer, neurological, or any other things gene therapy may cure but fail to succeed.
So I'm all for baby steps. Although not a "plague of humanity", I would rather they perfect the techniques and treatments on simple stuff like balding before going after the big stuff.
24th Century.
My reading of the abstract [1] indicates that they have found 5 SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) on chromosome 20p11 that show a linkage to baldness. There is NO mention of a *gene* or genes in that region (though one could presumably look up candidates in one of the human genome browsers). If the genes are of unknown function (or worse yet are gene regulatory regions, or siRNAs or still something else which is not a classical gene) then it will still take a fair amount of work (years unless we get very lucky) linking that chromosome region to the biochemistry involved.
If you are "approving" topics for science.slashdot.org you at should at least know enough about the topic (genomics, gene defects, etc.) to tell when a submission has folded, spindled or mutilated the actual science involved.
[1] http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ng.228.html
You sir, are deprived.
You have missed out on all of the fun of spraying shoe polish on your bald spot and having it make black spots on your collar.
You have have missed the sheer joy of having Rogaine roll without effect across your bald spot raising only the thinnest of peach fuzz to splash with joy upon your ears and neck. You have missed the strange furry pelt it makes down one's back and the warm smile your now furry ears bring to cat loving women.
But seriously, after all of that, I put the sucker to work on my show. When I'm too lazy to animate myself and don't have a Batman mask around I appear via my talking bald spot! (and no, I'm not the one who put the studio camera on the ceiling, I just figure it's there, why not?
trying to be a vegan for the gf
I'll never cease to be amazed at the utterly stupid things men will do in pursuit of pussy.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
is futile...
Be slick... Become "Locutus of Borg"... (Or, if you prefer, emulate Patrick Stewart... well, at least the baldness part of his life, hehehe..... )
Anyway, when i read:
"About a third of all men are affected by male pattern baldness by age 45. The condition's social and economic impact is considerable: expenditures for hair transplantation in the United States alone exceeded $115 million (U.S.) in 2007"
I thought when expenditures reach $115 BILLION, we might be facing a hair-raising national bailout... Or, would that call a hairy fallout?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
*was* born?
Surely you mean WILL be born? Will have been born? Will have been going to be born?
I'm an agent of the Temporal Cold War and am therefore posting from the distant future, you insensitive clod! The 24th century is the past for me! What, you think /. isn't around in the 31st century?