Slashdot Mirror
Potential New Cure Found For Baldness (bbc.com)
A potential new cure for baldness has been discovered using a drug originally intended to treat osteoporosis. BBC reports: Researchers found the drug had a dramatic effect on hair follicles in the lab, stimulating them to grow. It contains a compound which targets a protein that acts as a brake on hair growth and plays a role in baldness. Project leader Dr Nathan Hawkshaw told the BBC a clinical trial would be needed to see if the treatment was effective and safe in people. Only two drugs are currently available to treat balding (androgenetic alopecia): minoxidil, for men and women, and finasteride, for men only. Neither is available on the NHS, the national healthcare system for England, and both have side-effects and are not always very effective, so patients often resort to hair transplantation surgery instead.
I wonder how much one will have toupee for this.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Itâ(TM)s called âoeshaving my headâ.
Beats the hell out of a bad combover!
Article says it is "cyclosporine A" which is designed to prevent your body from attacking transplanted organs. That is a pretty serious drug, suppressing your immune system to the point that it mostly ignores giant blobs of foreign meat in your body. I'm sure the wikipedia article will get more fleshed out but the list of side effects sound about as severe as you could imagine.
I'm guessing that this is effective in extremely low doses? All it needs to do is attack a specific protein, I believe.
moox. for a new generation.
Any practical and effective treatment (for everyone!) for excessive body hair, thought to be absolutely impossible (or thought to be absolutely worthless because "no one would want to buy it because any cheap razor could do the same")!!?
Just like Viagra, I wonder how many morons we'll have screaming "Why do they cure baldness when we need a cure for osteoporosis?!?!?! Teh Big PHarmazzzz!!!!111111!!!!!!!!!!"
I'm sick of hearing from morons. Shut up, morons, shut up!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Speaking as a folically challenged man, yeah!
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
But does it also prolong and strengthen erections too?
Saw a PBS special that masturbation does cause you to go bald but not blind.
Half way there Clevon... Hold off on the jet ski for a while.
Not going to spoil it, just read this article on Finasteride and tell me as technical folks you don't think the research team should be locked up in a dungeon for the rest of their lives for not factoring in the high likelihood of how replicating that process could bring crippling, life-destroying side-effects. That's not "what were you thinking" territory, it's "were you even thinking about anything other than fleecing your patients?"
Lex Luther was in a pitched battle with a man in a yellow jumpsuit and red gloves. Robot parts and broken walls littered everywhere.
Suddenly, both men stop. They each take a sneaky glance as their phones.
Luther: "THIS MUST STOP."
Saitama: "I ... yeah, I think you've learned your... gotta go bye."
They both leave deep impact marks in the metal floor as they go for opposite exits.
It's not a bad thing. It's part of aging. If there were some way to prevent it without side effects maybe I'd consider it but even the slightest side effects isn't worth it to me.
If the Federation in the 24th century couldn't cure Picard's baldness, what makes you think we could do it in the 21st century.
Potential New Cure Found For Butthoalsecks
So they know the protein that blocks hair growth? So why not harness it to inhibit beards?
Plenty of people bald and balding who never lose their shit.
You could look like a high-ranking apparatchik :
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ahvx2_mQkWp4WoLKt291Aw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAwO2lsPXBsYW5l/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/772047843035630604f3f21c4e6cd8aaa7f2ad62.jpg
or Putin
https://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5134c5b46bb3f7431f00001c-2308-1731/vladimir-putin-4.jpg
or whoever, but since analog TV shutdown I don't know much celebrities to think of.
Yeah, that 80s TV series with an English actor playing a French captain on a space ship where they live fairy tales in space.
Or that James Bond guy that looks like Putin.
nuff said
probably cancer
It's called Male Pattern Baldness for a reason. Some of the patterns are common enough to have names ("Widow's Peak", "Friar Tuck"), but some are just weird and random. The "island" thing is probably a pattern rather than a hair transplant, though I agree, he should have just shaved his head (most of us are in denial about some aspect of our appearance).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Baldness is a genetic defect and should be eliminated at a genetic level. Erase it as a possibility and hundreds of thousands if not millions of future generations of men will be spared avoidable depression.
That's nice, but i'd rather there was a cream or something to smother which induces baldness so i can rid of my jungle around the dick for good.
Because then the media would have problems blaming neckbeards for terrorist attacks.
Om, nomnomnom...
There goes the $3k I spent on laser hair removal!
...of the Barbershop industry to boost their bottom line!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
...I'd rather just go bald.
The doctor interviewed points out that it could make a big difference to those who suffer from hair loss, but that seems an overstatement. As an inheritor of the male pattern baldness gene, I experience no suffering. Quite the opposite: I embrace it. I go out of my way to trim what's left as short as I can (without resorting to outright shaving) as it vastly simplifies cleaning and maintenance. I feel sorry for people who have to invest in shampoo, conditioner, gel and other hair products, who have to spend all kinds of time every day washing and grooming their heads.
"The lord made a few perfect heads. The rest he covered with hair."
I remember several articles years back talking about how the fat in the scalp produces chemicals or an enzyme which produces baldness. Specifically it kills/starves the follicles.
Also not sure about how well skin fat survives grafting. But theoretically if you could clone these fat cells and transplant them to areas before they become bald the hair would survive. If they also learn to clone hair follicles in the scalp along with regrowing the right fat cells it would be a cure for baldness.
Decades away but a nice thought. I think in vitro test tube gene editing with be approved far before we develop the above technique.
One thing I don't like about hair transplants is the way it leaves you head scared up. You may want hair but you also might want to go bald from time to time.
This isn't a Y DO /. CAREZ moment but literally who cares? Baldness isn't a serious situation. I'm not bald yet but when I start to show (which honestly I think will be sooner rather than later contrary to what my family is trying to tell me) I'll just shave it off and call it a day. I shaved bald in middle school every other month or so and it wasn't a big deal.
I mean we have cures for baldness and erectile dysfunction but it's scary how many things that matter we've made like no progress on. The horror stories I hear from women about the how period technology is basically unchanged in the past 7 generations or so. Like no one knows what causes endometriosis. And that affects a lot more people a lot worse than baldness. Baldness might be an issue for women but even that is fading. Baldness is something that doesn't even need a cure.
Just another second banana
I was mostly bald by age 30, and then I began to realize why: the hair had been silently migrating from my scalp to my nose and other places. I frankly look better with no hair up top, but can I get a treatment that puts a brake on that hair growth?
and our starship captain, Jean-Luc, or Captain Picard, has a bald top. Or his scalp achieved a higher altitude than his hair.
The stuff got research attention because the patient population includes, or is primarily compose of, guys. Like erectile dysfunction. For that we've got at least 14 drugs. Coincidentally, all the doctors listed on the paper appear to be men. If it had been for uterine cancer, endometriosis, IBS, fibromyalgia or any of a host of female-specific afflictions or where the majority of patients were women, the sponsor Giuliani Pharma (website down; Google cache) would have said "Nice work, but doesn't pay the bills. Find something to give me a giant hardon, and let me fuck all night. Then you get money. All those women-problems things are just in their poor little heads anyway."
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Just an FYI....
This is not a potential cure for baldness. It is a potential cure for GOING bald IN THE FUTURE (or when it just starts). If my understanding is correct, once you have lost your hair, most of those follicles die and can never produce hair again. So those of us (me included) who have already lost a lot of hair (for years), this drug (or any other known drug) would do pretty much nothing. Our only current recourse is hair transplant.
Particularly in males, baldness is a sign of a preexisting thyroid condition. Be sure to get checked for that first before fixing the symptoms.
I got over it, it terrified me for years before I started losing it, that I got all the stress out early.
If there was a baldness fix, you can _bet_ your bottom god damn dollar, the price will be utterly extravagant. Some men would damn near kill to have their hair back, so they'll gladly pony up.
Make it a one off thing (not some ongoing drug concoction) about I dunno, under 1k$? Ok fine, otherwise, I'm good.
I can't wait until I go bald. One less thing to maintain. Being bald is a time, money, and bathroom space saver all in one. If baldness is cured, I'll be the last bald guy alive. Just as soon as my hair starts falling out. Come on, fall out already!
Wow, you are an idiot.
DHT, the hormone responsible for MPB, is produced primarily in the gonads/prostate and the follicles themselves.
Is to not be so fucking vain, and realize that your personality, masculinity and worth as a human being does not reside in your hair. You're not Samson, dude.
Rock the buzzcut instead, it takes me 5 minutes every 2-3 days with a cheap electric trimmer. Or shave it completely, which is actually easier than shaving facial hair. With a bit of practice you can even shave in the shower.
Or rock the male pattern baldness like a boss. Look at Ed Harris, he's rocking it and there's no insecurity there.
Eat the rich.
Baldness isn't a disease. One does not cure baldness anymore that one cures blue eyes or cure you for not being an olympic athlete. You are just taking drugs to change something about yourself. It's like taking steroids to change your muscles.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Teleport beams across the autumn night
the future is full of marvels
still no cure for baldness
- Author Unknown