Hair Loss Science

[gmonasco]

First off, I really am not blaming anybody. If my claims happen to cast a negative light on pharmaceutical companies, it's not blaming them, it's just me stating what could be the truth.

You seem to be operating under a radically different definition of the word "blame" than the rest of the English-speaking world.

There aren't thousands and thousands of discoveries made on rodents every day in all medical fields; you have no evidence of that and there is no evidence of that.

Really? Do you think the articles in the thousands of medical and scientific journals published all over the world in dozens of different languages are all faked?

And if rodents weren't similar to humans in their genetics, then why would people even investigate on them in the first place to attempt to "cure" diseases?

Because experimenting on organisms that have some basic similarities to (but are less complex than) humans is a good starting point for testing the feasibility of various approaches.

Rodents have 85% of the same genes that humans do, and 90% of the genes implicated in rodent diseases are the same as those genes that cause those diseases in humans.

And that remaining 15% makes a huge difference. Claiming that rats and humans are very close because they share 85% of their DNA is like saying that The Great Gatsby and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are similar books because they use 85% of the same words.

What works in rodents may work (with a good deal of additional refinement and testing) in humans. There's no guarantee of getting from one to the other, and it's usually the case that it doesn't happen.

Also, a lot of studies that don't work are actually reported, for example Curis's potential cure for baldness

And the only reason it was "reported" was because, unlike the vast majority of experimental studies, huge corporate concerns had bought into it and started promoting it.

The proof that many of these potential cures for hair loss (WNT and noggin proteins) are not just one-time novelties that did not pan out is evidenced by the fact that such potential cures are "discovered" and referenced over and over again throughout the years by many different scientists.

Then obviously, contrary to your assertions, there continues to be interest and experimentation in those approaches.

I'm reading about these so-called discoveries in scientific journals and in research papers, sources that don't report every little stupid thing and claim that it "might", "may", or "could" lead to a cure for baldness.

But you erroneously infer that the lack of follow-up articles means nobody has pursued them. In general, researchers publish articles when they've discovered something potentially useful; they don't publish articles simply to announce their failures.

Also, I've referenced in previous posts that scientists who actually suffer from baldness could better empathize with the cause and perhaps be more motivated to offer a potential cure.

Male pattern baldness affects the majority of men; about 25% of them start balding in their 20s. Do you think scientists are immune to the effects of male pattern baldness? Or do you think that, by amazing coincidence, only the minority of men who won't eventually end up experiencing male pattern baldness become scientists?

[chewytorch]

Male pattern baldness affects the majority of men; about 25% of them start balding in their 20s. Do you think scientists are immune to the effects of male pattern baldness? Or do you think that, by amazing coincidence, only the minority of men who won't eventually end up experiencing male pattern baldness become scientists?

Maybe they use the cure amongst themselves.

[HairyHair]

You seem to be operating under a radically different definition of the word "blame" than the rest of the English-speaking world.



Really? Do you think the articles in the thousands of medical and scientific journals published all over the world in dozens of different languages are all faked?



Because experimenting on organisms that have some basic similarities to (but are less complex than) humans is a good starting point for testing the feasibility of various approaches.



And that remaining 15% makes a huge difference. Claiming that rats and humans are very close because they share 85% of their DNA is like saying that The Great Gatsby and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are similar books because they use 85% of the same words.

What works in rodents may work (with a good deal of additional refinement and testing) in humans. There's no guarantee of getting from one to the other, and it's usually the case that it doesn't happen.



And the only reason it was "reported" was because, unlike the vast majority of experimental studies, huge corporate concerns had bought into it and started promoting it.



Then obviously, contrary to your assertions, there continues to be interest and experimentation in those approaches.



But you erroneously infer that the lack of follow-up articles means nobody has pursued them. In general, researchers publish articles when they've discovered something potentially useful; they don't publish articles simply to announce their failures.



Male pattern baldness affects the majority of men; about 25% of them start balding in their 20s. Do you think scientists are immune to the effects of male pattern baldness? Or do you think that, by amazing coincidence, only the minority of men who won't eventually end up experiencing male pattern baldness become scientists?

gmonasco made some clear points. And to say that there are no "thousands and thousands of discoveries made on rodents" may mean he hasn't done quite a lot of reading yet. I think when you type in "treatment for hair loss" onto Google, you'll get articles with "mice" and "hair loss" in the search results.

[saniaa83]

Hair Loss: The Science of Hair
Hair is far more complex than it appears on the surface. We all know that it not only plays a vital role in the appearance of both men and women, but it also helps to transmit sensory information as well as create gender identification.

The Origins of Hair

By week 22, a developing fetus has all of its hair follicles formed. At this stage of life there are about 5 million hair follicles on the body. There are a total of one million on the head, with one hundred thousand of those follicles residing on the scalp. This is the largest number of hair follicles a human will ever have, since we do not generate new hair follicles anytime during the course of our lives.

Most people will notice that the density of scalp hair is reduced as they grow from childhood to adulthood. The reason: Our scalps expand as we grow.

Hair Follicles

Hair has two distinct structures - first, the follicle itself, which resides in the skin, and second, the shaft, which is what is visible above the scalp.

The hair follicle is a tunnel-like segment of the epidermis that extends down into the dermis. The structure contains several layers that all have separate functions. At the base of the follicle is the papilla, which contains capillaries, or tiny blood vessels that nourish the cells. The living part of the hair is the very bottom part surrounding the papilla, called the bulb. The cells of the bulb divide every 23 to 72 hours, remarkably faster than any other cell in the body.

Two sheaths, an inner and outer sheath, surround the follicle. These structures protect and form the growing hair shaft. The inner sheath follows the hair shaft and ends below the opening of a sebaceous (oil) gland, and sometimes an apocrine (scent) gland. The outer sheath continues all the way up to the gland. A muscle called an erector pili muscle attaches below the gland to a fibrous layer around the outer sheath. When this muscle contracts, it causes the hair to stand up which also causes the sebaceous gland to secrete oil.

The sebaceous gland is vital because it produces sebum, which conditions the hair and skin. After puberty our body produces more sebum but as we age we begin to make less sebum. Women have far less sebum production than men do as they age.

Hair Shafts

The hair shaft is made of a hard protein called keratin and is made in three layers. This protein is actually dead, so the hair that you see is not a living structure. The inner layer is the medulla. The second layer is the cortex and the outer layer is the cuticle. The cortex makes up the majority of the hair shaft. The cuticle is a tightly formed structure made of shingle-like overlapping scales. It is both the cortex and the medulla that holds the hair's pigment, giving it its color.