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Why is it that, despite the astounding leaps in cosmetic surgery, and in stem-cell research, we still are nowhere near the ability to give me back a full head of hair? I have recently read that scientists can now change someones eye colour for cosmetic reasons, and re-grow teeth. It seems bizarre considering the amount of money that is put in, and yet almost no treatment exists, yet other fields are advancing brilliantly so.

Are you familiar with the romantic spy movie that came out a few years ago called “Duplicity“, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen? The plot of the movie included an attempt to steal a secret formula, which is documented step by step. What is the secret formula, you might ask? What does this have to do with baldness research? The secret is — it’s a cure for balding.

I understand your frustration, but the movie does show the value business puts on a cure for baldness. There is a great deal of money to be made by any group that comes up with a successful treatment. Hair loss is not necessarily government backed research, as much of it is carried out or funded because the motivation is strictly for profit. There is a lot of research looking for the cure, and we must be patient and believe in the capitalistic model to see what I hope will be a truly effective treatment for balding sometime in our future.

Just don’t ask me when.

Hello Dr Rassman.
Here is an interview from dc George Cotsarelis and his research so far. Link: Dermatology Focus (PDF file)

What is your opinion on this Dr Rassman?

I really have nothing to add. Dr. Cotsarelis has written extensively and is doing some exciting research with great potential for solving the hair loss riddle.

For those that are curious to read the interview, it starts on page 1 and continues on page 11 in the PDF linked above.

I watched a TED Talk recently that gave rise to many questions as to the actual percentage of sexual dysfunction/erectile dysfunction attributed to medications for hair regrowth. According to these scientific studies, hyper stimulation brought about by our internet lifestyle and in particular by pornographic images plays a major role in sexual desensitization that profoundly affects the intimate relationships with our partners.

I noted that the age group of men that had the most significant issues regarding sexual dysfunction aligned with the age group of men that sought solutions to hair loss and thinning with medications to prevent the fallout of hair.

I am not saying that the viewing of porn is to blame for all sexual dysfunction, only that there are co-factors that appear to significantly compound the problem. We wrote about a study that linked porn and ED a couple years ago here.

I have posted the video below and welcome your comments.

Snippet from the article:

In the latest research by scientists at the International Hair Research Foundation, the University of Brescia in Italy and the Hebrew University Medical Centre in Israel, used 45 sufferers with alopecia areata, affecting two per cent of the population.

The patients had injections on one half of their head. Some were given the PRP, some traditional steroid cream, while others received a placebo. Three treatments were given every month. Hair growth was checked by measuring the area where new hairs grew on the bald scalp. Results showed the plasma injections led to significant hair regrowth in the bald patches, compared with the placebo and the steroid treatment.

Following the publication of the study in the British Journal of Dermatology, the scientists are hoping to develop a cream, so needles won’t need to be used.

Read the rest — The vampire ‘cure’ for baldness: Scientists inject patient’s own blood into head to stimulate hair growth’

It is important that the readers do not confuse the alopecia areata (an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss) with the genetic male pattern balding condition called androgenic alopecia. Applying platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to androgenic alopecia has been tried over and over again, and despite many attempts to use this treatment for androgenic alopecia, hair growth has never been shown in a clinically valid, controlled study.

Although Dr Fabio Rinaldi told the Telegraph that the new treatment could also help those suffering more common hair problems like male-pattern baldness, I think he has gone overboard when he stated, “We think it can help to regrow hair on people with androgenic alopecia“. I strongly suggest that those people with classic male patterned baldness (androgenic alopecia) to not get suckered into the many doctors who have been selling this treatment for years.

Snippet from the press release —

In a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal people who are going gray develop massive oxidative stress via accumulation of hydrogen peroxide in the hair follicle, which causes our hair to bleach itself from the inside out, and most importantly, the report shows that this massive accumulation of hydrogen peroxide can be remedied with a proprietary treatment developed by the researchers described as a topical, UVB-activated compound called PC-KUS (a modified pseudocatalase).

Read the rest — Gray hair and vitiligo reversed at the root

This is a interesting discovery, that gray hair is caused by peroxide bleaching the hair at the root. If it is true, anything that can remove the peroxide will reverse gray hair. The author showed that catalase (a known enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of peroxide) can reverse the gray hair.

Hello Dr. Rassman,

First I want to excuse for my not-so-good English.

I am a 23-year-old male. About 2 years ago I noticed my hair thinning all over the top of my head and the hairline slowly eroding away from its original position. I’ve been on finasteride for about 20 months.

Anyway, I’ll get straight to the problem… About half a year ago I noticed strange-looking random hairs on the top of my head. My natural hair colour is dark brown, but mentioned hairs are ebony black. Not only that, but they are at least twice thicker and very wiry. They are easily noticeable, because they don’t mix with my normal hair when combing. Even though my hair is around 3” in length, they stand there almost vertically, slightly curled up.

As I mentioned, 6 months ago they were just some couple of random hairs. Lately I have noticed more and more of hairs like that sprouting up. They look nothing like my hair. In fact, they don’t look like human hair at all. At least not the kind you’d expect one to have growing on his head.

I’m really clueless as to what is going on with me. I have tried searching all over the Internet. I have found people with similar problems, but no one really knows what they are about.

Perhaps You can help me.

Thanks!

Hmm… so you are saying you have non-human like hair growing on your scalp? Is there a correlation with a full moon? Do you have an urge to howl?

Sometimes hairs can have different textures and there may be no direct reason for this. Maybe it is hormonal. I do not know. If you’re concerned, you should see a doctor about it.

Thought our readers might like this one…

To celebrate Hairstyle Appreciation Day (which I didn’t know was a thing), MentalFloss.com takes a stroll down memory lane to showcase some popular hairstyles for women of 100 years ago. From sausage curls to the Eton Crop, I am sure there’s women out there somewhere still styling their hair this way.

Link: 100-Year-Old Hairstyle Trends for Hairstyle Appreciation Day

We’ve been having some problems with the contact form used on the site, so a lot of emails you’ve sent in never got to us! We changed the contact form up and added a little spam filter (simple math), and we hope that corrects the problem.

If you’ve sent in a message in the past week or two, we might not have received it. Sorry about that! Please send it again using the new form on the Contact page.

Snippet from the article:

Genetic variants have been identified which can increase serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) concentrations and prostate cancer risk. A new study published in The Journal of Urology® reports that correcting PSA levels for these genetic variants can have significant consequences, including avoiding unnecessary biopsies for some men and eliminating false complacency for others.

In this study of 964 healthy Caucasian men, correcting individual PSA levels for these genetic variants led to an 18.3 percent reduction in the number of men who initially had a measured serum PSA above the biopsy criteria, but whose adjusted PSA fell below the cutoff value. The latter group would have likely undergone what would have been an unnecessary biopsy. Conversely, genetic correction led to PSA levels moving from below threshold to above threshold for 3.4 percent of the men, thus sending out an alert for further investigation.

Read the rest — Personalizing Prostate Specific Antigen Testing May Improve Specificity, Reduce Biopsies

Hi Team,

Carlos Boozer, the NBA Bulls player, has been in the news for doing…something…to “restore” his hair. You can find a photo or two via google. Some people have commented it looks like he put on paint! I wonder if it might be a form of micropigmentation. Any thoughts?

I’m not familiar with him, but I did find this article which shows off what you’re talking about. It doesn’t impress me, whatever it was. I put a small version to the right…

I wish I could get to him and tell him that there is a simple solution to his problem: Scalp Micropigmentation. I would defy anyone to tell that the coverage of our SMP work is a tattoo or a painted on makeup. It is unfortunate that in my line of work, our best work will never go noticed.