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New Hair Loss Treatments Look to Animals for Inspiration

By Kai Colvin - Senior Medical Research Editor | December 17th, 2011



Scientists are approaching a significant threshold in creating a new treatment form for baldness.

This comes as studies examine the way animals develop and shed their winter coats each year. Scientists suggest that stem cells could mimic similar patterns, which might help millions of people who struggle with hair loss all around the world.

So, what exactly does this mean? 

What is the correlation between human baldness and animal fur? It could potentially bring reprieve to men who are reaching 50 in dampening style – with dreaded Male Pattern Baldness.

The fascinating discovery may also be able to aid tens of thousands of women who agonize over thinning hair after menopause.

“In animals, hair growth is triggered not only by hormones in the layer of skin called the dermis, but also by signals coming from elsewhere in the body”, indicated study author Dr. Cheng-Ming Chuong, a professor at the University of Southern California.

These signals suggestively contrast from summer to winter, which is why animals grow thicker fur during the winter months.

New forms of treatment can ultimately challenge the environment around hair follicles, instead of establishing stem cells contained by the follicles. This is parallel to animals that shed their coats, a repetitive incidence prompted by the body of an animal.

“The hair-follicle stem cell is not only listening to the voice in the stem cell, but also from the outside,” Chuong also added.

The mystifying secret behind the study involves producing more hair. Presumptuous or not, scientists are aiming at producing secondary cells that are ultimately responsible for growing hair.

Baldness distresses more than 50 million Americans resultant of genes, hormones, and age. Stem cell treatment is at the forefront of technological advancements in hair restoration.

A staggering $3.5 billion dollars is expended on hair growth products each year.
Hair loss can also substituted by surgical hair transplants, including Follicular Unit Transplantation and Follicular Unit Extraction. The variance concerning each technique is the quality and quantity of grafts obtained, which can be quite expensive for the patient. With these new techniques, more patients may be able to be treated, at a much lower cost.

Hair loss can traumatically alter one’s self-confidence and quality of life; in due course, this limits the ability to relish life to the fullest. The emotional roller coaster is shared by many men and women hoping for an effective hair loss solution that will last them a lifetime.

If you have trepidations about baldness and thinning hair, there are many effective treatments available today.

To learn more about hair loss treatments, contact a hair transplant surgeon near you.











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