Scientists have got a little bit closer to finding a cure for the worldwide problem that is baldness.
Researchers created ‘hairy skin’ using stem cells from mice, growing both the upper and lower layers of skin.
The skin tissue resembles natural hair more than any other models previously created and could be used for future anti-baldness drugs.
The breakthrough was undertaken at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis and experts say the skin they developed grew a range of hair follice types, similar to the natural hair grown on a mouse.
Professor Koehler said, as reported in Cell Reports:
It looks like a little ball of pocket lint that floats around in the culture medium. The skin develops as a spherical cyst and then the hair follicles grow outrward in all directions – like dandelion seeds.
One thing we explored in the paper is if we destroy the organoids and try to put them back together they don’t always generate hair follicles.
So we think it’s very important the cells develop together at an early stage to properly form skin and hair follicles.
It could be potentially a superior model for testing drugs – or looking at things like the development of skin cancers.
As per Web MD:
Up to 95% of guys with thinning hair can blame it on this condition. It’s caused by genes you get from your parents.
Scientists think the gene may affect how sensitive your hair follicles are to a hormone called DHT, which makes them shrink.
As they get smaller, the hair that grows back tends to be finer, thinner, and shorter.
Eventually, it takes longer for hair to grow back. Then, the follicles will shrink so that no hair grows at all.
They add:
Male pattern baldness shows up in a telltale shape: a receding hairline with thinning strands around the crown of your head.
Over time, the area will go bald, but you’ll still have a horseshoe pattern of hair above your ears circling to the lower back of the head.
Men with this trait can start to lose their locks as early as their early teens. In general, the sooner it starts, the greater the loss will be.
Other types of hair loss tend to happen faster than male pattern baldness.
Even if there isn’t a complete cure for baldness, there are several health benefits you can find out about right here.
