>>>we're back now at 8:11 with a potential new hope for millions of americans bedeviled by baldness. here's nbc's craig melvin.
>> reporter: in recent years, screen stars and athletes have embraced the inevitable, making chrome domes cool. and now there's the dashing royal landing a beautiful princess despite his thinning hair. colin watson is bald and proud. scott evans started shaving it 15 years ago.
>>once you go bald, you don't go back.
>> reporter: but not every member of the bald brotherhood is happy about losing their hair. doctors like mark dauer perform more than 1,000 hair replacement surgeries a year.
>>what i see in my patients is when we can restore the hair, in the only does it make them feel better about themselves, but it restores their self-confidence.
>> reporter: but at an average cost of between $8,000 and $ $12,000, hair restoration surge have i too expensive for many. many turn to popular drugs like propecia and row gain. soon though some hope there may be another option.
>>this research that we've come up with is fantastic news for us.
>> reporter: recently japanese scientists figured out how to grow human hair on hairless mice. scientists discovered there's a nutrient that seems to awaken the receptors and follicles that shot down in hair loss, that nutriien and possible cure for baldness, vitamin d.
>>i don't think it's the level of vitamin d. it's how the vitamin d is being handled by the receptors in the follicles that may be part of the reason why we lose our hair when we get older.
>> reporter: that's cause for cautious optimism.
>>in the next few years we'll have many other options that ultimately one day will make hair loss a voluntary thing.
>>if they could do it, i'd think about it, but they got to convince me first. i'm a non-believer.
>> reporter: some are skeptical about a miracle cure. others don't see the need.
>>i choose to stay bald. i'm comfortable. i like the look. my wife likes the look. i'm good.
>>i like his look, too. that was nbc's craig melvin. dermatologist susan taylor joins us. good morning.
>>good morning.
>>people who have lost their hair or dare i say a cure, let's understand about what exactly causes people to lose hair.
>>sure. many different causes of hair loss, but the bottom line is that there are three phases of hair growth, the anagen or growth face, that can last two to five years but there's a sleeping phase. that's only supposed to last weeks or months, but sometimes it becomes permanent, and that can lead to ballotness.
>>so the follicle goes to sleep.
>>that's right.
>>and what is it about vitamin d that can actually reawaken that follicle?
>>well, what scientists have found is that vitamin d and the receptors, so that you can think of the receptor as a lock. vitamin d is the key that fits into the lock, and that seems to cause hair to grow, and also can help generate stem cells. those are cells that can turn into follicles to form.
>>did this research indicate whether vitamin d might one day be more effective than things like row gain and propecia and other drugs?
>>well, row gain and propecia they prevent further hair loss. well, the hope is with vitamin d and activating the receptor, turning the receptor on to grow hair, that we can either cure hair or take a bald scalp and grow hair.
>>what are we suggesting, that one day there will be an ointment of vitamin d, or are we going to be ingesting it? how will we get it into our systems?
>>we're not quite sure, so right now all the science is done in the lab. it's done in animals and cell cultures. we'll have to wait and see if it's vitamin d that will activate the receptors or the compounds, something that activates the resomors.
>>a lot of bald men who want their hair back. are we suggesting that you'll at one point get the vitamin d in your system and you'll start sprouting hair again, or will this take years, months.
>>>> we don't know. we don't know. we hope it's a potential cure, but there's much work to be done to translate what we've learned in the lab to humans.
>>just a fun fact for our friends without hair. you lose about 100 hairs from your scalp every single day.
>>every single day.
>>that's right.
>>which means in about two and a half weeks i'm mr. clean. that's good. doctor, thank you. nice to see (source: video.today.msnbc.msn.com)
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