Bald truth: plucking hair out can stimulate growth, study finds

Bald truth: plucking hair out can stimulate growth, study finds

Hannah Devlin, science correspndent

@hannahdev Thursday 9 April 2015 17.02 BST Last modified on Thursday 9 April 2015 17.03 BSTSource: theguardian.com  

Although it seems counterintuitive, tests indicate that plucked follicles ‘communicate’, causing an immune response that leads to regrowth

Could this discovery be used to tackle baldness and alopecia? 
Tests are at an early stage, but could provide a solution in the future. Photograph: Asger Carlsen/Getty Images

Baldness is often dreaded by men and there are few, if any, satisfactory options for reversing it. Now scientists have discovered a potential solution, after showing that plucking hair out could actually stimulate growth.

The counterintuitive discovery, in mice, demonstrates a previously unknown method for triggering hair regeneration. Although the work is at an early stage, the authors believe the same process could be helpful for tackling hair loss in men or people with alopecia.

Philip Murray, of Dundee University and a co-author, said the findings now need to be tested in people. “It would be a bit of a leap of faith to expect this to work in bald men without doing more experiments,” he said.

The study found that when hairs were plucked in a specific configuration, follicles in the skin were prompted to send out a “distress” signal that led to even more hairs growing back. Plucking our 200 hairs triggered the growth of up to 1,200 replacement hairs in the mice, the study found.

Tests showed that the plucked follicles signal distress by releasing inflammatory proteins, which cause immune cells to rush to the site. In turn, these send out signals to all neighbouring follicles indicating that it is time to grow more hair.

“We’ve made a discovery about how hair communicates when it’s distressed,” said Murray.

The study, published in the journal Cell, showed that the pattern in which the hair was plucked played an important role in the strength of the “distress” signalling process. The researchers tested this by plucking 200 hair follicles, one by one, in different configurations on the back of a mouse. When plucking the hairs in a low-density pattern from an area more than six millimetres across, no hairs regenerated. However, higher-density plucking from circular areas with diameters between three and five millimetres triggered the regeneration of between 450 and 1,300 hairs – and the regeneration sometimes spilled out beyond the plucked area.

The authors believe that hair follicles do not simply respond individually to being plucked, but also communicate between themselves - something called “quorum sensing” - and effectively make a group decision about the level of immune response that is necessary. In the case of widely spaced plucking, the follicles are too far apart to be able to signal collectively. However, when the damage is tightly packed a more extreme response is mounted, leading to much stronger hair regrowth.

A potential drawback in balding men might be that their hairs are already too sparsely spaced for the approach to be helpful.

“It is a good example of how basic research can lead to a work with potential translational value,” said Cheng-Ming Chuong, professor of pathology at the University of Southern California and lead author.

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Could this BEE cure for baldness? Insects may HIVE answer to hair growth problem

Could this BEE cure for baldness? Insects may HIVE answer to hair growth problem

Dec 11, 2014 19:19
By Andrew Gregory
Source: mirror.co.uk

A natural sealant called propolis used by bees to seal small gaps in their hives saw fur re-grow faster on shaved mice

Hair today gone tomorrow: Baldy has no use for brush...

A compound bees use to repair their hives can boost hair growth in a buzzing discovery for bald people.

The natural sealant – called propolis – was tested on mice that had been shaved or waxed, and experts today revealed those that had the treatment re-grew their fur faster than those that did not.

Bees use the substance to seal small gaps in their hives, but now the scientists say the find could help develop new hair loss therapies.

The experts – headed by Dr Ken Kobayashi, of Hokkaido University in Japan – said after propolis was applied, the number of special cells involved in growing hair increased.

They said growth “occurred without any detectable abnormalities in the shape of the follicles”.

Despite using shaved mice rather than those unable to grow fur, the researchers – whose findings are published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry – expect it could also apply to baldness.

They say hair loss often results from inflammation, and propolis contains anti-­inflammatory properties.

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Stem cells hold new hope for baldness

Stem cells hold new hope for baldness

Updated: December 8, 2014 09:22 IST
G. RAVIKIRAN
Source: thehindu.com



New procedures are being evolved in different therapies and surgical methods to extend the benefits of stem cell research and its applications to the needy people with better and effective results. “This has not only revolutionised bio-technology sector as a whole but also contributed immensely to the therapeutic procedures in a variety of areas. Cosmetology is no exception to this and people are deriving lot of benefit out of this,” said cosmetologist Dr. G. Radhika Reddy.

Addressing an awareness meeting held at their newly established Angels Advanced Clinic at Ramalingapuram here on Sunday, Dr. Reddy said the biggest advantage with the Stem cells cause a healthy multiplication of cells in a specific part of the body where it would be introduced. This had indeed become a boon for the public seeking natural relief from various illnesses including skin and hair related disorders. In the case of chronic problem of hair loss, Dr. Radhika said that the stem cell would be injected into the scalp in the form of a liquid.

It would reactivate the weakened hair roots leading to re-growth and new growth of hair.

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All It Took to Cure Baldness Was a Laser Beam, a Garage, and an Indiegogo Push

All It Took to Cure Baldness Was a Laser Beam, a Garage, and an Indiegogo Push

By Ashlee Vance June 09, 2014 
Source: businessweek.com

Theradome Laser Helmet (Courtesy Theradome)

You know what’s still made in America? Laser spewing hair helmets.

Last August, a startup called Theradome began selling a device—aptly named the Theradome Laser Helmet—that promised to regrow peoples’ hair. Almost one year later, the company has sold thousands of the products, which look a bit like the lovechild of a bike helmet and an Apple laptop. The device sounds too good to be true. Wear it twice a week for about 20 minutes per session, and soon enough you end up looking like Redfoo. In more clinical terms, Theradome boasts that 100 percent of users will see some kind of hair regrowth after six months of use and that, on average, people will have about 40 percent of their hair come back. “We stop your hair loss; we thicken the hair you still have, and then you start seeing hair growth,” says Tamim Hamid, the founder and chief executive of Theradome.

I first ran into Hamid a couple of years ago. He’s a former research engineer at NASA, who, among other things, built a speech-recognition system for the space shuttle. After seven years with NASA at Kennedy Space Center, Hamid moved to Silicon Valley and got into the biomedical device market. He did four startups that made products that solved other peoples’ problems. For the fifth, however, Hamid decided to go after a cause near and dear to his scalp: his once lustrous, thick black hair had started to thin, and he figured near-total baldness was about a year away.

Theradome Laser Helmet (Courtesy Theradome)

Armed with electrical engineering, computer engineering, and biomedical degrees, Hamid researched the problem and discovered the work of Dr. Endre Mester. In the mid-1960s, Mester had been trying to trigger the growth of cancerous tumors in rats through high doses of radiation. But during one of the experiments, the laser he was using was not calibrated quite right. Instead of creating a tumor, the laser seemed to stimulate the growth of hair on the shaved part of the rat. Mester wrote a paper discussing some of his findings, thus opening a new avenue of hair-loss inquiry.

Today, people can visit clinics such as the Hair Trauma Center in Chicago to get laser treatments. They have to make numerous visits over the course of a few months and sit under a large contraption as they get zapped.

Hamid aspired to an in-home solution at a lower cost, so he began tinkering in his garage. He designed some makeshift helmets and spent three months firing lasers at his skull. “There was something happening,” he said. “The hair on the top of my head started to grow at the same rate as the hair on the sides.” Hamid then moved his operation to TechShop, a sort of club for people who like to make things with their hands. He and a couple of employees at Theradome turned TechShop into a qausi R&D facility, as they prototyped early versions of the helmet. “For $99 a month, we got access to their oscilloscope and computerized cutting machines,” Hamid said. “We went through four or five generations of lasers trying to figure out the optimal design. The challenge was keeping dozens and dozens of lasers on your head without the device or person overheating.”

The product they settled on has 80 lasers, which, according to Hamid, mimic the effects of sunlight and help bring hair follicles back to life. The startup raised $468,152 via an Indiegogo campaign and sells its device for $795, about twice what Hamid initially expected it to cost. All the helmets are made at a factory in Silicon Valley. The government initially cleared the product for use only on women but is on the verge of approving it for men as well, Hamid says.

Theradome has a number of competitors, including the iGrow and Oaze helmets—all of which come with rather wonderful pictures of people kicking back in comfy chairs growing their manes.






Vance is a technology writer for Bloomberg Businessweek in Palo Alto, Calif. Follow him on Twitter @valleyhack.

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Scientists' 'vampire treatment' for baldness

Scientists' 'vampire treatment' for baldness

By Jasper Copping
7:30AM BST 05 May 2013
Source: telegraph.co.uk

Scientists believe among others the treatment
 could help male-pattern baldness (Photo: gettyimages.com)

Scientists believe they may have hit upon a cure for baldness — but it is not for the faint-hearted.

Researchers found they were able to regrow hair on the bald patches on people’s heads by injecting them with a solution derived from their own blood.

The so-called “vampire” treatment involved taking blood from the patient and processing it in a machine that extracts “platelet-rich plasma” (PRP), which is then injected back into the head.

Scientists believe the solution then stimulates new stem cells below the skin which can aid the regrowth of hair.

Such “vampire” treatments are already used in some cosmetic procedures, where injections of PRP are used in an effort to reduce the effects of aging on the face and hands.

The new treatment could have helped Sir Elton John who invested in a hair transplant.

The research, published in the latest edition of the British Journal of Dermatology, was conducted among a group of people suffering from alopecia areata, which affects about 2 per cent of the population.

However, the scientists believe it could also help those suffering more common varieties, such as male pattern baldness. Dr Fabio Rinaldi said: “We think it can help to regrow hair on people with androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness). We believe it is the best treatment available, apart from surgery.”

The study involved 45 patients, who received the injections on just one half of their head. Some were given the PRP, some were given a more traditional steroid treatment, while others received a placebo.

A total of three treatments were given to each patient, once a month. Hair growth was assessed by measuring the area where new hairs grew on the bald scalp. The PRP was found to lead to significant hair regrowth in the bald patches, compared with both the placebo and the steroid treatment.

The scientists, based at the International Hair Research Foundation and University of Brescia in Italy and the Hebrew University Medical Centre in Israel, are carrying out further research. They hope to be able to develop the treatment as a cream, to avoid the need for needles.

Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: “Alopecia is known to lead to overwhelming effects on the patient’s quality of life and self-esteem. This could offer hope to thousands.”

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