Hope for Hair Loss Sufferers

Baldness is a sensitive subject for many men and for a growing percentage of women. To many it is perceived as a disease and to others it is a sign of old age.

Baldness is normally caused by changes in hormone levels as one grows old and it could also be genetic (androgenetic alopecia).

However, alopecia (medical term for baldness or hair loss) can be caused by a number of factors like illness, infections to the scalp and typhoid fever, lifestyle such as tight braiding and poor diet, environmental factors such as exposure to x-rays, gases and pollutants, medications such as chemotherapy, fungal infections and hair products.

It is thought that temporary hair loss can be caused by stress. The scale of people affected by the condition is massive and statistics show that a third of all men by age 45 are affected by baldness or hair loss.

In females hair loss is less pronounced but those with hair loss have increased levels of androgens, a steroid hormone that stimulates or controls the development of male characteristics leading to hair loss in their later stages.

These women may face menstrual irregularities, infertility and other abnormalities. However, scientists from the Berlin Technical University in Germany have discovered a stem cell breakthrough that could provide the answer to baldness.

Stem cells are characterized by the ability to multiply indefinitely within certain conditions through mitotic cell division. Stem cells play an unexpected role in explaining what happens in bald scalps.

Using cell samples from men undergoing hair transplants, researchers compared follicles from bald scalps and non-bald scalps and found that bald areas had the same number of stem cells as normal areas in the same person but noted a major difference: the number of a more-mature cell type called progenitor cells was markedly depleted in the follicles of bald scalps.

Progenitor cells and stem cells differ majorly on the concept that stem cells can multiply indefinitely while progenitor cells are limited to a given number of times. Thus, researchers sighted a problem in the activation of stem cells converting to progenitor cells in a bald scalp.

Nevertheless, the fact that there are normal numbers of stem cells in bald scalps provides hope for reactivating those stem cells.

Using hair from animal cells though somewhat thinner than normal, researchers are optimistic they could grow human hair from stem cells within a year and have it implanted on the bald spot.

Though still a working method for stem cells to mature properly in bald regions, this could allow hair to re-grow, creating a hope to reverse baldness. This could help people wear their own hair until they are ripe with old age.