Research into a cure for hair loss has hit new heights in recent years, the advance of technology in medicine has opened entire new fields of study with the seeming promise of an imminent ointment or pill to solve the problem once and for all. Alongside the multi-national teams working together on field trials of new techniques and treatments, one aspect of scientific discovery remains as important today as it has always been… the accidental.
Modern Research
The laboratories of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms continue to deliver the mainstays of hair loss treatments, those treatments that are developed and bought to market through their traditional methods of large scale double blind trials, peer reviewed papers and the lengthy approval process for the FDA to sanction their use and sale. If course many treatments, having absorbed huge amounts of investment, ultimately fail at one of these stages and never see the light of day – Those that do make it all the way to market become, quite literally, a licence to print money.
Examples of successful medications for hair loss are Rogaine and Propecia – these were unquestionably the result of some very smart research into the functions of 5-alpha-reductace inhibitors and pockets deep enough to take them all the way through trial and on to a successful product.
Did Anyone Else Notice…
Accidental discoveries, far from being the result of a fool getting their experiment wrong, invariably require a combination of a sharp eye and a razor like mind to understand the implications of what they are looking at. We are all familiar with at least one accidental discovery in medicine, one whose impact since its mass introduction towards the end of World War 2 has saved countless millions of lives. Penicillin was famously spotted growing in a petri dish where it was not meant to be, it could just as easily not have been spotted and simply thrown away as a mistake. It didn’t require Roengten to be particularly sharp-eyed to notice X-Rays could pass through solid material… but it was a leap of imagination to realise they might be used to see inside the human body. Anaethesia is undoubtedly a facet of modern medicine that separates us from the dark ages – Rather than a single eureka moment it was the result of several people noticing the side effects of what had been considered recreational drugs.
Serendipitous Hairy Mice Point To A Hair Loss Cure
Last year we reported on the work of a team at the Columbia University Medical Center. While researching Alopecia Areata, a distressing form of alopecia that presents as random bald patches, they stumbled upon the fact that drugs used to inhibit the action of a family of enzymes called “JAK” were also capable of inducing regrowth in previously dormant hair follicles. These JAK inhibitors were already well-known and the subject of several trials and studies, none of which were anything to do with hair loss. Now comes the news that further study by the Columbia team has shown that these JAK inhibitors were much more effective when applied topically as opposed to orally. As can be seen from the pictures above the results have been quite spectacular in mice… So far they have yet to prove its efficacy in treating androgenetic alopecia, male and female pattern baldness and trials will need to be conducted. But what is the betting that when it comes the cure for hair loss will have been created for a different purpose entirely?
HIS Hair Clinic
With a cure still some years off, at the very least, HIS Hair experts are available right now to provide advice on your options for treating your own hair loss. To book a free consultation simply click here to find your nearest clinic.
