7 ms·

It IS being worked on, but things move quite slow - and there doesn't seem to have been much progress for decades, but: Cure for hair-loss. Some might say it'

It IS being worked on, but things move quite slow - and there doesn't seem to have been much progress for decades, but: Cure for hair-loss. Some might say it's just vanity, but if someone could come up with a cure, and sell it affordably, that would be a multi-billion, maybe even trillion dollar industry. Going from quite balding (NW4-NW7 in balding terminology) to a full head of hair makes most guys look a solid 10-20 years younger. The hair-loss industry has been in a permanent state of "in 5 years..." for 30 years now. And yes, I know there are more pressing issues in the world of medicine, but it's a real problem for tens of millions of people.

klaudius 6y ago
Balding is not vanity. It is a marker for serious health problems. Balding men are several times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, for example.
- na85 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that a cure for male pattern baldness would address heart disease?
  - klaudius 6y ago
    Yes. You can look up scientific papers linking balding with health issues. We know premenopausal women have much lower incidence of heart problems than men. Some ethnicities of men like east asians also have better heart health and incidentally have better hair than caucasian men.
    - jazoom 6y ago
      Correlation does not mean causation. I'd actually be very surprised if fixing the hair addressed any correlated heart disease. The hair would be a downstream symptom, almost certainly. I'm a doctor, if that makes a difference.
      - klaudius 6y ago
        It has been shown that finasteride, which is a systemic drug actually helps [1] with heart health. It's not that fixing hair would improve heart health, but that on a systemic level improving heart health could prevent balding. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25632043/
        jazoom 6y ago
        The experiment you linked was on mice. Anyway, that's the opposite of what you said before. Treating heart to improve balding is not the same as treating balding to improve heart. And finasteride is not a cure for balding. At best it slows it, with variable results among different people.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Maximus9000 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what is wrong with the solutions available today? I see Elon Musk before and after and his procedure appeared to have gone great. Is that just because he could afford a more expensive procedure?
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  It works for certain hair loss types. It wouldn't work for Jeff Bezos for example.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  Musk had a hair transplant, which is quite expensive and a quite involved procedure. The results are also highly dependent on how bald you are, the type of hair you have, and even the doctor who does it. If you accidentally pick a bad doctor your hair transplant can end up looking awful. It also doesn't make your balding stop, so you may continue balding and need another hair transplant in the future. Hair transplants treats the symptom of hair loss but not the problem. The holy grail would be a pill or lotion you could take and truly stop/reverse hair loss. There are some existing pills (finasteride) and lotions (rogaine) but they don't work for many, and have their own issues as well.
  - tabtab 6y ago
    Plus, your head looks like shit for at least a week, maybe much longer, depending on individual. It's a gamble. And it thins out the hair in the back of your head (known as the "donor area"). That's probably why the back of Trump's head looks dodgy in the wind. Hair loss is important in the IT field because age is frowned upon in our industry. It directly affects our career.
    - kreeben 6y ago
      This is surely a sensitive topic and I hope I'm not being too insensitive here, but I've personally never frowned upon someone who has less hair than me. Even if my hair is thicker than that of most people, that only means I have less testosterone in my body that you. It means you are more of a man than I am. Everyone knows that. I say, own it!
seibelj 6y ago
Just shave it off / short. The person it affects most is yourself, and confidence does not come from hair.
- gfxgirl 6y ago
  This is just plain false. Google attractiveness and bald. Lowering your possible attractiveness by 75% to 50% is not an easy choice. Your confidence has nothing to do with it. Especially in a world where people are chosen via pictures. It works for some men. I might be attracted to DuWayne Johnson but there are plenty of men who look awful bald.
  - kreeben 6y ago
    >> there are plenty of men who look awful bald That's just your opinion though. It's certainly not mine. In fact, I think bald people look cool. I also think a lot of them have much more confidence in themselves than I do and I have a full set of hair. All people have hills to climb, though. I just wish people who are insecure because of their lack of fur on top wasn't. Only douche-bags will ever hold that against you. Don't try to please those people. They are jerks.
    - gfxgirl 6y ago
      I said 50-75% not 100%. How many other things in life would you lower your chances of success 50-75% if you could easily avoid it? The polls show 75% to 44% of women don't find bald men attractive. I'm going to guess those numbers are worse for bald women. Solving baldness is probably much easier than changing culture.
      - throwaway98797 6y ago
        Everyone can have a six pack. Not everyone can have hair. The improvement in atteractiveness from losing weight for the “average” USA person far exceeds hair. So if you want to look better focus on what you can control and lose body fat.
sirpunch 6y ago
And the opposite: permanent hair removal. My partner went through a laser treatment for over an year to get about 60-70% reduction in hair growth. It's immensely painful and time taking process that doesn't work for all akin colors and doesn't guarantee a permanent hair removal. With the current pace of medical research I would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead. But for some reason, it seems like a distant dream.
- shuckles 6y ago
  I'm actually not surprised it's hard. Bodies are surprisingly resilient, so disabling their functions without secondary consequences is usually hard.
- HenryKissinger 6y ago
  I've considered permanent hair removal for my legs. My legs are naturally hairy and I'm jealous of the guys with smooth legs.
- jobigoud 6y ago
  > would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead. I'm glad it's not that easy... I can see the "pranks gone wrong", the "ex-boy friend revenge" and the "shave-your-kid facebook 6-month trend" potential of this..
yodsanklai 6y ago
> Cure for hair-loss Good point. The fact that it would be multi-billion industry means that it's probably super hard. I may be wrong but when people claim we're on the verge of curing ageing, I like to point that we're not even able to cure hair-loss.
whalesalad 6y ago
On the flip side: I embraced the fact that I would lose all my hair and just started to shave my head. Now I have so much less to ever worry about: haircuts (diy buzzer in basement), shampooing (there is nothing to shampoo) and styling (there is one default style that is not user configurable)
Centigonal 6y ago
Male pattern hair loss is a Hard Problem. We understand that it is caused by androgens (maybe DHT?) and affects follicles on certain parts of the head differently. It's not simple to address something like this. Either you have to replace the follicles (e.g. transplant surgery), or mess around with people's androgens (right now, we can only do that pharmacologically). Drugs that affect people's hormones have a tendency of having longer-lasting effects than those that affect neurotransmitters, which makes treating a cosmetic condition with them somewhat iffy from a "first do no harm" perspective. Minoxidil (topical) and Finasteride (oral) are the two most reliable pharmaceuticals for pattern hair loss. - We don't actually understand how minoxidil works, but it probably stimulates blood flow to hair follicles that are going dormant, buying a little more time. It's fairly safe side effects wise, but only addresses some forms of balding (top of head, smaller areas). - Finasteride affects the production of DHT in men, which can halt or even reverse male pattern hair loss - but a very small subset of patients experience loss of sexual function as a side effect, which can be permanent. This makes it iffy to recommend to everyone without reservation. The worst thing about both of these medications is that they have to be taken regularly, or else the hair loss will resume. Until we more fine-tuned ways of tinkering with people's hormones or editing their genes, I don't think that we'll have a truly consequence-free cure for hair loss. Medical technology is just not there yet. ...That said, you're absolutely right that there's a lot of money in selling people cures for hair loss. In fact, if you just take the two drugs I mentioned above, explain them to men on the internet in clear language, and charge a small premium (3x the price of generic) to sell it to them... Boom! You got yerself a startup that just raised a $47M Round B! https://www.keeps.com/ https://www.keeps.com/
- guildmaster 6y ago
  This comment is like poetry
copperwater69 6y ago
Does anyone know why we can't just implant nylon hair follicles with some biologically compatible glue/plugs? Edit: Just searched up synthetic hair implants The FDA banned the synthetic fibers in the US in 1983. The ban resulted because widespread use in the 1970s led to numerous complications including recurrent infections, rejection, contact dermatitis, granulomatous hypersensitivity reactions and cyst formation. Not to mention frequent loss of fibers from breakage. The synthetic fibers continue to be manufactured in Europe where they are still in use. Check out this website with an unfortunate name for more info https://www.hairlosscure2020.com/artificial-hair-implants/ https://www.hairlosscure2020.com/artificial-hair-implants/
- ben_w 6y ago
  That sounds like a wig, only harder to wash, and with added pain if/when it gets stuck in something, and a bigger fire hazard than either a wig or natural hair. I’m still a bit surprised nobody is trying to tissue-culture skin with follicles that don’t go bald in the same way. Artists have already done the tissue culture part with a different goal in mind, and the tech in this area has been developing rapidly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_Leather https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_Leather
  - copperwater69 6y ago
    I believe there was a japanese company named 'organ technologies' that was trying that using organ cloning [0] - a brief google of shows sad webpage names like "Director of research Dr. Tsuji resigns from position" [0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.190010 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.190010

klaudius 6y ago

Balding is not vanity. It is a marker for serious health problems. Balding men are several times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, for example.

na85 6y ago
Are you suggesting that a cure for male pattern baldness would address heart disease?
- klaudius 6y ago
  Yes. You can look up scientific papers linking balding with health issues. We know premenopausal women have much lower incidence of heart problems than men. Some ethnicities of men like east asians also have better heart health and incidentally have better hair than caucasian men.
  - jazoom 6y ago
    Correlation does not mean causation. I'd actually be very surprised if fixing the hair addressed any correlated heart disease. The hair would be a downstream symptom, almost certainly. I'm a doctor, if that makes a difference.
    - klaudius 6y ago
      It has been shown that finasteride, which is a systemic drug actually helps [1] with heart health. It's not that fixing hair would improve heart health, but that on a systemic level improving heart health could prevent balding. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25632043/
      - jazoom 6y ago
        The experiment you linked was on mice. Anyway, that's the opposite of what you said before. Treating heart to improve balding is not the same as treating balding to improve heart. And finasteride is not a cure for balding. At best it slows it, with variable results among different people.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Maximus9000 6y ago

Out of curiosity, what is wrong with the solutions available today? I see Elon Musk before and after and his procedure appeared to have gone great. Is that just because he could afford a more expensive procedure?

smnrchrds 6y ago
It works for certain hair loss types. It wouldn't work for Jeff Bezos for example.
tidepod12 6y ago
Musk had a hair transplant, which is quite expensive and a quite involved procedure. The results are also highly dependent on how bald you are, the type of hair you have, and even the doctor who does it. If you accidentally pick a bad doctor your hair transplant can end up looking awful. It also doesn't make your balding stop, so you may continue balding and need another hair transplant in the future. Hair transplants treats the symptom of hair loss but not the problem. The holy grail would be a pill or lotion you could take and truly stop/reverse hair loss. There are some existing pills (finasteride) and lotions (rogaine) but they don't work for many, and have their own issues as well.
- tabtab 6y ago
  Plus, your head looks like shit for at least a week, maybe much longer, depending on individual. It's a gamble. And it thins out the hair in the back of your head (known as the "donor area"). That's probably why the back of Trump's head looks dodgy in the wind. Hair loss is important in the IT field because age is frowned upon in our industry. It directly affects our career.
  - kreeben 6y ago
    This is surely a sensitive topic and I hope I'm not being too insensitive here, but I've personally never frowned upon someone who has less hair than me. Even if my hair is thicker than that of most people, that only means I have less testosterone in my body that you. It means you are more of a man than I am. Everyone knows that. I say, own it!

seibelj 6y ago

Just shave it off / short. The person it affects most is yourself, and confidence does not come from hair.

gfxgirl 6y ago
This is just plain false. Google attractiveness and bald. Lowering your possible attractiveness by 75% to 50% is not an easy choice. Your confidence has nothing to do with it. Especially in a world where people are chosen via pictures. It works for some men. I might be attracted to DuWayne Johnson but there are plenty of men who look awful bald.
- kreeben 6y ago
  >> there are plenty of men who look awful bald That's just your opinion though. It's certainly not mine. In fact, I think bald people look cool. I also think a lot of them have much more confidence in themselves than I do and I have a full set of hair. All people have hills to climb, though. I just wish people who are insecure because of their lack of fur on top wasn't. Only douche-bags will ever hold that against you. Don't try to please those people. They are jerks.
  - gfxgirl 6y ago
    I said 50-75% not 100%. How many other things in life would you lower your chances of success 50-75% if you could easily avoid it? The polls show 75% to 44% of women don't find bald men attractive. I'm going to guess those numbers are worse for bald women. Solving baldness is probably much easier than changing culture.
    - throwaway98797 6y ago
      Everyone can have a six pack. Not everyone can have hair. The improvement in atteractiveness from losing weight for the “average” USA person far exceeds hair. So if you want to look better focus on what you can control and lose body fat.

sirpunch 6y ago

And the opposite: permanent hair removal. My partner went through a laser treatment for over an year to get about 60-70% reduction in hair growth. It's immensely painful and time taking process that doesn't work for all akin colors and doesn't guarantee a permanent hair removal. With the current pace of medical research I would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead. But for some reason, it seems like a distant dream.

shuckles 6y ago
I'm actually not surprised it's hard. Bodies are surprisingly resilient, so disabling their functions without secondary consequences is usually hard.
HenryKissinger 6y ago
I've considered permanent hair removal for my legs. My legs are naturally hairy and I'm jealous of the guys with smooth legs.
jobigoud 6y ago
> would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead. I'm glad it's not that easy... I can see the "pranks gone wrong", the "ex-boy friend revenge" and the "shave-your-kid facebook 6-month trend" potential of this..

yodsanklai 6y ago

> Cure for hair-loss Good point. The fact that it would be multi-billion industry means that it's probably super hard. I may be wrong but when people claim we're on the verge of curing ageing, I like to point that we're not even able to cure hair-loss.

whalesalad 6y ago

On the flip side: I embraced the fact that I would lose all my hair and just started to shave my head. Now I have so much less to ever worry about: haircuts (diy buzzer in basement), shampooing (there is nothing to shampoo) and styling (there is one default style that is not user configurable)

Centigonal 6y ago

Male pattern hair loss is a Hard Problem. We understand that it is caused by androgens (maybe DHT?) and affects follicles on certain parts of the head differently. It's not simple to address something like this. Either you have to replace the follicles (e.g. transplant surgery), or mess around with people's androgens (right now, we can only do that pharmacologically). Drugs that affect people's hormones have a tendency of having longer-lasting effects than those that affect neurotransmitters, which makes treating a cosmetic condition with them somewhat iffy from a "first do no harm" perspective. Minoxidil (topical) and Finasteride (oral) are the two most reliable pharmaceuticals for pattern hair loss. - We don't actually understand how minoxidil works, but it probably stimulates blood flow to hair follicles that are going dormant, buying a little more time. It's fairly safe side effects wise, but only addresses some forms of balding (top of head, smaller areas). - Finasteride affects the production of DHT in men, which can halt or even reverse male pattern hair loss - but a very small subset of patients experience loss of sexual function as a side effect, which can be permanent. This makes it iffy to recommend to everyone without reservation. The worst thing about both of these medications is that they have to be taken regularly, or else the hair loss will resume. Until we more fine-tuned ways of tinkering with people's hormones or editing their genes, I don't think that we'll have a truly consequence-free cure for hair loss. Medical technology is just not there yet. ...That said, you're absolutely right that there's a lot of money in selling people cures for hair loss. In fact, if you just take the two drugs I mentioned above, explain them to men on the internet in clear language, and charge a small premium (3x the price of generic) to sell it to them... Boom! You got yerself a startup that just raised a $47M Round B! https://www.keeps.com/ https://www.keeps.com/

guildmaster 6y ago
This comment is like poetry

copperwater69 6y ago

Does anyone know why we can't just implant nylon hair follicles with some biologically compatible glue/plugs? Edit: Just searched up synthetic hair implants The FDA banned the synthetic fibers in the US in 1983. The ban resulted because widespread use in the 1970s led to numerous complications including recurrent infections, rejection, contact dermatitis, granulomatous hypersensitivity reactions and cyst formation. Not to mention frequent loss of fibers from breakage. The synthetic fibers continue to be manufactured in Europe where they are still in use. Check out this website with an unfortunate name for more info https://www.hairlosscure2020.com/artificial-hair-implants/ https://www.hairlosscure2020.com/artificial-hair-implants/

ben_w 6y ago
That sounds like a wig, only harder to wash, and with added pain if/when it gets stuck in something, and a bigger fire hazard than either a wig or natural hair. I’m still a bit surprised nobody is trying to tissue-culture skin with follicles that don’t go bald in the same way. Artists have already done the tissue culture part with a different goal in mind, and the tech in this area has been developing rapidly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_Leather https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_Leather
- copperwater69 6y ago
  I believe there was a japanese company named 'organ technologies' that was trying that using organ cloning [0] - a brief google of shows sad webpage names like "Director of research Dr. Tsuji resigns from position" [0] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.190010 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.190010