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I like having hair - but baldness runs in my family. I've been using topical hair treatments since my early 30's to keep what I have. Its vain, laughable, and

I like having hair - but baldness runs in my family. I've been using topical hair treatments since my early 30's to keep what I have. Its vain, laughable, and a trope - but it bothers me. We could be doing more with research, things that help humanity more than this.. but I appreciate this quite a lot...

drooby 4y ago
Well... if you read the article you would have seen that this research actually has the potential to help humanity greatly. They were only using hair follicles because "...these are the only human organ that regenerates regularly and automatically". Their discovery may help guide our understanding for helping promote and control wound healing..
- OrangeMonkey 4y ago
  My friend, I did. I appreciate this finding due to my own personal circumstances and I laud the researchers, my comment was more self deprecation over my own vanity. All knowledge is worth having.
  - pen2l 4y ago
    There's nothing really vain about wanting to look good. Eat the right foods, exercise, everyone _should_ be doing the basic things that make you look good. Cosmetic industry is slated to be valued over a trillion in the next few years, and that includes a lot of snake oil; good research that displaces snake oil remedies is a good thing. And I'm more than happy to see my tax dollars go into research that looks into baldness, even if only for folks who simply want hair.
    - vocram 4y ago
      Well, doing the right thing isn’t enough. Looking good (being attractive) is mostly about immutable traits like height, physiognomy and until now having hair.
      - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        Unless you are terribly deformed, staying fit, personal hygiene, dressing well, and a pleasant demeanor are probably more important than the things you mentioned
    - drewcoo 4y ago
      > There's nothing really vain about wanting to look good. Worrying too much about looking good is exactly what vanity means. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanity https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanity In days when women are denied bodily autonomy and medical treatment for serious health risks, we're worried about guaranteeing men control over their bodies through medical treatments for . . . baldness. Comparatively, it seems vain to me.
      - DennisP 4y ago
        To fix the issue you're bringing up, we need different politicians and judges. There's not much for research scientists to do about it, and their funding sources generally can't be repurposed to politics either. (Also worth mentioning that the research here could also help wound healing.)
      - mdp2021 4y ago
        "Vanity" means "vacuity". There may be relative difference of substance, but there is not an absolute one. Appearances are not irrelevant.
- tomatotomato37 4y ago
  Doesn't the liver also regularly regenerate with no scarring or anything? I thought that was one of the reasons behind our comparatively absurd alcohol tolerance as a species
mattmanser 4y ago
Depends if you think of it in terms of Mill's utilitarianism. It makes a lot of people unhappy, curing it would reduce a lot of mental stress, and though it is low level, it could be argued that curing it is a greater priority than curing many life threatening diseases, because they affect a much smaller amount of people.
jcon321 4y ago
Think you need to embrace it, I look at pictures of a time where I was still holding on and now I cringe. I guarantee you will feel better if you just shave it. The only people who look bad are the ones who are balding, not the ones who are bald.
- foobarian 4y ago
  Look at video of Steve Ballmer. Say what you want about the man but his bald sure does not get in the way of his alpha.
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    Vin Diesel, The Rock, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Michael Jordan, hell even throw in Jeff Bezos. Why would being bald have anything to do with how alpha you are.
    - effingwewt 4y ago
      One of those things is not like the others. Also subjectively all but Bezos look good bald. Bezos to me looks every bit the evil Lex Luthor he is.
- mrintegrity 4y ago
  "embrace it" is easy to say for someone that doesn't have a head shaped like Kryten from Red Dwarf
- wsc981 4y ago
  I also felt better after accepting my baldness. Patrick Stewart can be an inspiration in this regard: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK-ZVJMaU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK-ZVJMaU
- vehemenz 4y ago
  I agree if they have serious thinning/balding, but plenty of men have relatively mild thinning that can be treated with only minoxidil.
ravenstine 4y ago
Being bald has a negative effect on reproductive success, so I don't think it's trivial. All things being relative, sure, other more important things could have been researched, but not wanting to be bald isn't pure vanity.
- kungito 4y ago
  But it has positive reproductive success for other not bald people
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Never wanted to reproduce, so that didn’t particularly bother me. On the other hand, I don’t seem to have any problem finding willing sexual partners.
- seydor 4y ago
  If that were true it wouldn't be so common
  - Workaccount2 4y ago
    To be fair, historically you were pumping out babies by 22. Balding in your late 20's or 30's simply meant dad was going bald.
    - graderjs 4y ago
      Making men less attractive after they have babies may actually improve reproductive fitness by helping solving the females-side's dilemma of being able to keep some co-carers / resource providers / companion around for the raising of the "offspring". So I don't think it's as simple as "less sex-attractive men" (if that's even true, I don't have any anecdotal evidence that bald men are less attractive to women in any way except what women say they are attracted to, but talk about attractiveness and partner choices are often independent in reality...but it may be true I don't study it), or "less sex-attractive after some time horizon" leads to lower reproductive fitness.
    - 4y ago
scotty79 4y ago
My hair started graying out before 40. I just cut it very short. No hair is better than gray hair for me. I don't need to be remineded that I inhabit this decaying carcass that will fall apart in mere decades.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- DaveExeter 4y ago
  Um...you can dye your hair.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    Buggers grow too fast for my liking.
aaron695 4y ago
olalonde 4y ago
A hair transplant is also an option and relatively affordable nowadays (I paid 1600$ for mine, in Turkey). I was initially skeptical and had very low expectations but in the end, I'm very happy with the result. Normally, you don't lose the transplanted hairs because they are taken from the region of your head that doesn't go bald. Here's a pic of me shortly before (left) and a few months after (right): https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.com/master/pics/before-after-hair.jpg https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.c... Edit: Thanks for the compliments :) To answer a few questions: I was already visiting Turkey for a friend's wedding at the time so I didn't need to get a complete package with accommodation, etc. In fact, I decided to do the transplant on a whim, partly because my friend wouldn't stop bugging me about it (I'm glad he did in retrospect). I decided to do it, went for a consultation the following day, and had the operation the day after that. I don't know what truth there is to this but I supposedly got a good deal because I didn't need transport, accommodation, etc. They politely asked me to keep the price to myself, so I feel ambivalent about posting the clinic here but I'll happily reply to emails (see profile).
- throwaway743 4y ago
  Damn, it looks that legit? And it's only $1500 in Turkey (plus flight/stay)? Welp, when the time comes I know where to go now.
  - olalonde 4y ago
    Yes but just for the operation, it didn't include the flight/stay. There are actually cheaper clinics if cost is an issue (my Turkish friend did his transplant for 500$).
    - throwaway743 4y ago
      That's great to know. Thanks for sharing the info
- politelemon 4y ago
  Normally I'd have said nothing wrong with shaving it all off, but your transplant does look worth it, it's transformative. Thanks for sharing the comparison

drooby 4y ago

Well... if you read the article you would have seen that this research actually has the potential to help humanity greatly. They were only using hair follicles because "...these are the only human organ that regenerates regularly and automatically". Their discovery may help guide our understanding for helping promote and control wound healing..

OrangeMonkey 4y ago
My friend, I did. I appreciate this finding due to my own personal circumstances and I laud the researchers, my comment was more self deprecation over my own vanity. All knowledge is worth having.
- pen2l 4y ago
  There's nothing really vain about wanting to look good. Eat the right foods, exercise, everyone _should_ be doing the basic things that make you look good. Cosmetic industry is slated to be valued over a trillion in the next few years, and that includes a lot of snake oil; good research that displaces snake oil remedies is a good thing. And I'm more than happy to see my tax dollars go into research that looks into baldness, even if only for folks who simply want hair.
  - vocram 4y ago
    Well, doing the right thing isn’t enough. Looking good (being attractive) is mostly about immutable traits like height, physiognomy and until now having hair.
    - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
      Unless you are terribly deformed, staying fit, personal hygiene, dressing well, and a pleasant demeanor are probably more important than the things you mentioned
  - drewcoo 4y ago
    > There's nothing really vain about wanting to look good. Worrying too much about looking good is exactly what vanity means. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanity https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanity In days when women are denied bodily autonomy and medical treatment for serious health risks, we're worried about guaranteeing men control over their bodies through medical treatments for . . . baldness. Comparatively, it seems vain to me.
    - DennisP 4y ago
      To fix the issue you're bringing up, we need different politicians and judges. There's not much for research scientists to do about it, and their funding sources generally can't be repurposed to politics either. (Also worth mentioning that the research here could also help wound healing.)
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      "Vanity" means "vacuity". There may be relative difference of substance, but there is not an absolute one. Appearances are not irrelevant.
tomatotomato37 4y ago
Doesn't the liver also regularly regenerate with no scarring or anything? I thought that was one of the reasons behind our comparatively absurd alcohol tolerance as a species

mattmanser 4y ago

Depends if you think of it in terms of Mill's utilitarianism. It makes a lot of people unhappy, curing it would reduce a lot of mental stress, and though it is low level, it could be argued that curing it is a greater priority than curing many life threatening diseases, because they affect a much smaller amount of people.

jcon321 4y ago

Think you need to embrace it, I look at pictures of a time where I was still holding on and now I cringe. I guarantee you will feel better if you just shave it. The only people who look bad are the ones who are balding, not the ones who are bald.

foobarian 4y ago
Look at video of Steve Ballmer. Say what you want about the man but his bald sure does not get in the way of his alpha.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Vin Diesel, The Rock, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Michael Jordan, hell even throw in Jeff Bezos. Why would being bald have anything to do with how alpha you are.
  - effingwewt 4y ago
    One of those things is not like the others. Also subjectively all but Bezos look good bald. Bezos to me looks every bit the evil Lex Luthor he is.
mrintegrity 4y ago
"embrace it" is easy to say for someone that doesn't have a head shaped like Kryten from Red Dwarf
wsc981 4y ago
I also felt better after accepting my baldness. Patrick Stewart can be an inspiration in this regard: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK-ZVJMaU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK-ZVJMaU
vehemenz 4y ago
I agree if they have serious thinning/balding, but plenty of men have relatively mild thinning that can be treated with only minoxidil.

ravenstine 4y ago

Being bald has a negative effect on reproductive success, so I don't think it's trivial. All things being relative, sure, other more important things could have been researched, but not wanting to be bald isn't pure vanity.

kungito 4y ago
But it has positive reproductive success for other not bald people
amanaplanacanal 4y ago
Never wanted to reproduce, so that didn’t particularly bother me. On the other hand, I don’t seem to have any problem finding willing sexual partners.
seydor 4y ago
If that were true it wouldn't be so common
- Workaccount2 4y ago
  To be fair, historically you were pumping out babies by 22. Balding in your late 20's or 30's simply meant dad was going bald.
  - graderjs 4y ago
    Making men less attractive after they have babies may actually improve reproductive fitness by helping solving the females-side's dilemma of being able to keep some co-carers / resource providers / companion around for the raising of the "offspring". So I don't think it's as simple as "less sex-attractive men" (if that's even true, I don't have any anecdotal evidence that bald men are less attractive to women in any way except what women say they are attracted to, but talk about attractiveness and partner choices are often independent in reality...but it may be true I don't study it), or "less sex-attractive after some time horizon" leads to lower reproductive fitness.
  - 4y ago

scotty79 4y ago

My hair started graying out before 40. I just cut it very short. No hair is better than gray hair for me. I don't need to be remineded that I inhabit this decaying carcass that will fall apart in mere decades.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DaveExeter 4y ago
Um...you can dye your hair.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Buggers grow too fast for my liking.

aaron695 4y ago

olalonde 4y ago

A hair transplant is also an option and relatively affordable nowadays (I paid 1600$ for mine, in Turkey). I was initially skeptical and had very low expectations but in the end, I'm very happy with the result. Normally, you don't lose the transplanted hairs because they are taken from the region of your head that doesn't go bald. Here's a pic of me shortly before (left) and a few months after (right): https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.com/master/pics/before-after-hair.jpg https://raw.githubusercontent.com/olalonde/olalonde.github.c... Edit: Thanks for the compliments :) To answer a few questions: I was already visiting Turkey for a friend's wedding at the time so I didn't need to get a complete package with accommodation, etc. In fact, I decided to do the transplant on a whim, partly because my friend wouldn't stop bugging me about it (I'm glad he did in retrospect). I decided to do it, went for a consultation the following day, and had the operation the day after that. I don't know what truth there is to this but I supposedly got a good deal because I didn't need transport, accommodation, etc. They politely asked me to keep the price to myself, so I feel ambivalent about posting the clinic here but I'll happily reply to emails (see profile).

throwaway743 4y ago
Damn, it looks that legit? And it's only $1500 in Turkey (plus flight/stay)? Welp, when the time comes I know where to go now.
- olalonde 4y ago
  Yes but just for the operation, it didn't include the flight/stay. There are actually cheaper clinics if cost is an issue (my Turkish friend did his transplant for 500$).
  - throwaway743 4y ago
    That's great to know. Thanks for sharing the info
politelemon 4y ago
Normally I'd have said nothing wrong with shaving it all off, but your transplant does look worth it, it's transformative. Thanks for sharing the comparison