Originally published December 3 2005
Science devising new approaches for treating baldness
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
According to Dr. Ken Washenik of the Aderans Research Institute in Philadelphia, it isn't a bad time to be going bald, as the development of new techniques like hair cloning promise men a greater range of treatments than were ever available before.
A British company, for example, says five guys are walking around with hundreds more hairs than they had before, thanks to an early test of what's been called hair cloning.
Black men are far less susceptible, but about a third of 30-year-old white men have signs of what doctors call male-pattern baldness.
The condition creeps across the head like three tiny armies bent on deforestation: one starting at the back, and two making inroads from the front.
Sure, some men say bald is beautiful.
And others can smear on minoxidil (Rogaine) or take Propecia pills, or get hair transplants.
In fact, right now is "the best time in history to be going bald, because there's an awful lot of things that can be done," says Dr. Ken Washenik of the Aderans Research Institute in Philadelphia, which is investigating the "hair cloning" approach.
Everybody starts out with a lifetime supply of about 100,000 follicles on the scalp, each primed to produce a single hair shaft.
No big deal; about an equal number of follicles enter the growth phase on the same day, and at any one time about 90 percent to 95 percent of the follicles are busy growing new hair.
In all, it might take inheriting certain versions of about five genes to get the condition, like getting a bad poker hand, suggested Rodney Sinclair of the university.
Here's the idea: Extract some cells from the areas of a man's head that resist balding, put them in a lab dish and expand their numbers by thousands of times.
The company has recently tested this on seven men with thinning hair due to male pattern baldness, and five of them gained hair, says Intercytex chief scientific officer Paul Kemp.
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