Study: Cure for Baldness Could Happen in 5 Years

Fox News ^ | December 16, 2010

[MinorityRepublican]

German scientists have successfully grown hair follicles from stem cells, and claim it could translate into a cure for baldness in the next five years, BioScholar.com reported.

The stem cells used in the study at Berlin’s Technical University were taken from animals, but researchers said they hope to use human stem cells within a year.

Professor Roland Lauster said the study could result in a baldness treatment for as much as 80 percent of people who suffer from hair loss.

“Since 1950 the number of new chemicals used in cosmetics has risen 500—fold, and so has the need for animals to be experimented upon to ensure they are safe for humans,” he said. “This could well do away with the need for them to suffer.”

The University of Pennsylvania discovered similar findings in 2004, but failed to produce a cure for baldness.

[ThermoNuclearWarrior]

So you never lost any hair, but started growing new hair that you had never had before?

I took it for hair loss when I first started losing my hair and was obsessed with keeping it. I had great results, but I was taking Propecia and other vitamin and herbs that are suppose to work for hair loss, along with using 5% topical minoxidil and using Nizoral shampoo, so it's was a little hard to say what was doing what. I caught my hair loss very quickly because I expected it around the time it started happening based on my dad and older brothers extremely aggressive and early hair loss.

Propecia and Nizoral shampoo have been the only thing I have used regularly for the past 11 years and my hair loss has pretty much halted. It may be a little thinner than it was before, but if so not by much. I am confident that I would be completely bald had I taken no action to stop it. My dad went slick bald in his twenties and my older brother was on his way there, but started taking Propecia when I did and it has pretty much stopped his loss as well. His loss was much more progressed and he didn't seem to get any significant regrowth though.

I just went too far with the fear of being bald and tried everything at once at first. Most of it was probably a waste of money and I couldn't keep up with the cost. I don't do the research like I use to, but Saw Palmetto was one of the most talked about back then that had an actual plausible theory to how it worked. I'm sure there have been new studies on it since then. But if you are growing significant amounts of hair after adding only Saw Palmetto then I don't see what else it could be making you grow hair. You don't hear about people, with or without, MPB suddenly growing significant amounts of hair.

[meatloaf]

I didn’t see “significant” hair growth like the Eddie Munster example. It was noticeable in that I did develop a second widow’s peak on one side, the widow’s peak in the middle moved down my forehead and hair appeared on the sides where I never had hair before. That happened in my forties. I still have that hair twenty years later.

I never had any hair loss to start with.