Hair loss replacement is a specialty among some plastic surgeons, even though the world has long searched for a magic bullet that would cure baldness. (Read more about current hair loss replacement treatments from cosmetic plastic surgeons.)
We have been interested in the topic due to our own moderate baldness. Ours is a very typical – the hair on top has disappeared with what’s left on the sides and back.
Shiny pates are very widespread as evidenced by a recent article based on the National Institutes of Health finding that 35 million men affected by male pattern baldness spend two billion dollars (yes, billion with a “B”!) for surgical hair loss procedures.
(Read more about cosmetic treatments and supposed cures.)
But we’re not wild about some of the surgical treatments we’ve seen. About the best is hair transplantation, replacing follicle by follicle for those gents luck enough to have thick, coarse hair in the donor areas., mostly the back of the head. We’ve seen many excellent treatments.
Certainly, the art form has improved over the years from when a small circle of hair follicles was transplanted to the scalp. Result? The cosmetic result was not very good and looked like doll’s hair.
One’s hair does not grow only in circles; rather, the distant between hair shafts should be equal.
The dream has been to clone hair or grow stem cells and turn them into hair follicles. It’s noteworthy that when a man loses his hair, the complete potential for hair growth is not lost. The follicle is still there but becomes dormant. While a normal turnover in hair happens over time for a bald man, his follicles never produce hair shafts.
Some women also experience hair loss off and on, on a hormonal basis.
The future? The ability to clone hair follicles would be amazing. We know a colleague near our Beverly Hills cosmetic surgery office who has been working on the cloning process over five years but progress has been slower than at first thought. Some observations have been made about vitamin D receptors in the scalp which could upon activation, encourage hair growth. But the science is very, very early into some of this research.
Young men with a full head of hair will, at some point start to see thinning. That’s the time to use some reliable products like Rogaine. A topical medication, Rogaine has proven to be valuable in retarding hair shaft loss. Propecia, a drug taken orally, is also helpful. These products can’t make hair grow back but it can slow the loss.
Keep a weather eye on hair news which is a big, big and “heady” subject.
