Lots of hype around a study yesterday that
found a prostaglandin (a kind of hormone) that seems to help control hair loss
(probably, I’ll bet, along with other as-yet-undiscovered hormones or proteins
that work with or against this one), which is an interesting finding in itself
because previously-discovered prostaglandins seem to be more implicated in hair
growth than hair loss.
Anyway, in rodents in which you block this
prostaglandin, apparently they will grow hair normally back in places where
they had lost it, normal hair growing in normal hair follicles.
If this holds up in humans, it would be a
step (not really sure how large) forward in finding one of the Holy Grails of
pharmaceutical research, a better treatment for hair loss (and perhaps even
prevention of hair loss) for which millions and millions of men (and likely
millions of women, too, as hair loss in aging women is a considerable cosmetic
problem) would pay whatever they could afford to pay.
That said, dozens and dozens of companies
are doing research in this area so I’m willing to bet that withing 5 years,
we’ll have a vast marketable improvement in this area.
