Propecia: Continuing Research into Baldness
Propecia, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medication known to slow hair loss and regrow hair, was an offshoot of a drug (Proscar) used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, otherwise known as enlarged prostate. Working in the lab with Proscar, scientists noticed an increase in hair growth in laboratory animals. Propecia, or finasteride, was approved for clinical trials in humans, and in 1997 licensed to treat male pattern baldness. Proscar continues to be used as a primary weapon against BPH, while Propecia is now the leading cure for baldness.
Up to now, scientists thought that the number of hair follicles on the human scalp was set before birth. Research with mice now shows that disrupting follicular activity (by an incision or laser therapy) can cause skin to produce new follicles. This is a promising avenue of research, and scientists speculate that in the future, it will be possible to disrupt follicular activity by a simple treatment in a doctor’s office; subsequently, the patient will apply a topical treatment of a drug that manipulates the pathways triggered by disruption, producing new hair follicles.
Hair Cloning
Hope may also lie in a process called hair cloning or multiplication. Unlike hair transplants, which merely move the active follicle from one location to another, scientists would actually harvest the stem cell from a healthy hair follicle and manipulate it to grow into several new cells. This group of cells would then be implanted into a follicle in the balding area, where it would start to grow a number of healthy, new hairs. Scientists anticipate this process may be perfected and on the market as early as 2009. This technology has been licensed to a company called Follica Inc., which hopes to use the technology to treat both hair loss and other disorders, including excessive hair growth. It promises to be a lucrative venture; hair loss treatments are a $10 billion dollar industry.
Gene for Baldness Revealed
In January of 1998,
Prevalence and Effects of Baldness
Male pattern baldness accounts for 95% of hair loss. By age 35, 60% of American men will have some degree of thinning, and by the age of 50 about 85% of men have appreciable thinning. Almost 25% of men who experience hair loss do so before the age of 21. Men who go bald are unhappy with their appearance, despite social convention to the contrary, and most admit their lack of hair affects both their social and intrapersonal relationships.
The development of 5-alpha-reductace inhibitors like Propecia has transformed hair loss from inescapable to treatable. For the first time in human history, a man can actually regrow hair at a significant rate, if Propecia treatment is started early and continued faithfully. Topical remedies and herbal supplements cannot make the same claim; their success rates vary from as little as 10% to as much as 30%, nowhere approaching Propecia’s 67% success rate.
Until something better comes along – as it well may in the next 5 or 10 years – Propecia is the only scientifically proven, prescription treatment shown to slow hair loss and regrow hair in significantly over half of all men who use it regularly. The earlier you begin to use Propecia, the better you will be able to retain your hairline and begin growing your hair back.