The treatment for baldness on the verge of discovery

All of us are panicking at the thought of losing our hair and those of us who already experience hair loss or hair thinning are already aware of how difficult it is to find the right products or therapies that can restore or help with hair growth. Here comes the good news: recent studies conducted on mice show that the treatment for baldness could lie within immune cells that control inflammation, called the “Tregs”.

The cells were found to stimulate hair follicles and spark hair growth and could hold the clue to overcoming baldness, research has shown.

Lead scientist Dr Michael Rosenblum, from the University of California at San Francisco, US, said: “Our hair follicles are constantly recycling: when a hair falls out, the whole hair follicle has to grow back. This has been thought to be an entirely stem cell-dependent process, but it turns out Tregs are essential. If you knock out this one immune cell type, hair just doesn’t grow.”

Basically, if Tregs are missing, the stem cells  can’t regenerate hair follicles. While research with animals often doesn’t produce similar results in humans, the study authors suggested that better understanding of Tregs’ role in hair growth could one day lead to improved treatments for hair loss in people. The researcher also believe that defects in Tregs could be responsible for the immune disease, alopecia areata, and possibly also play a part in other kinds of baldness.

This brings new hope as the research could lead to new treatments for alopecia areata, and other forms of baldness, including the classic “male pattern” variety that causes men to recede and lose their hair.

The study was published online May 26 in the journal Cell.