Update from hairloss-prevention.comJanuary 2002
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Dear Reader
Welcome to the latest issue.
Merry Christmas
Seasons greetings, I hope this newsletter
finds everyone in the holiday spirit.
May the this year be your best
yet. Happy new year.
The Good News
Dutasteride has eventually been approved by
the FDA.
More News
A list of all the UK hair sites is now
available on the web site
You will find full
details on the site at
www.hairloss-prevention.com
This page will be expanding to become the largest
directory in the country.
Free Hair Thickening Shampoo Sample
Circ is a shampoo for men that adds thickness, fullness and control
to thinning hair.
Also suitable for women.
www.hairloss-prevention.com/ukdirectory.htm
Click on Circ and you will be taken to the free sample offer.
By re-arranging the letters of Male Pattern Baldness we get "And
Let's Blame The Parents" !!!!!!
Monday, 15 October, 2001 BBC News
Clues to Hair Loss Found
Scientists are one step closer to finding a cure for some congenital
hair loss disorders.
A group in the US has worked out the function of a protein known
to be linked to two rare problems.
Catherine Thompson, of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in
Baltimore, told BBC News Online that she hoped the discovery would
eventually shed light on more common hair loss problems.
It has been clear for some time that a gene known as Hairless is
linked to the disorders but scientists now know how the gene works
in healthy people.
The next step is to work out what happens when the gene goes
wrong.
The research highlights the difficulty of turning knowledge about
genes, now provided in abundance by the Human Genome Project, into
viable medical treatments.
Genes provide organisms like humans with "templates" to make
proteins, the molecules that build and maintain the body.
Big clue
But knowing that a disease occurs when a particular gene goes
wrong does not automatically mean scientists can cure it or even
understand how it happens.
Sometimes they can work out what a protein does by comparing its
structure to things they already understand. But that wasn't
possible in this case.
"The real breakthrough is that there was absolutely no way to
predict what this protein did based on sequence," Dr Thompson told
BBC News Online. "Our biggest clue was to find out what it interacts
with," she said.
She and her colleagues discovered that the Hairless protein works
together with the body's receptors for the thyroid hormone. They are
now working to unravel the complex sequence of events that follow
this interaction.
"We can confidently say that Hairless will affect expression of
other genes and that's what will help us find out more," Dr Thompson
said.
Mutations of the Hairless gene are known to underlie two specific
forms of hair loss disorder or atrichia.
People with the disease lose some or all of their hair once it is
first shed after birth.
They can also suffer from wrinkly skin.
The research is published in the journal Genes and Development.
Tissue engineering ("Hair follicle
cloning")
by: Jerry Cooley, M.D.
The possibility of creating a large number of hair follicles from a
single hair follicle is sometimes inaccurately referred to as “hair
follicle cloning”. The term cloning is used by scientists to refer to
the technique where genes are inserted into a cell, and the daughter
cells all have the same gene. Genes are sequences of DNA which code for
a particular protein necessary for the proper functioning of the cells
of our bodies. For example, an individual gene for protein X may be
inserted into a cell. The daughter cells of this original cell will all
produce the same protein X. We then say we have ‘cloned’ that gene. An
extension of this technique is to not just take one gene, but all the
genes which make up an organism and insert these into an embryonic cell
which subsequently develops into an exact replica of the original
organism. The most famous example of this technique is ‘Dolly’, the
cloned lamb, who burst on the international scene in 1996.
The mechanism where a single hair follicle could be turned into
hundreds or thousands of hair follicles is not ‘cloning’ but tissue
engineering or what is sometimes called cell therapy. This technique
does not involve the insertion of particular genes but works at a higher
level, the cell. Cells are the basic building blocks of life. The
number of cells in an organism varies from the one-celled viruses and
bacteria to humans which are composed of billions of cells.
Cells can be isolated from an organism and then can be grown in the
laboratory by keeping the cells bathed in special medium (culture
medium) and controlling the amount of oxygen and other gases around the
cells. Cell therapy consists of taking these cultured cells and placing
them into a patient to correct a particular condition. Cell therapy is
one of the most exciting areas of medical research today. Conditions
which are or will be treated by cell therapy include skin ulcers and
burns, arthritis, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, liver failure,
to name a few. It does not take a big stretch of the imagination to see
how this idea could be used to treat hair loss. Nor is it surprising
that several research groups around the world are actively trying to do
just that.
The potential application of tissue engineering for treating human
hair loss is obvious and exciting. By analogy, cell therapy treatment
for burns and ulcers consists of taking a postage size area of skin and
growing it in the laboratory to create enough cells to cover an entire
football field. These cells can then be used to treat several patients.
If the cells of the hair follicle could be multiplied in the laboratory
and placed back into the balding scalp, it may be possible to create
thousands of hair follicles from that original follicle. In fact, this
phenomenon has already been proven feasible in humans. However, this
research is currently still in the most preliminary of stages and there
are indeed many obstacles to making this treatment safe and effective.
One important obstacle is ensuring that the implanted cells produce
hair that has the same cosmetic characteristics of the original hair.
Just as in hair transplantation procedures performed today, one key
feature would be hair growth direction. The difference between an
acceptable hair transplant and a truly superb, undetectable transplant
can be as simple as the latter having hair growing at the natural acute
angle to the skin. Even one-haired micrografts may not look natural if
they grow straight up at a right angle. If cell therapy were ever
proven successful for producing hair growth, that would not be enough.
It would have to produce natural looking hair.
The most important consideration for government regulators such as
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be ensuring the safety of
cell therapy for hair loss. The chief worry with using laboratory grown
cells is that they might cause tumors when placed back into the skin.
So far cell therapy for other applications has not been known to be
associated with tumor formation. Before granting approval, the FDA
would require adequate proof that implanted hair follicle cells did not
give rise to any tumors.
Although the potential for cell therapy to provide an answer to those
suffering with hair loss is great, these obstacles will prove
challenging to researchers. Although a research group may at any point
unexpectedly report that they have achieved success in these areas, the
more likely scenario is many more years of basic research before we know
what role cell therapy will play in the treatment of hair loss.
Friday December 21, 12:01 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Researchers Identify Key Factor in Hair Loss Disorder
HAIFA, Israel and NEW YORK, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers at
the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have identified a key factor
in the cause of alopecia areata, a hair loss disorder that often strikes
children. Their study, published in the Journal of Investigative
Dermatology (December 2001), suggests that future treatments could
involve desensitizing the body's immune system to the substances that
provoke the attack.
In the study, researchers show that proteins produced by hair
pigment-producing cells trigger the assault when the body mistakes
molecules within the cells for foreign substances. The researchers
previously showed that in alopecia areata, white blood cells -- part of
the immune system -- attack hair follicles, pockets of skin cells in
which hair is rooted. But what induces the attack wasn't clear.
``Alopecia areata can be a very challenging condition emotionally,
and it currently has no cure,'' said Dr. Amos Gilhar, an associate
professor of medicine at the Technion Faculty of Medicine, who led the
study. Gilhar conducted the study at the Flieman Geriatric
Rehabilitation Hospital in Haifa.
Research collaborator Dr. Richard Kalish of Stony Brook University
suggests that injecting high doses of the substances at issue may be one
way to desensitize the body to the attacks, but adds it will take
further research to clarify this.
Alopecia areata, a condition that strikes 4 million people in the
United States, commonly starts with one or more small, round, smooth,
bald patches on the scalp, according to the National Alopecia Areata
Foundation (NAAF), which supported the study (http://www.naaf.org/).
Medical experts praised the findings.
``This discovery is very important. If you've identified the enemy,
you might be able to develop better-targeted ammunition to get at it,''
said Dr. Alice Gottlieb, professor of medicine and director of the
clinical research center at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
``Several treatments for alopecia areata exist, but none works well
for the cases involving the most widespread hair loss,'' explained Dr.
Vera H. Price, chairman of the board of NAAF. The findings could pave
the way for more effective methods.
SOURCE: Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
The answer may be yes. According to a study by the Harvard School of
Public Health, smoking can increase almost all the major androgenic
hormones including DHEA, androstenedione, testosterone, and
dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the hormone most closely linked to hair loss.
The study, which examined a cross-section of 1,241 randomly sampled
middle-aged U.S. men, compared hormonal levels of nonsmokers and
smokers. The study made made sure that weight and age were not a factor
in the study results. According to the study, dehydroepiandrosterone
(DHEA) was 18% higher in smokers, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS)
was 13% higher in smokers, androstenedione was 33% higher in smokers,
testosterone was 9% higher in smokers, and DHT, the hormone most closely
linked with hair loss, was 13% higher in smokers. Although the study did
not study hair loss specifically, it is commonly accepted that DHT is
the main hormone associated with hair loss.
Propecia, the oral pill for hair loss, works by blocking testerone
from being converted into DHT. Increasing levels of Testosterone and DHT
are known to be associated with an increase in the amount and rate of
hair loss. Smoking alone will not make someone not predisposed to lose
hair start losing hair, nor will stopping smoking prevent your hair from
falling out if you are predisposed to hair loss. However, if this study
is correct, it is possible that smoking may increase the rate at which
your hair does fall out and possibly the amount.
