Different global researches on genetics and stem cells open the doors wide to the future of cell therapy in the field of male and female alopecia: one of the most brilliant points to “two police genes” as directly responsible for the death of the hair follicle
The cellular hope of our scalp
Hair, a structure visible and invisible to the human eye (stalk, follicle and hair bulb), grows and develops in the dermis of the scalp; and their genetics are also susceptible to the ever-closer cell therapy.
Unwanted baldness, in a few years, will be a memory captured in the photo albums of the past.
Around 150 types of alopecia have been described, but the most common is that we lose hair due to genetic inheritance, androgens, the action of testosterone and dihydrotestosterone, or simply our own aging and inevitable
Something well known by medical specialists like Dr. Eduardo López Bran, head of the Dermatology Service at the Hospital Clínic Universitari San Carlos in Madrid, key researcher in the clinical development of world-leading drugs such as Minoxidil and Finasteride.
“Hair suffering from androgenetic attack has a special sensitivity to the male hormones testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a metabolite of testosterone that is synthesized, for example, in the prostate, testicles or hair follicles,” he explains the Dr. López Bran
“Even if these hormones are found in normal levels in the blood, their continued effect over months and years on the receptors of the hair bulb causes the hairs to gradually become weaker and smaller; at the same time, and progressively, the growth cycle is shortened”, he completes.
The alopecia areata it affects 30% of the barons who have reached the age of thirty, and from here this figure increases by 10% in each decade. At the age of fifty they will suffer baldness 50% of men.
Women, on the other hand, go at a different pace: they suffer baldness between 5 and 10% at these same ages: “However, they are much more sensitized than men, especially at an aesthetic and psychological level”, points out the dermatologist.
Really significant and transcendent figures at a social level.
Stop being bald with cell therapy, from fantasy to scientific reality
Currently, dermatology has an arsenal of medical and pharmacological treatments that are useful to prevent hair loss or stop the process when it is already underway, slowing the loss of hair follicles; even to return some of the lost hair bulbs to the scalp.
“If the patient has already lost a large amount of frontoparietal hair and still has sufficient follicles in his donor area of the head, the opposite of my case, the baldness must be solved with a non-aggressive, undetectable and definitive hair transplant“, emphasizes the expert in hair microsurgery.
“Even so, it is undoubtedly the desire, the illusion or the dream of many research teams that aim to achieve a cell therapy capable of reversing the problem of alopecia to return hair to men and women that they have lost it, are losing it or will lose it sooner than later”, he opines.
In recent years, different researches have put black on white the leading role of genes and stem cells in the aging process and subsequent loss of activity of the follicular units.
One of these reference studies can be found in the article “Escape of hair follicle cells causes stem cell exhaustion during aging” published in Nature Aging“a magazine of great scientific impact”, emphasizes Dr. López Bran
Researchers from Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) describe in their “paper” the mission of two genes, FOXC1 and NFATC1: keep the stem cells caged inside the hair bulb so that they transform into hair cells again and again… one hair dies and another is born.
But as our body ages, the repressive activity of these two genes decreases, which means that the stem cells, instead of completing their assigned task and dying inactive, escape from the follicle and, therefore, do not reproduce the capillary cycle.
Only head already the death of the affected hair.
During the research process in mice, it was observed that when the FOXC1 and NFATC1 genes were deleted, the laboratory animals began to lose hair four to five months after the start of the clinical trial. At 16 months, they had not only lost a lot of hair, but also showed gray flakes.
“It is clear that the absence of stem cells conditions the weakening and loss of the hair follicles that we are all born with; that’s why this study supports the idea that cell therapy will represent a major advance to counteract alopecia”, says Dr. Eduardo López Bran.
“This and multiple other investigations open up a range of therapeutic options aimed at alleviating the degeneration of tissues as a result of aging, either at the bone level or in the hairs of our scalp,” emphasizes the Galen of the Clinic, a renowned research hospital.
“I am convinced that with good work and continued effort we will have the opportunity to bring hope to patients like me, who suffer from advanced alopecia and do not have a solution within our reach today”, concludes Dr. Eduardo López Bran.
Stopping being bald is no longer a fantasy, but for now we are in the hands of scientists who dive inside our cells looking for the treasure, a cell therapy that will allow us to comb our hair again tupè of youth… and by the way we will avoid it skin cancer.