The discovery gives hope for the development of new treatments that will prevent hair from falling out of men's heads, while they might even be able to restore fallen hair. Relevant drugs and creams that are already in clinical trials have already begun to be studied.
According to the Greek professor, a protein has been identified that will be a target for the treatment of baldness. The next step, he said, will be to find substances that affect this protein, to prevent hair loss or even reverse it. But such a study, he said, would take some time.
It is noteworthy that the new drugs being studied against baldness, as Kotsarellis pointed out, have a therapeutic effect on allergic diseases, such as asthma. According to the Greek scientist, it is still unclear whether the discovery of the role of this protein applies to the rarest case of women who lose their hair.
The researchers analyzed the genes that are activated when men begin to become bald. They thus found that the level of a key protein, prostaglandin D synthase (PGD2), increases only in the cells of the follicles located in the hairless areas of the head. The experimental animals, which, through appropriate genetic modification, had high levels of this protein, were left completely bald, while the human hairs transplanted into them stopped growing when this protein was increased.
White men usually start losing their hair in middle age and about 80% have more or less baldness by the age of 70. Various factors, such as genetics or testosterone levels, can play a role in hair loss, but several other causes of baldness are probably unknown. In any case, the hair follicles shrink and eventually become so small that they are no longer invisible, at which point the hairs become tiny, with the consequence that baldness appears at some point.
Source: Newsbeast.gr