Scientists Successfully Grow Full Head of Hair On Bald Man 109
realized writes: "A man with almost no hair on his body has grown a full head of it after a novel treatment by doctors at Yale University. The patient had previously been diagnosed with both alopecia universalis, a disease that results in loss of all body hair, and plaque psoriasis, a condition characterized by scaly red areas of skin. The only hair on his body was within the psoriasis plaques on his head. He was referred to Yale Dermatology for treatment of the psoriasis. The alopecia universalis had never been treated.
After two months on tofacitinib [an FDA-approved arthritis drug] at 10 mg daily, the patient's psoriasis showed some improvement, and the man had grown scalp and facial hair — the first hair he'd grown there in seven years. After three more months of therapy at 15 mg daily, the patient had completely regrown scalp hair and also had clearly visible eyebrows, eyelashes, and facial hair, as well as armpit and other hair, the doctors said."
After two months on tofacitinib [an FDA-approved arthritis drug] at 10 mg daily, the patient's psoriasis showed some improvement, and the man had grown scalp and facial hair — the first hair he'd grown there in seven years. After three more months of therapy at 15 mg daily, the patient had completely regrown scalp hair and also had clearly visible eyebrows, eyelashes, and facial hair, as well as armpit and other hair, the doctors said."
title should be... (Score:5, Informative)
"Scientists Accidentally Grow Full Head of Hair On Bald Man"
The result was unintended, though interesting.
Re:title should be... (Score:5, Funny)
I think in medicine the "accidental" part is assumed.
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Yeah, the guy is still dying of cancer, but damn, he'll look good in the coffin.
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I think in medicine the "accidental" part is assumed.
There's a name for it, Serendipity, I think it was saccharin one person said to the other to test it, the other thought they said taste it. The rest is history serendipitously. Happens all the time.
Give a drug tested one condition and find the ones taking it don't smoke as much, a new track and quite the money maker.
The list is large.
Re:title should be... (Score:5, Informative)
Or "Yet again scientist stare another bucket of evidence that inflammation underlays many human ailments from cancer to heart disease to hair loss and treating the underlying inflammation for one thing is effective in more ways than they expected"
Re:title should be... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or "Yet again scientist stare another bucket of evidence that inflammation underlays many human ailments from cancer to heart disease to hair loss and treating the underlying inflammation for one thing is effective in more ways than they expected"
Interesting observation. JAK inhibitors [wikipedia.org] and TNF inhibitors [wikipedia.org] (including monoclonal antibodies [wikipedia.org]), are commonly used to treat various forms of autoimmune diseases such as arthritis (in it's varying manifestations), psoriasis, IBS, ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's. These autoimmune diseases have a high rate of comorbidity and often respond to the same or similar treatments.
Alopecia [wikipedia.org] was already thought to be an autoimmune disorder, so the observed results should not be very surprising. It seems to be only newsworthy since the treatment happened to be a total cure for a very rare disease.
Re:title should be... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any idea how much a pill that cures baldness would be worth? After erectile dysfunction that's like the holy grail of the pharmaceutical industry, a drug to treat something that's incredibly common especially in middle aged men (in theory when disposable income skyrockets) that's also very embarrassing for a smaller but still large large number of younger people.
That's why it's news. Unfortunately for Pfizer (and the many men, including myself, who are balding) his particular baldness was almost certainly caused by a rare autoimmune disorder (and treated by a drug designed to treat similar disorder) and is therefore unlikely to produce a generalized treatment
Follicles follicles follicles! (Score:2)
Right. Because they totally don't pay attention to anything else. You know, like how many houses, cars, or basketball teams he owns.
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Finding those things out requires conversation... If she says "thanks for the drink, I was just leaving" at the the first sight of your baldness, how will you get to that point? Assuming your idea of casual conversation does not involve screaming "I HAVE N HOUSES!!!" at her back as she walks away, of course...
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Do you have any idea how much a pill that cures baldness would be worth? After erectile dysfunction that's like the holy grail of the pharmaceutical industry
I think anti-balding would be more popular since it would improve the chances of getting the women to pay attention in the first place.
LOL, Balding says ones testosterone is very high. lots of hair, ones testosterone is very low. I guess it depends upon the woman's desires - neglecting the cars, house, the money used to light the fire place...
BTW I have long hair :}
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But this medicine would be for people who are completely hairless.
Most men who are balding have no trouble growing a beard and some have very hairy bodies. Take a look at my Tinder profile photo to see what I mean:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QqA... [blogspot.com]
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Except that this is a ** very rare ** form of baldness. Not your typical male pattern type. Giving the majority of people tumor necrosis factors would 1) improve a number of other chronic diseases (described above) 2) cause quite a bit of excess morbidity (TNFs predispose people to some nasty infections and weird cancers) and 3) run up a very big bill.
Interesting, not particularly important.
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Not your typical male pattern type.
There is a simple cure for typical male pattern baldness: castration. Eunuchs almost never go bald.
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A testicular cancer survivor with very low T prior to HRT.
Still went bald when testosterone was under 200 and i was having male menopause symptoms.
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Heh heh. Hadn't seen it that way. I've seen "andropause".
With HRT, the clock wound back and I'm 35 again in terms of sleep, sexual performance and interest, physique, clarity of thought, and emotional stability.
Recommend it! It's 1/10th the price from compounding pharmacies but won't be covered by most insurance. But, it's 1/2th the price of "covered" products like androgel and testim.
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A drug that treated hair loss in women would probably see even more sales. Women with hair loss are significantly more stigmatized t
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Just develop a pill that "cures" female aversion to bald (or balding) men.
Problem solved.
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"Just develop a pill that "cures" female aversion to bald (or balding) men."
That cure is money, power and confidence/perseverance. Apply separately or stirred (not shaken).
Re: title should be... (Score:1)
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Or it's messed up through diet. Like drinking pasteurized milk where all the glutathione is missing.
http://www.westonaprice.org/bl... [westonaprice.org]
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IIRC, researchers were looking for a medication to regrow lost hair in middle aged men.
They got something to grow again, all right.
Re:title should be... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Scientists Accidentally Grow Full Head of Hair On Bald Man"
To be fair, the real article title was too long...
Scientists Accidentally Grow Full Head of Hair On Man Who Was Bald For None of The Reasons That Would Make This Discovery Interesting To A Reasonable Number of People
Re:title should be... (Score:5, Informative)
Mod this up. While this is a great discovery, the autoimmune form of this is super rare compared to any of the male pattern baldness things.
It won't help most men at all. But, still, good news.
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"Scientists Accidentally Grow Full Head of Hair On Bald Man"
"The result was unintended, though interesting."
I guess millions of bald men will complain of arthritis pain to their doctor real soon now.
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I'm not sure it works on people without chronic alopecia. It probably has no effect on age related male pattern baldness, given its original purpose.
Re:title should be... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Scientists Accidentally Grow Full Head of Hair On Bald Man"
The result was unintended, though interesting.
Better title:
Scientists treat autoimmune disease with arthritis drug, hair loss reversed
Not the same as male pattern baldness (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, that's obvious, but just in case anyone is too hopeful.
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Yup. This guy has an auto-immune disorder. Pattern baldness is caused by premature death of hair follicles. Treating that would require a way to bring those cells back from the dead or some really nifty tricks with stem cells to replace them.
Not that that's going to stop a deluge of clickbait crap about this over the next few weeks, I'm sure.
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Don't anti-androgens work like Finasteride, Spironolactone, cyproterone and dutasteride work on that?
Great news! (Score:2)
Maybe now I can throw away all those baseball caps that make me look silly... ;-)
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Ron Howard? Is that you?
one word - idiocracy (Score:2)
now the most brilliant minds can move on to prolonging male erection. no, boosting IQ is still dead last in the list.
Actual article link (with more photos) (Score:4, Informative)
Here. [nature.com]
(What the article doesn't explain is why a science article needs a title involving an unnecessary metaphor and a colon: "Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Oral Tofacitinib Reverses Alopecia Universalis in a Patient with Plaque Psoriasis.")
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About the metaphor, it clarifies what the article is about. Not everyone immediately knows Alopecia Universalis is completely distinct from Plaque Psoriasis--not that most people probably even know anything about either of those.
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I don't think the cure is particularly novel either... aren't both psoriasis and arthritis autoimmune disorders?
Ecological problem? (Score:1)
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I think that was a joke, right?
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Hygiene has a cost (Score:2)
People who had hair and lost it are likely to consume more resources as measured by the effort they put into trying to compensate for it (buying lots of products which don't work, marginal medical therapies, extra car trips in search of remedies, etc) than they would consume just maintaining good hygiene on hair that grew back reliably.
And even people who go bald and don't care often only have partial baldness and would consume styling products anyway, even if they used less of them due to less hair.
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a completely negligle amount, compared to that used for fuel and electricity. look it up.
Hmmmmm... (Score:2)
I might be inclined to just do without. But I could probably do without psoriasis too.
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Lots of women don't shave their armpit and other hair.
And on average they get laid a lot less.
I'm not saying that's good or bad. It's just a fact. Part of our culture.
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Do they get laid a lot less, or do they just get laid other sex partners?
They get laid a lot less.
AIDS (Score:2)
The drug costs $2055 a month for a 10 mg per day dose. It's a universal anti-lymphocite agent which basically induces a state similar to AIDS, by killing off lymphocytes and leaving the door open for serious infections or diseases, so not exactly safe either.
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As TFA states the drug is an arthritis drug and AIDS did actually reduce the arthritis symptoms of Arthritis sufferers who acquired AIDS, was told that by my mothers Rheumatologist. Some Arthritis sufferers have immune systems so "revved up" that they're effectively immune to AIDS. drugs like tofacitinib are basically controllable immune suppression Tofacitinib is basically used for those who can't tolerate the first line immune supressor...methotrexate.
Methotrexate is effective and because arthritis su
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It's a universal anti-lymphocite agent which basically induces a state similar to AIDS, by killing off lymphocytes and leaving the door open for serious infections or diseases, so not exactly safe either.
Tofacitinib is a [wikipedia.org] JAK inhibitor [wikipedia.org], which is not exactly an anti-lymphocite agent. These drugs function by interfering with the JAK-STAT_signaling_pathway, [wikipedia.org] not by killing off lymphocytes.
These drugs definitely are are immunosuppressive. They are generally considered safe for most patients, though they certainly increase the risk of opportunistic infections (example: tuberculosis).
Let me be the first to say (Score:4, Funny)
Ch' Ch' Ch' Chia
http://info.autoworksmn.com/Po... [autoworksmn.com]
For Tolkien fans (Score:2)
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Letting us know that the boys are now insulated is no big deal, but the description of the ear and back hair was particularly disgusting.
For only $25000 a year.. (Score:1)
Alopecia universalis is not the same as MPB (Score:3)
Alopecia universalis is a rare autoimmune disorder, and it's understandable that a drug that works on a pathway to alleviate arthritis could also work for it. The more common male pattern baldness is caused by the sensitivity of certain hair follicles to androgens, specifically testosterone and its more active form dihydrotestosterone. It's unknown why some hair follicles respond to it by growing hair(think chest hair) and others miniaturize until the hair is nearly invisible(think hairline and top of the head).
Awesome! (Score:2)
No more merkin!
Terrible title (Score:2)
Others have said it too, but this guy isn't "bald", he has an autoimmune system that attacks his hair follicles.
Definition of "bald": "having a scalp wholly or partly lacking hair."
This guy lacked: eyebrows, eyelashes, facial hair, body hair, pubic hair, and all head hair.
The treatment fixed it all, because it was autoimmune in nature.
This is huge for the sufferers of this disease- who are very rare, and not linked to sex.
It's worthless to the many bald men who find sometime after puberty that their head
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The chemical layout of Tofacitinib looks fairly similar to estrogen. We've known for ages that giving MPB-afflicted men estrogen will result in hair regrowth. Unfortunately, it also makes them grow breasts, but that's besides the point.
Throwing my moderations in this disccusion to reply to this - there ought to be a "Wrong" mod option ;)
Nope, it's nothing like estrogen. One might as well conclude the structures are related to LSD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]
I am an organic chemist currently working in drug design and would conclude these compounds are, from a molecular standpoint, extremely disparate.
Unfortunately not related to male pattern baldness (Score:1)
Sadly this has nothing to do with male pattern baldness, but still great news for people with Alopecia.
It probably happened like this (Score:2)
No News Here (of the day) (Score:3)
PLUS ONE for "the scientific method", MINUS ONE THOUSAND for thinking this is in ANY way "totally amazing duude!".
BTW: you CANNOT "cure" baldness, baldness is not a disease, it's a description of a symptom.
Hohum (Score:2)
So, just from the summary, this doesn't sound very impressive.
Basically, he had several conditions that interfere with hair growth, but apparently he had fully working follicles and such.
When they grow a full head of hair on someone who went bald "normally", then that will be impressive.
(No, I am not one of the bald ones.)
Poor guy (Score:2)
Welcome to the world of man-scaping. But hey, at least you have eyebrows to waggle at the ladies now.