New research initiated by American doctors suggests that the problem of balding is related not to the lack of hair as most of us think. The problem is connected to the way how stem cells manage to produce new hair. The results, published in the ‘Journal of Clinical Investigation’, gave a reason of hope that balding can be stopped if only a way how to restore the normal functioning of these cells will be found.
According to the study led by the Medicine Department of University of Pennsylvania, the problem lies in the fact that stem cells are not activated to produce mature cells and the fact that naked scalp has normal amount of stem cells leads experts to hope that there can be found a way how to activate them.
The failure in stem cell is caused by androgenic alopecia which is a medical term for genetically determined hair loss. According to the public health-conscious hair-for-profit organization, The Hair Foundation, androgenic alopecia is the most common reason of male and female hair loss.
During the test, scientists were using the samples of men and women who were thinking about hair transplantation. Researchers compared follicles of the bare and hairy scalps and found that both normal and bald people have the same amount of stem cells in the same scalp locations. They also discovered that the bare scalps were lacking mature cells.
The researchers concluded that the cause of hair loss may not be the follicle stem cells, but their activation problems. When we start balding, follicles don’t disappear, but decrease and on those places of the scalp that look bald grow small, invisible to the naked eye hair. This suggests that the problem lies in the stem cells and their activation process. However, researchers can not explain the cause of this problem, but hope that it will be found a way how to activate stem cells.