Data from the American Hair Loss Association estimates that about two-thirds of men may experience various forms of hair loss by age 35 and 85% of men will have considerable thinning hair by age 50. Hair loss also affects women, with around 40% of women expected to experience some visible hair loss by age 40.
Although there are several medications that can halt hair growth and encourage the growth of thinning hair, they often have to be taken in perpetuity to keep hair loss at bay. Consequently, there is ongoing research on therapies that could permanently treat hair loss without the need for constant medication.
A team of researchers using mouse models is hoping to come up with an alternative treatment for baldness by taking advantage of skin moles. University of California-Irvine researchers have spent close to a decade analyzing moles on the skin to figure out why they tend to grow long hairs.
The general consensus is that since skin moles are usually made of healthy skin cells with follicles, hair can grow out of the follicles and push through the surface of the mole. In many cases, a single skin mole may have several darker or thicker hairs growing out of it.
According to the University of California research team, this may also be due to the presence of certain molecules in skin moles that encourage hair growth. Professor of cell and developmental biology at the institution and lead study author Maksim Plikus and his team discovered a molecule that activated dormant hair follicles and caused them to produce hair.
On average, people lose around 50 to 100 hairs every day and produce new hair from the stem cells in their hair follicles. This process is disrupted in persons with androgenic alopecia, as the hair follicles remain dormant and do not replace the hair shed each day, eventually resulting in hair loss.
The research team found that a molecule known as osteopontin, which is present in hairy moles on the skin, had the ability to activate hair follicle stem cells that are dormant and enhance the formation of new hair. After the researchers grafted skin samples from humans onto mice and gave the rodents three injections of osteopontin over a one-day interval, they found that the mice had grown new hairs of up to 1 cm long in only a few days.
According to Plikus, the study’s findings will apply more to humans as the test used skin samples from humans and a molecule that is present in human skin moles. He hopes that the research team’s findings could lead to the development of a simple outpatient treatment to encourage hair growth in people with hair loss.
In the meantime, patients can ask their doctors about the different hair-loss treatment alternatives available from several enterprises, including Jupiter Wellness Inc. (NASDAQ: JUPW) and others on the market.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Jupiter Wellness Inc. (NASDAQ: JUPW) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/JUPW
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