Mystery Cracked : Male Pattern Baldness

The result of an investigation carried out by researchers from University of Pennsylvania have zeroed in on the culprit that causes depression in men, well, not exactly, the male pattern baldness. The outcome of the research seems like a line picked out of a Harry Potter movie, and laced with a trace of Matrix.

The research states that the baldness that men experience is not due to lack of hair, but due to the presence of invisible hair. Duh! They call it a manufacturing defect where normal hair starts to grow so small that it becomes invisible.

The issue seems to be with the stem cells that produces hair and efforts are on to make this invisible hair opaque. If they end up doing, they can very well be considered the A-team that worked long and hard for the benefit of man-kind.

Journal of Clinical Investigation states as follows:

Ultimately, they hope to be able to develop a cream that could be applied to the scalp to help the stem cells grow normal hair.

Using men undergoing hair transplants as guinea pigs, the University of Pennsylvania team compared hair follicles in bald patches and hairy areas of the scalp.

Although bald areas had the same number of hair-making stem cells as normal scalp, there were fewer of a more mature type, called the progenitor cell.

This difference means that hair follicles in bald patches shrink rather than disappear and the new hairs made are microscopic compared to normal hair.

Well, to be honest, it is hard to believe that men who lack hair indeed have invisible ones, and this is probably the laughing stock of universities across US, but hey, similar aspersions were made when Copernicus proposed that the Earth went around the sun in the 16th century.

Let’s wait and watch, at least I am waiting for something to come out!