alt Hacker NewsAs someone with thinning hair, it's horrible how little study/research is being performed to understand how hair grows and treat hair loss. Most of the products on the market today were discovered by accident and have serious side effects. This condition impacts millions++ of people, yet everyone from physicians to pharmaceutical companies is fine with the status quo of "here, this may work for you" effectively woo medicine.
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As someone who has lost at least 80% of his hair as an adult, I don't care about it at all. Get a short haircut and forget about it.
The fact that we're only now uncovering fundamental mechanics like "hair is pulled, not pushed" kind of highlights how under-invested this area has been
As someone with a race in my head between white hairs and a receding hairline, hair loss does afflict millions of people, but it has no medical impact on people's life, beyond increasing the need to wear a hat when outside in the Sun for long. Is it that surprising that medical professionals would spend their time on other afflictions instead?
It’s not really a big deal to be worth spending so much effort on. Baldness doesn’t affect your quality of life.
The only reason men care so much is because long hair was often associated with nobility and power. Ancient gods or classical royalty were usually depicted with long luscious hair. Society has conditioned men to feel like less of a man if they lose their hair.
But that’s BS, bald is also a good look for men. Just embrace it. Isn’t it crazy that even if we came up with a “cure” for baldness, some men would still choose to be bald anyway?
> Most of the products on the market today were discovered by accident and have serious side effects.
Topical minoxidil / finasteride has roughly zero side effects (due to the limited systemic exposure) and has something like a 90% efficacy rate. With 90%+ efficacy it's not a case of "this might work for you" it's "this will almost certainly work for you." It's cheap and it works.
Even oral 1mg finasteride has basically the same side effect profile after 1 year as placebo, side effects always* stop whether you stop taking it or continue taking it. And as an added bonus it significantly reduces your risk of low-grade prostate cancer (30% ish) while not increasing your risk of high-grade prostate cancer. Many of the side effects reported are in people taking 5mg doses for prostate hypertrophy, and the incidence of side-effects is dose dependent. Studies show that sexual side effects are primarily nocebo, if participants were told to expect them the rate was 3X higher than placebo, if they weren't told, they were about the same.
* the category of persistent side-effects has been defined primarily for data collection purposes, there's very little evidence for persistent side effects at all let alone a high incidence thereof. Many of the side effects people claim are related are things that would otherwise happen to you at the age you start to lose your hair regardless. It's good to collect more data though.
> As someone with thinning hair, it's horrible how little study/research is being performed to understand how hair grows and treat hair loss.
Given the size of the market I'd say there's a ton of research being done. It's just a tough nut to crack. There's some good data on PP405, for example.