The idea of stem cell’s being used to regrow hair is not exactly new med­ical sci­ence.  First dis­cov­ered in 1944, it has been known for decades that exist­ing hair foli­cles trans­planted else­where can regrow hair.  So why is this method not wid­ley used already

Recent research shows that bald mice can grow hair after being implanted with “blank slate” stem cells. (These are dif­fer­ent to the embry­onic stem cells that gen­er­ate so much con­tro­versy). Stem cell cloning is not real cloning in the true sense of the word. But, it is very sim­i­lar because hun­dreds of hair fol­li­cles can be pro­duced from just one donor fol­li­cle. (Fol­lic­u­lar mul­ti­pli­ca­tion is a  more accu­rate terms).  Fol­li­cle hair trans­plant ther­apy is still in a stage of research and test­ing, and so is not yet avail­able as an alter­na­tive to con­ven­tional hair trans­plants. How­ever, this treat­ment (which is also known as fol­lic­u­lar cell implan­ta­tion) will involve the fol­low­ing pro­ce­dure — A scalp biopsy is first taken to obtain a few healthy hair fol­li­cles. The extracted fol­li­cles are then dis­sected to obtain the papilla, each of which con­tains between 200 and 400 der­mal papilla cells (DPC’s).  These cells are then incu­bated in cul­tures to pro­duce hun­dreds of thou­sands of new papilla cells. This process takes about 8 weeks. The DPC’s are then implanted (injected) into a bald area of the scalp and release cytokines (chem­i­cal sig­nals) that tell the skin to start pro­duc­ing new hair fol­li­cles.
Not as sim­ple as it sounds.  A new hair fol­li­cle is made from epithe­lial cells. But, the growth cycle of a fol­li­cle is gov­erned by DPC’s. So, both epithe­lial cells and DPC’s are needed to pro­duce a fol­li­cle. Also, DPC’s don’t only orig­i­nate from the papilla — many migrate from the der­mal sheath into the papilla dur­ing the hair growth cycle, and then migrate back out again once the cycle is com­plete. The added com­plex­ity of epithe­lial cells and der­mal sheath involve­ment in the process of cre­at­ing new fol­li­cles has pre­sented addi­tional prob­lems that must be solved if this type of ther­apy is ever to work suc­cess­fully.
Prob­lems with stem cell cloning and fol­li­cle hair transplants

Even though stem cell cloning for fol­li­cle hair trans­plants has man­aged to pro­duce hair re-growth in about 70% of vol­un­teers in one very small trial, there are sev­eral areas of dif­fi­culty con­cern­ing this “ther­apy of the future.”

•  The cul­tur­ing tech­nique must pre­serve the stem cell’s abil­ity to repro­duce hair, and ensure that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of DPC’s can be grown within that culture.
•  Any hair pro­duced must be of an accept­able stan­dard to the client (i.e., thick, strong, healthy hair growth).
•   The implan­ta­tion method must guar­an­tee that thou­sands of implan­ta­tions per client will pro­duce accept­able and stan­dard­ized hair growth for the client.
•   An incon­sis­tent num­ber of fol­li­cles may be pro­duced — even if the same quan­tity of cells are injected into the scalp (i.e., as were injected into another area, or in another patient) hair growth can vary from one area to the next, and from one patient to another.
•  Nor­mal hair growth has an even den­sity (dis­tri­b­u­tion) through­out the scalp. But, trans­planted cells can lump together and then cause hair growth to be patchy.
•  Reg­u­lar hair growth is direc­tional (nor­mally it’s in a clock­wise direc­tion around the ver­tex). But the hair grown from implanted cells could be at any angle. This, of course, could give a very unac­cept­able result to the patient.

While the loss of hair from the scalp- hair thin­ning, male pat­tern bald­ness, a reced­ing hair­line, and alope­cia– is a very com­mon and frus­trat­ing prob­lem among both men and women, some indi­vid­u­als suf­fer from loss of over­all body hair. There are five main causes of body hair loss– skin con­di­tions, hor­monal dis­or­ders, med­ica­tions and other med­ical ill­nesses, stress, and diet. Cer­tain skin con­di­tions, such as eczema, pso­ri­a­sis, der­mati­tis, skin injury, and burns, cause dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles and sur­round­ing cells mak­ing hair growth impos­si­ble. In some of these instances, espe­cially in the case of severe skin burns, the cell dam­age can be irre­versible so the body hair loss is also permanent.

Aside from hor­monal dis­or­ders and skin injury, cer­tain other med­ical ill­ness can lead to loss of body hair. Can­cer, dis­eases that affect the immune sys­tem, and con­di­tions that dis­rupt organ func­tion can all cause tem­po­rary lapses in the nat­ural hair growth process. In most cases the body hair loss is restricted to one or two areas most affected by the dis­ease or ill­ness, but in some cases the hair loss can be seen all over the body.

Because there are so many dif­fer­ent rea­sons that you may be los­ing the hair all over your body it is imper­a­tive that you see a doc­tor at the first sign of this hair loss. If the hair loss is a result of an under­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tion it is impor­tant that you receive treat­ment for the dis­ease not just the hair loss.

When con­sid­er­ing under­go­ing any type of cos­metic surgery, being con­cerned that there will be prob­lems or side — effects is very nat­ural. Learn­ing the facts is vital for relief of any emo­tions that may be caus­ing hes­i­tance to go for­ward with a pro­ce­dure. Hair restora­tion is a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that both men and women are embark­ing to per­ma­nently cor­rect their hair loss.

Hair restora­tion is not a major surgery in fact it is com­monly thought to be eas­ier than vis­it­ing your den­tist. It is an out­pa­tient pro­ce­dure and per­formed with a local anes­thetic. Your scalp is numbed and you are relaxed in a reclined posi­tion while the pro­ce­dure is being per­formed. After your hair trans­plant pro­ce­dure is com­plete you return home that same day and can carry on with the major­ity of your nor­mal activ­i­ties. Patients have even reported no pain and return to work the next day because there are no clear signs of hav­ing a hair trans­plant pro­ce­dure. Anti– inflam­ma­tory med­ica­tion is com­monly pre­scribed to con­trol and reduce any pos­si­ble swelling.

A com­mon ques­tion asked by indi­vid­u­als con­sid­er­ing hair restora­tion is, will there be any scar­ring Scar­ring in the area where the hair fol­li­cles were implanted is extremely rare. In the area where the donor hair was removed, a trchophytic closer tech­nique is used to elim­i­nate any scar­ring; even under close scrutiny scar­ing is unde­tectable. With all of the mod­ern devel­op­ment in hair replace­ment ther­apy, hair restora­tion is a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that has been suc­cess­fully sat­is­fy­ing hair loss patients. In the com­ing post-operative months their hair will begin to grow and thicken, and pos­i­tively impact­ing the rest of their lives.

With hair loss becom­ing a com­mon cause of con­cern amongst mil­lions of peo­ple across the world, every year a large num­ber of med­ica­tions, herbs, spices, nutri­tional sup­ple­ments, oils, sham­poos etc comes up in the mar­ket each claim­ing itself to be the panacea for hair loss. Each year, men suf­fer­ing from hair loss spend bil­lions of dol­lars in an attempt to treat their hair loss. Unfor­tu­nately, a large per­cent­age of all prod­ucts being mar­keted in the less than eth­i­cal hair loss treat­ment indus­try are com­pletely inef­fec­tive for the major­ity of those who use them.

If you are going bald you should seri­ously con­sider hair loss med­ica­tion treat­ments to halt or even reverse your hair loss. While there is no cure for hair loss drugs can often stop or even reverse alope­cia aer­ate in most peo­ple. Med­ica­tion for treat­ing hair loss slows thin­ning of the hair and increases cov­er­age of the scalp by grow­ing new hair and enlarg­ing exist­ing hairs.

Types of Med­ica­tions for Hair loss Treatment

Today there are two FDA approved med­ica­tions for hair growth — minox­i­dil which is sold over the counter as Rogaine, for both men and women, and Finas­teride, a pre­scrip­tion pill sold as Prope­cia, for men only. Two other drugs have been recently approved for hair growth and include a high-estrogen oral con­tra­cep­tive and Aldac­tone (How­ever, these two med­ica­tions are only for women due to their fem­i­niz­ing side effects.

Both these med­ica­tions slow thin­ning of the hair and increase cov­er­age of the scalp by grow­ing new hair and enlarg­ing exist­ing hairs. How­ever, the effec­tive­ness of finas­teride or minox­i­dil depends on your age and the loca­tion of hair loss. These med­ica­tions do not work for every­one, and you should not expect to re-grow a full head of hair.

Causes of hair loss induced by scalp infections.

Fol­li­culi­tis

Fol­li­culi­tis is a term for inflam­ma­tion of hair fol­li­cles. It looks like acne with lit­tle rings of inflam­ma­tion sur­round­ing the open­ing of a hair fol­li­cle. In the early stages of a fol­li­culi­tis, the hair fiber may still be present, but as the fol­li­culi­tis pro­gresses the hair often falls out. There are non-infectious forms of fol­li­culi­tis, such as those caused by oils and greases applied to the skin that clog up the hair fol­li­cles, but fol­li­culi­tis is usu­ally due to a bac­te­r­ial infec­tion. Non­pre­scrip­tion top­i­cal antibi­otics such as bac­i­tracin, myc­i­tracin, or neomycin can be used to treat minor folliculitis

Piedra

Piedra (tri­chomy­co­sis nodu­laris) hap­pens when the hair fibers are infected by a fun­gus. The vis­i­ble indi­ca­tor of a piedra infec­tion is devel­op­ment of hard nod­ules on hair fibers. Indeed, “piedra” is Span­ish for stone. Piedra infec­tion may affect hairs of the scalp, body, and gen­i­tal areas. Usu­ally the infec­tion is rel­a­tively benign. In parts of Malaysia, the nod­ules of black piedra are con­sid­ered attrac­tive and tra­di­tion­ally women encour­aged its growth by sleep­ing with their hair buried in the soil. Treat­ment gen­er­ally involves shav­ing off affected areas. Anti-fungals such as keto­cona­zole or terbinafine are also used.

Demodex fol­licu­lo­rum

Demodex is a lit­tle worm-like crea­ture that likes to live on skin and in hair fol­li­cles. It feeds on dead skin and oils, so it par­tic­u­larly likes to live in hair fol­li­cles where there are lots of both.

Humans are born free of Demodex, but dur­ing child­hood, through con­tact with oth­ers, the skin can become infected with it. For the most part, we never know they are there. They are benign, if repul­sive, lit­tle crea­tures. The most com­mon prob­lem with Demodex is that they may cause irri­ta­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the eye­lashes. If you have itchy eye­lashes, Demodex may be the problem.

Mis­tak­enly thought to be a strictly male dis­ease, women make up a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Amer­i­can hair loss suf­fer­ers. In female pat­tern hair loss some excess loss of hair is noted, but grad­ual thin­ning is the rea­son women seek pro­fes­sional advice from a physi­cian hair restora­tion spe­cial­ist. Nor­mal hair shed­ding is approx­i­mately 100–150 hairs per day, in female pat­tern hair loss the shed­ding sub­stan­tially increases and becomes more evi­dent. The affected areas uni­formly grow back smaller in diam­e­ter (minia­tur­ize). The hair that takes place in the affected area will appear fuzzy and invis­i­ble (peach fuzz).

Pat­terns of female bald­ness can vary con­sid­er­ably in appear­ance. Pat­terns that may occur include:

• Dif­fuse thin­ning over the entire scalp
• Dif­fuse thin­ning other the entire scalp, with more notice­able thin­ning toward the front of the scalp

Hair loss in women can be absolutely dev­as­tat­ing for self image and emo­tional well-being. For­tu­nately, with the new inno­v­a­tive tech­niques hair restora­tion has to offer women are now able to achieve per­ma­nent growth with the new fol­lic­u­lar unit and min­i­graft techniques.

Hair loss occu­pies all of us. If we are not expe­ri­enc­ing hair loss, we have a close friend or rel­a­tive who does. In fact, mil­lions suf­fer from hair loss. It is only nat­ural that there are many mis­con­cep­tions about hair loss, and could be why so many have a dif­fi­cult time dis­tin­guish­ing fact from fic­tion. When deal­ing with hair loss con­cerns it is best to search out the more com­mon bald­ing myths and gain aware­ness of the facts. When becom­ing more aware of the facts you can then decide which hair loss treat­ment will be most effec­tive for your per­sonal require­ments. The fol­low­ing myths are 5 of the most com­mon hair loss misconceptions.

1. The myth — Wear­ing a hat may stim­u­late hair loss

The Truth — Unless your hat is so tight that it puts exces­sive ten­sion on the hair, it doesn’t mat­ter if you wear a hat every day.

1. The myth– Cut­ting  your hair will make it grow back thicker

The truth– Hair feels thicker after a hair cut because hair is thicker at the base but cut­ting your hair will not help pre­vent male or female-pattern baldness

1. The myth — Stress may cause per­ma­nents hair loss

The truth — In some cases, stress may only cause tem­po­rary hair loss

1. The myth– Only men expe­ri­ence hair loss

The truth– male pat­tern bald­ness is more com­mon but, a lot of women suf­fer from hair loss and thinning.

1. The myth– Peo­ple who do not suf­fer from hair loss have no shed­ding of hair at all

The truth– Every­one loses hair. Aver­age hair loss is about 50 per day.

Using stereo­scopic micro­scopes is a very sophis­ti­cated sur­gi­cal tech­nique that improves nat­u­ral­ness of your new hairline.

Stereo­scopic dis­sect­ing is the method we use at Bev­erly Hills Hair Restora­tion to dis­sect the fol­li­cle units. It is the most refined and ulti­mate form of hair trans­plan­ta­tion. What the process involves is tak­ing hair roots from the donor area in the back of the scalp, where the hair gen­er­ally con­tin­ues to grow through­out a life­time. After that process is over, with the aid of stereo­scopic dis­sect­ing micro­scopes, the strip is then divided into the indi­vid­ual fol­lic­u­lar unit grafts each mea­sur­ing approx 1mm in width. By using micro­scopes about 30% more hair is visu­al­ized and can be har­vested than with the older tech­niques. A part of the process is to trim away the excess fatty tis­sue sur­round­ing each fol­li­cle. This is a crit­i­cal sur­gi­cal step for two rea­sons. One, each fol­lic­u­lar unit must fit into the very small inci­sion that forms the foun­da­tion of the new hair­line. Two, trim­ming this tis­sue elim­i­nates the occur­rence of the unnat­ural gaps between each group­ing of trans­planted hair. Using this tech­nique con­tributes to the rea­son why our patients results appear so natural.

Fol­lic­u­lar unit graft­ing is the cur­rent state-of-the-art graft­ing tech­nique that restores the bald­ing head.  This method allows a much bet­ter appear­ance and nat­ural hair growth. It can enhance image and thereby restore youth­ful vitality.

Most bald­ing men tend to have hair on the sides and back of the head. It is here where the hair is extracted from the scalp for the hair trans­plant. It is called Donor Dom­i­nance. In the hair trans­plant process hair is taken from the donor area and trans­ferred to the bald­ing area. It is essen­tial that a patient have an accept­able amount of hair in the donor region to fill the bald areas. A strip is har­vested from the donor area, and then each fol­li­cle is inserted into the sites that are made to cre­ate the new hair line. In just three to four months the trans­planted hair will start to sprout.