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.

Pre­serv­ing your ideal hair­line is an art. Roughly 25% of men begin los­ing hair by age 20, while a full two-thirds expe­ri­ence hair loss by age 60.

To avoid undue stress, effec­tive plan­ning begins by learn­ing to view hair loss treat­ment as a mul­ti­far­i­ous dis­ci­pline that involves styling, pre­scrip­tion drugs, and for some, light sur­gi­cal treat­ments (HTS).

Depend­ing on your bald­ing pattern/rate, main­tain­ing your hair­line ide­ally begins when your first begin los­ing hair. For most, the first step is med­ical treat­ment. In Amer­ica, the FDA has approved only two drugs,finasteride (Prope­cia) and minox­i­dil (Rogaine) for use in hair loss. Men can use both the drugs but women can only use Rogaine and not Prope­cia. There is also a generic option that involves split­ting (non-scored) pills.

For some, hair restora­tion surgery is pre­ferred, which involves graft­ing hairs from parts of the scalp unaf­fected by DHT.  While this gen­er­ally a low-risk pro­ce­dure, con­sult­ing with your physi­cian ahead of time is recommended.

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.

Hair restora­tion pro­ce­dures have changed in the decades since they were first done. The ear­lier meth­ods of using hair plugs were not accept­able to soci­ety. Hair trans­plant patients appeared to have doll like hair. Now hair trans­plants are more nat­ural look­ing due to the inno­v­a­tive meth­ods being used, such as micro grafting.

In gen­eral, most hair trans­plant surg­eries today involve micro graft­ing. Micro grafts hold about 1–3 or four hair fol­li­cles. Older style hair grafts often held on aver­age a dozen hair fol­li­cles. These new micro grafts are only pos­si­ble because skilled sur­geons have refined their method of extract­ing them.

Micro grafts are use­ful in hair trans­plant surgery because they can give the hair a quite nat­ural appear­ance. The hair emerges from the scalp in the most nat­ural way, with the same num­ber of hairs that nature intended. If the pro­ce­dure is done cor­rectly, no one can tell the difference.

Pre­vi­ously, when hair plugs were used, doc­tors did the hair trans­plant surg­eries much dif­fer­ently. They used an instru­ment called a trephine to cut cir­cu­lar grafts from 2mm to 5mm in diam­e­ter. These plugs were inserted into the bald­ing area.

Finally, the micro grafts will be fin­ished by being divided into indi­vid­ual grafts by using a stere­omi­cro­scope. The sur­gi­cal team will make a vari­ety of grafts from eight-shaft mini grafts to one or two shaft micro grafts. These will be moved dur­ing hair trans­plant to the recip­i­ent sites so that the hair will have a nat­ural hair­line with full­ness on top.

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.

If you notice thin­ning or even large amounts of hair falling out, and have been under a lot of pres­sure or stress, this could be a sign of stress-induced hair loss.

Hair loss that is stress-induced is caused by a con­di­tion called tel­o­gen efflu­vium. Phys­i­cal stress, emo­tional stress relat­ing to a death in the fam­ily, preg­nancy, severe weight loss and surgery can all cause stress– induced hair loss. The hair typ­i­cally grows back when the emo­tional or phys­i­cal stress is resolved, although it can take months. For some peo­ple intense stress may trig­ger a type of hair loss called alope­cia areata, which causes the hair not to grow. The areas that are affected by alope­cia will start to fall out. The hair may grow back, but because the white blood cells are attack­ing the hair fol­li­cle and my cause a repet­i­tive cycle of hair loss. If stress is con­tribut­ing to your hair loss there are a few ways to reduce your stress level; exer­cise, yoga and med­i­ta­tion are all exam­ples of ways you can reduce anx­i­ety and stress levels.

Graft­Cyte improves the heal­ing process after a hair trans­plant in sev­eral ways.

                                                      Effect of Graft­cyte on Growth Trans­planted Hair

                                                        (0 = none, 1 = mild, 2 = mod­er­ate, 3 = extensive)

It is used as a post — oper­a­tive reg­i­men, it aids in faster heal­ing of the trans­plants and ear­lier regrowth of the hair. Graft­Cyte is a cop­per — pep­tide prod­uct, when a Graft­Cyte dress­ing is placed on the trans­planted grafts it enhances heal­ing of the fol­li­cle shaft. It also results in less post — oper­a­tive shed­ding along with more imme­di­ate hair growth. Some patients can expe­ri­ence new hair growth in 6 weeks, ver­sus the nor­mal 10 to 14 weeks when not using Graft­Cyte. The amount of weeks a patient expe­ri­ences crust­ing is greatly decreased from the nor­mal 10 to 14 days to just 5 days.  Patients have even reported that the use of Graft­Cyte made their hair have greater body, shine and texture.

Alope­cia Uni­ver­salis can be char­ac­ter­ized as hair loss through­out the body. Alope­cia Uni­ver­salis can be defined as the most severe alope­cia con­di­tion, indi­vid­u­als with this con­di­tion expe­ri­ence total hair loss of the scalp and body.  Many indi­vid­u­als with alope­cia uni­ver­salis are born with the con­di­tion but are healthy oth­er­wise. There are not enough stud­ies to ver­ify specif­i­cally what causes alope­cia uni­ver­salis, what has been dis­cov­ered is that this dis­or­der is inher­ited as an auto­so­mal reces­sive trait.  It is caused by a muta­tion in a gene, the “hair­less” gene only found in peo­ple with this dis­or­der. Aside from genetic ten­den­cies, the con­tribut­ing causes of alope­cia uni­ver­salis are not known. Fin­ger­nails and toe­nails can also be affected. Symp­toms in the nails are pinprick-like inden­ta­tion to sever dis­tor­tion of the entire nail. The lack of body hair leaves area like scalp, eyes and nasal cav­ity par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­a­ble, it is impor­tant that those with the dis­or­der take extra care to pro­tect them­selves from the sun and bac­te­ria to avoid get­ting infec­tions or skin cancer.

Aes­thetic tal­ent is vital in a hair trans­plant sur­geon. It is impor­tant to under­stand the con­cept of design and how best to make the hair­line (the frontal line on the upper fore­head) as nat­ural as pos­si­ble. A truly well designed, aes­thetic hair­line is cre­ated with one fol­lic­u­lar graft at a time on the hair­line. This area of the head is called the “hair­line zone” and it cov­ers about 1.5 cm at the front, it is the most appar­ent part of the head thus mak­ing it the most impor­tant to appear nat­ural. The grafts that are being place as the front hair line are stag­gered in a pat­tern that will appear com­pletely nat­ural as it grows.  The hair is placed with spe­cial atten­tion and detail as well; this is done so that when the hair grows it will lay in such a man­ner that it flows smoothly along this line.