It IS being worked on, but things move quite slow - and there doesn't seem to have been much progress for decades, but:
Cure for hair-loss.
Some might say it's just vanity, but if someone could come up with a cure, and sell it affordably, that would be a multi-billion, maybe even trillion dollar industry.
Going from quite balding (NW4-NW7 in balding terminology) to a full head of hair makes most guys look a solid 10-20 years younger.
The hair-loss industry has been in a permanent state of "in 5 years..." for 30 years now.
And yes, I know there are more pressing issues in the world of medicine, but it's a real problem for tens of millions of people.
And the opposite: permanent hair removal. My partner went through a laser treatment for over an year to get about 60-70% reduction in hair growth. It's immensely painful and time taking process that doesn't work for all akin colors and doesn't guarantee a permanent hair removal. With the current pace of medical research I would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead. But for some reason, it seems like a distant dream.
> would have imagined a simple cream that you apply on your skin and whoosh all the hair follicles would be permanently dead.
I'm glad it's not that easy... I can see the "pranks gone wrong", the "ex-boy friend revenge" and the "shave-your-kid facebook 6-month trend" potential of this..
Male pattern hair loss is a Hard Problem. We understand that it is caused by androgens (maybe DHT?) and affects follicles on certain parts of the head differently.
It's not simple to address something like this. Either you have to replace the follicles (e.g. transplant surgery), or mess around with people's androgens (right now, we can only do that pharmacologically). Drugs that affect people's hormones have a tendency of having longer-lasting effects than those that affect neurotransmitters, which makes treating a cosmetic condition with them somewhat iffy from a "first do no harm" perspective.
Minoxidil (topical) and Finasteride (oral) are the two most reliable pharmaceuticals for pattern hair loss.
- We don't actually understand how minoxidil works, but it probably stimulates blood flow to hair follicles that are going dormant, buying a little more time. It's fairly safe side effects wise, but only addresses some forms of balding (top of head, smaller areas).
- Finasteride affects the production of DHT in men, which can halt or even reverse male pattern hair loss - but a very small subset of patients experience loss of sexual function as a side effect, which can be permanent. This makes it iffy to recommend to everyone without reservation.
The worst thing about both of these medications is that they have to be taken regularly, or else the hair loss will resume.
Until we more fine-tuned ways of tinkering with people's hormones or editing their genes, I don't think that we'll have a truly consequence-free cure for hair loss. Medical technology is just not there yet.
...That said, you're absolutely right that there's a lot of money in selling people cures for hair loss. In fact, if you just take the two drugs I mentioned above, explain them to men on the internet in clear language, and charge a small premium (3x the price of generic) to sell it to them... Boom! You got yerself a startup that just raised a $47M Round B! https://www.keeps.com/
Good point. The fact that it would be multi-billion industry means that it's probably super hard. I may be wrong but when people claim we're on the verge of curing ageing, I like to point that we're not even able to cure hair-loss.
Out of curiosity, what is wrong with the solutions available today? I see Elon Musk before and after and his procedure appeared to have gone great. Is that just because he could afford a more expensive procedure?
Musk had a hair transplant, which is quite expensive and a quite involved procedure. The results are also highly dependent on how bald you are, the type of hair you have, and even the doctor who does it. If you accidentally pick a bad doctor your hair transplant can end up looking awful. It also doesn't make your balding stop, so you may continue balding and need another hair transplant in the future. Hair transplants treats the symptom of hair loss but not the problem.
The holy grail would be a pill or lotion you could take and truly stop/reverse hair loss. There are some existing pills (finasteride) and lotions (rogaine) but they don't work for many, and have their own issues as well.
Plus, your head looks like shit for at least a week, maybe much longer, depending on individual. It's a gamble. And it thins out the hair in the back of your head (known as the "donor area"). That's probably why the back of Trump's head looks dodgy in the wind.
Hair loss is important in the IT field because age is frowned upon in our industry. It directly affects our career.
This is surely a sensitive topic and I hope I'm not being too insensitive here, but I've personally never frowned upon someone who has less hair than me. Even if my hair is thicker than that of most people, that only means I have less testosterone in my body that you. It means you are more of a man than I am. Everyone knows that. I say, own it!
I'm not saying people "should be" judged on hair, but in practice they are. If you look old, you score lower in IT interviews. I'm just reporting human nature, not making it. I don't have access to humanity's source code.
Fields like medicine and law value age. I'm jealous of those of fields. In IT you have a grey arrow on your back and have to consciously try to counter it, such as acting enthusiastic about dumb fads that management falls for.
Youngbees don't know better and lick them up with a smile: "Yum yum, block-chain q-bit microservice no-sql serverless node.js++ for our little contract tracking app! Woohoo!" I know better, but STFU to not look like an old-tech-loving geezer.
The holy grail in hair-loss would be one-time fix, or more optimistically, one pill a day.
Today, just to stall your hair-loss / keep hair, you'll need to be on minoxidil (foam / liquid, twice a day) and finasteride and/or dutasteride (pill). Though many will use more products - and as of lately, microneedling your scalp has gained popularity.
Some of these meds have adverse health effects, but in the end - they can be expensive and time-consuming, and results range from poor/no effect, to good.
A hair-transplant could cost you between $10k-$50k, depending on where you get one. Musk has had a HT, but probably needs to stay on the meds mentioned above, to halt any other loss that's going on.
Long story short: The current solutions are expensive and time consuming. It becomes a lifestyle / daily routine, like with other chronic illnesses. And the effects can disappear if/when you can no longer afford them.
On the flip side: I embraced the fact that I would lose all my hair and just started to shave my head. Now I have so much less to ever worry about: haircuts (diy buzzer in basement), shampooing (there is nothing to shampoo) and styling (there is one default style that is not user configurable)
Does anyone know why we can't just implant nylon hair follicles with some biologically compatible glue/plugs?
Edit: Just searched up synthetic hair implants
The FDA banned the synthetic fibers in the US in 1983. The ban resulted because widespread use in the 1970s led to numerous complications including recurrent infections, rejection, contact dermatitis, granulomatous hypersensitivity reactions and cyst formation. Not to mention frequent loss of fibers from breakage.
The synthetic fibers continue to be manufactured in Europe where they are still in use.
That sounds like a wig, only harder to wash, and with added pain if/when it gets stuck in something, and a bigger fire hazard than either a wig or natural hair.
I’m still a bit surprised nobody is trying to tissue-culture skin with follicles that don’t go bald in the same way. Artists have already done the tissue culture part with a different goal in mind, and the tech in this area has been developing rapidly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victimless_Leather
I believe there was a japanese company named 'organ technologies' that was trying that using organ cloning [0] - a brief google of shows sad webpage names like "Director of research Dr. Tsuji resigns from position"
Balding is not vanity. It is a marker for serious health problems. Balding men are several times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, for example.
Yes. You can look up scientific papers linking balding with health issues. We know premenopausal women have much lower incidence of heart problems than men. Some ethnicities of men like east asians also have better heart health and incidentally have better hair than caucasian men.
Correlation does not mean causation. I'd actually be very surprised if fixing the hair addressed any correlated heart disease. The hair would be a downstream symptom, almost certainly.
This is just plain false. Google attractiveness and bald. Lowering your possible attractiveness by 75% to 50% is not an easy choice. Your confidence has nothing to do with it. Especially in a world where people are chosen via pictures. It works for some men. I might be attracted to DuWayne Johnson but there are plenty of men who look awful bald.
The confidence I gained from shaving my head far outweighed any real/perceived loss of attractiveness.
Walking around trying to hide the fact I was going bald was soul destroying. Shaving it was owning it and it honestly set me free.
Tough question: Isn't baldness a genetic trait just like the pigment of the skin? Are you X% less attractive if you have a certain pigment of the skin?
Person's baldness was given to them at birth. They had no say in it just like the pigmentation color. What's the objective difference?
Yeah, baldness must have a use / evolutionary advantage (cooling, maybe) and isn't an illness. Like having 2 arms and 2 legs, beeing gay or having black skin color.
Rather than obsess over something you can’t fix (unless and if there is ever a cure), it is better to accept reality and move on. Losing your hair is very low on the list of bad things that can happen to you - I don’t even need to bother listing worse things. If hair loss is your biggest problem, maybe a healthy dose of perspective is the cure!
> Rather than obsess over something you can’t fix (unless and if there is ever a cure), it is better to accept reality and move on
The entire history of human progress is about finding solutions to problems that seemed like they couldn't be solved. Humans will always try to shape reality to their liking.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw
That's just your opinion though. It's certainly not mine. In fact, I think bald people look cool. I also think a lot of them have much more confidence in themselves than I do and I have a full set of hair.
All people have hills to climb, though. I just wish people who are insecure because of their lack of fur on top wasn't. Only douche-bags will ever hold that against you. Don't try to please those people. They are jerks.
I said 50-75% not 100%. How many other things in life would you lower your chances of success 50-75% if you could easily avoid it? The polls show 75% to 44% of women don't find bald men attractive. I'm going to guess those numbers are worse for bald women. Solving baldness is probably much easier than changing culture.
This is one of the most copied and pasted pieces of advice on the internet. Just shave it, grow a beard, and become muscular! Not everyone looks good without hair, some people have faces that look young instead of manly, can't grow a full beard, etc. Plenty of reasons men still hate losing hair.
It’s because it’s true! You can let going bald ruin your life but there is so much more to life than a full head of hair! You know what I wish would be different? My back which has been totally destroyed since I was 16 with messed up discs. Losing hair would be a lot preferable! But at the same time, I’m very happy I’m not like my cousin with her debilitating disease that will kill her before 30 that has left her family shattered since she was 8 years old!
Cure for hair-loss.
Some might say it's just vanity, but if someone could come up with a cure, and sell it affordably, that would be a multi-billion, maybe even trillion dollar industry.
Going from quite balding (NW4-NW7 in balding terminology) to a full head of hair makes most guys look a solid 10-20 years younger.
The hair-loss industry has been in a permanent state of "in 5 years..." for 30 years now.
And yes, I know there are more pressing issues in the world of medicine, but it's a real problem for tens of millions of people.