Last month, I decided to stop covering medical items of interest in my once a month “brief items of interest” posts. However, this week there are two new interesting developments in the medical field that also have implications for hair regrowth.
— The first man to have his genes edited inside his body (US); and successful skin epidermis replacement via gene modification (Germany). Both developments are major groundbreaking medical breakthroughs. Any skin replacement or skin regeneration success in humans will likely come with intact working new hair follicles.
— The world’s first head transplant between two dead people (corpses) has just taken place in China. It happened under the supervision of Dr. Xiaoping Ren (with input from Dr. Sergio Canavero), both of whom I have covered on this blog in the past. Since the procedure was undertaken between two cadavers (i.e., dead people), it is still not considered a proper head transplant. Dr. Canavero claims that the transplantation of a live human’s head to a deceased human’s still working body (i.e., a true “full body” transplant) is now imminent. Lots of coverage about this in the media today and continued skepticism (but significantly less so than in the past). Is Dr. Canavero just in it for the fame or is he for real?
And in Hair Research Updates:
— Excellent effort by “Hellouser” in his updates from the recent World Congress for Hair Research. An absolute must read.
— Dr. Rachita Dhurat is at it again. This time, her team makes the surprising conclusion that “A caffeine-based topical liquid should be considered as not inferior to minoxidil 5% solution in men with androgenetic alopecia“. There have been a number of studies over the years that suggest caffeine to beneficial towards hair growth. The stimulating effects of caffeine can reduce hair loss in some cases.
— Latest Aclaris patent grants covering baricitinib, decernotinib, ruxolitinib, and tofacitinib. It seems like all four can end up being used for treating androgenetic alopecia, especially tofacitinib.
— Reader “omg” posted a very interesting link today to a paper co-authored by renowned hair loss researchers Dr. Neil Saddick and Dr. Valerie Callender and others titled “New Insight Into the Pathophysiology of Hair Loss Trigger a Paradigm Shift in the Treatment Approach“. Lots of discussion in there about the role of inflammation in hair loss. The whole paper can be downloaded from the above link.
— Histogen and Dr. Gail Naughton covered in Allure Magazine. Key quote:
“The U.S. trials are planned to commence in 2018; we expect it to gain approval in Mexico first, perhaps in 2020, and then in the U.S. sometime after that”.
— UK male model Jeremy McConnell gets a hair transplant and beard transplant in Turkey.
