Treatment Options For Male Pattern Baldness
Written by Male Pattern Baldness Writer on December 9th, 2008male pattern baldness will affect greater than 50% of men by the age of 50. The baldness treatment industry is worth about US $1 billion per year. From the 1980s, the use of drugs has increasingly become a realistic option for male pattern baldness treatment. The increasing understanding of the function of the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in male pattern baldness has led to drugs that intervene to prevent DHT from acting on hair follicles.
A large amount of funding is devoted to research into scientifically proven male pattern baldness treatments. This has resulted in breakthroughs involving stem cells and hair multiplication.
While it is easier to prevent healthy hair falling out than to regrow hair in already dormant follicles, there are products that have good success rates with regrowth. These including finasteride (marketed in the U.S. as Propecia) and minoxidil (marketed in the U.S. as Rogaine, and outside the U.S. as Regaine).
Hair multiplication and hair cloning, which extracts hair follicle stem cells, multiplies them in the lab, and injects them into the scalp, has been shown to work in mice. This treatment is currently under development and expected to be available to the public sometime in 2009-2015. Advanced versions of the treatment have expectations of being able to cause hair follicle stem cells to signal the surrounding dormant hair follicles to rejuvenate.