BALDNESS – IT’S COOL BUT WORTH FIGHTING AGAINST

Curing baldness is the holly grail of medical research in the eyes of many men who have male pattern baldness. While there have been significant advances in the world of hair replacement, an actual cure is at this point, just a baldness researcher’s (and bald man’s) dream. But there is an alternative to seeking solace in minoxidil, finasteride, toupees or follicular unit hair replacement surgery: just be bald and be happy.

We live in a time when many men who are not even beginning to bald, voluntarily shave their heads because they think it makes them look better, or they think it makes them cool. And most of the time they’re right. Bald guys are cooler. Bald guys do look better.

Just think of all the cool, good-looking famous gentlemen we have around now: Michael Jordan, Bruce Willis, Patrick Stewart, Vin Diesel, Ving Rhames, Matthew McConaughey, Sanath Jaisurya, Zinadene Zidane, and back home Anupam Kher, Shetty, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Veerendra Sehwag to name but a few. Not one of these guys would be helped by a full head of hair. In fact, they fall under the category of men about whom a person could say, “Wow, it would be a real tragedy if his hair ever grew back”. In truth though, while there is nothing to be ashamed of in trying the available methods to restore lost hair; the most secure, most confident and probably happy guy, is the one who doesn’t spend time fretting over losing his.

For this person, going bald is just another interesting aspect of life to experience, and like many others, offers the opportunity for internal growth and personal advancement. This gentleman is not overly concerned with what’s on his outside. He knows that his real worth and most of what he is, is inside. He doesn’t see how losing his hair will make any difference in his ability to accomplish the things that he wants to. He knows that while it’s nice to have a full head of hair, it’s not going to get a degree for him, or decide the quality of his relationships, or get him the career he wants or ultimately determine whether he is able to do the things he loves to. Nor will his lack of hair in any way detract from any aspect of any of these things. This guy gets a bit of a chuckle out of the lengths that others will go to in order to avoid or remedy being bald. He doesn’t see the point of the expense of topicals. He’s probably mildly embarrassed for those fellows with comb-overs. He doesn’t want others guessing whether or not he’s wearing a toupee. And he wouldn’t consider anything as drastic as hair replacement surgery. He doesn’t begrudge others these choices or ridicule them for the simple reason that they’re just not for him.

Of course, if a true cure for baldness ever materializes, some of these men will choose to use it. But there will probably be plenty of others who will choose not to. Because some of us simply look better without hair. I can not imagine if a few of our past teachers would ever have that Professorial look if they had a crown full of hairs! Hairlessness has given them that unique dignity, gravity and solemnity that is so hard to find in the hirsute. Hair Transplant surgeons are my friends, but let them hunt the less confident and the unhappy lot!

And besides, hair requires care and upkeep. It has to be shampooed and combed and brushed, and conditioned and cut. With bald, you just shave it. So there you have it. It’s cool, and virile, and sexy and hot to be bald. If you’re losing your hair or even if you’re just tired of taking care of it; give bald a try. You may like it so much that you’ll never go back to being hairy.

An online troll through some hair-loss forums led me to a few interesting underground “remedies,” including scalp tattooing (camouflage that bald spot!), caffeine-laced shampoos (make those follicles so jittery they have to produce something!), and various herbal concoctions containing capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers hot (flush out your scalp with fresh, oxygenating blood!). Then there are official hair growing drugs – minoxidil, finasteride, micronutrients etc. And then off course there is hair transplantation surgery! But the future of hair restoration on bald heads is an interesting one. Some answers in the realm of research are:

1. JAK Inhibitors: Healthy hair grows in cycles. A follicle produces a hair; the hair hangs out looking sexy for a while; then the hair falls out. The follicle goes temporarily dormant before sprouting anew. The number of cycles is supposed to be unlimited, but in balding men, the new hair grows back finer each time, until it’s like peach fuzz. The hair isn’t gone; it’s just imperceptible. JAK inhibitors are drugs which target inflammatory cell pathways, to stimulate follicles back into robust growth cycles. Whether it’ll work on real men remains to be seen.
Since the drugs are already FDA approved for other purposes, they have cleared major safety hurdles and could be in clinical trials for hair loss soon.

2. Stem Cells: For quite some time, researchers have been betting big on the potential for stem cells to grow human hair. But when hair-follicle stem cells are grown in the lab, they lose their capacity to induce new hair follicles when placed back into the scalp. Researchers have hit a roadblock here and are trying to find ways to restore their inductive properties. Researchers have grown new hair follicles by using a type of human skin cell derived from pluripotent stem cells in mice but human trials are awaited.

3. Fibroblast Growth Factor: Science says that we’re born with all the hair follicles we’ll ever have, and some of us are simply destined to go bald. However,a possible way to grow new follicles by wounding the scalp and treating it with a substance called Fgf9, or fibroblast growth factor 9 is being tried. This has succeeded in mice but the problem is that humans don’t have much Fgf9. The solution is a combo treatment that involves “micro-wounding” the scalp and then applying a drug with synthetic Fgf9.

4. Hair-Follicle Engineering: Hair transplant surgeries rather than creating new hair, merely move existing follicles from the back and sides of the head to the front of the scalp. But what if we could take just 100 follicles and clone them into 100,000—the number most men are born with on the scalp our job would be done! The Japanese have already done it and the field of regenerative medicine is rapidly advancing, so one might have the opportunity to become successful hair farmer soon.

5. Quorum Sensing: Researchers at the University of Southern California have discovered that removing about 200 individual hairs induced the regrowth of about 1,200 dormant hairs—again, only in mice. The science behind this has to do with a process called “quorum sensing,” where a group of stem cells responds to an injury afflicting its colleagues. The resulting inflammation signals the surviving stem cells to wake the hell up, get busy, and grow more hair. So be patient. Someday soon we may finally have a legitimate reason to go pluck ourselves. 

We however did not discuss the cause of baldness, to avoid embarrassing the baldies. Scientific research has shown that at around the 4^th and 5^th decade the hair follicles in the scalp convert all their pent up potential energy into kinetic energy and start drilling in – through the layers of the scalp, through the bony skull in search of grey matter. If they find it, they turn grey and if they don’t, they just fall off!