There is hope for men suffering from receding hairlines and thinning hair. According to NYC Today, hair loss and male pattern baldness plague over fifty percent of men aging above fifty years old. As per records, thirty percent of men over age thirty experience scalp hair loss. However, science has once again rescued humanity.
A recent study has found that certain arthritis drugs can help in rapid and healthy hair growth. These drugs might work as creams that can be applied on skin for fast results. The significant discovery paves the way for treatment of baldness.
According to a team from the Columbia University Centre in the U.S., two drugs that are known to inhibit the Janus kinase (JAK) family of enzymes can actually aid in restoring hair growth in multiple cases of hair loss. These two JAK inhibitors, pointed out by the researchers, have been previously certified by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ruxolitinib has been approved for the treatment of blood diseases while tofacitinib for rheumatoid arthritis.
The researchers serendipitously discovered the effect of the JAK inhibitors on hair follicles when they were studying alopecia areata-a type of hair loss caused by an autoimmune attack on the hair follicles. It has been reported last year that JAK inhibitors shut off the indicator that triggers the autoimmune attack, and that they restore hair growth in some people with disorder when taken orally.
Angela M. Christiano, one of the team's researchers, related that they noticed that mice grew more hair when the drugs were applied directly to the skin than when given internally. This just implied that JAK inhibitors might have straight upshot on the hair follicles aside from stopping the immune attack.
Hair follicles normally do not generate hair constantly but relatively by cycling between resting and growing stages. However, when the researchers examined the normal mouse hair follicles closely, they found that JAK inhibitors rapidly awakened inactive follicles out of dormancy. The mice were treated for five days with one of the JAK inhibitors and exhibited amazing results of new grown hair within 10 days. The drugs also produced longer hair from human hair follicles grown in culture and grafted on mice's skin.
On the other hand, Christiano admits that more research is needed to completely conclude that JAK truly have the ability to promote hair growth, particularly on the scalp. Nonetheless, the study gives a brighter hope in the field of hair loss treatment.
