Breakthrough cure for baldness: 100% of male mice regrew fur with new treatment
Researchers at San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid have developed a cure for androgenetic alopecia, commonly known as pattern hair loss.
An estimated 80 million Americans — 50 million men and 30 million women — experience some form of alopecia, although it affects women differently than men.
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Researchers at San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid have developed a cure for androgenetic alopecia — commonly known as pattern hair loss.
Phimchanok – stock.adobe.com
Men usually go through a receding hairline and bald spots, whereas women get thinner at the part line but rarely go fully bald.
In the study — published in the journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy — researchers used a combo of fat‑tissue-derived stem cells and the energy molecule ATP to reverse hair loss in mice, with shocking results.
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All of the male mice grew back their coats. Half had full regrowth, while the other half had intensive regrowth.
Among females, a whopping 90% saw intense or complete hair revival.
Eduardo López Bran, head of the Dermatology Department at the Hospital Clínico San Carlos, explained that their special method 'stimulates hair regeneration by combining the regenerative capacity of the former with the energy provided by the latter. This synergy favors the recovery of the hair follicle, promoting hair growth.'
While the findings will need to be replicated in human trials, the results pave a promising way forward in the fight against hair loss.
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All of the male mice grew back their coats. Among females, a whopping 90% saw intense or complete hair revival.
Javier – stock.adobe.com
'In the future, we will be able to offer new solutions that allow us to meet patients' expectations, allowing them access to new treatments that prioritize their well-being,' Eduardo López Bran said.
It's an exciting development in an area where there's plenty of room for growth.
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While hair transplant surgery is on the rise, many people don't realize that it actually often takes several procedures to achieve the desired result.
'An alarming trend is patients who now go to perform a hair transplant by a physician who does not consult the patient about his or her hair loss nor is he actively involved in the surgery,' Texas facial plastic surgeon and hair restoration expert Dr. Samuel Lam previously told The Post.
He noted that this troubling practice is 'most rampant' in Turkey — where hair transplant surgery has exploded due to its relative affordability — but it is 'also extremely prevalent in the US, unfortunately.'
Meanwhile, some men have been vocal about how post-finasteride syndrome (PFS) — a condition in which someone experiences severe side effects after they stop using finasteride — has completely upended their lives.
One woman even recently chronicled how PFS destroyed her husband's sex drive — and ended their marriage.
Researchers are racing to find new, safer and more affordable hair loss treatments, inventing non-hormonal pills and gummies and repurposing older drugs to find a sustainable solution.
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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
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States and rural health advocacy groups warn that cutting Medicaid — a program serving millions of low-income and disabled Americans — would hit already fragile rural hospitals hard and could force hundreds to close, stranding some people in remote areas without nearby emergency care. More than 300 hospitals could be at risk for closure under the 'Big Beautiful Bill Act,' according to an analysis by the Cecil G. Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which tracks rural hospital closures. Even as Congress haggled over the controversial bill, a health clinic in the southwest Nebraska town of Curtis announced Wednesday it would close in the coming months, in part blaming the anticipated Medicaid cuts. Bruce Shay of Pomfret, Conn., fears he and his wife could be among those left in the lurch. At 70, they're both in good health, he said. But that likely means that if either needs to go to a hospital, 'it's going to be an emergency.' Day Kimball Hospital is nearby in Putnam, but it has faced recent financial challenges. Day Kimball's CEO R. Kyle Kramer acknowledged that the bill passed Thursday — estimated to cut federal Medicaid spending in rural areas by $155 billion over 10 years — would further hurt his facility's bottom line. Roughly 30% of Day Kimball's current patients receive Medicaid benefits, a figure that's even higher for specific, critical services like obstetrics and behavioral health. 'An emergency means I'm 45 minutes to an hour away from the nearest hospital, and that's a problem,' Shay said. And he and his wife wouldn't be the only ones having to make that trip. 'You've got, I'm sure, thousands of people who rely on Day Kimball Hospital. If it closed, thousands of people would have to go to another hospital,' he said. 'That's a huge load to suddenly impose on a hospital system that's probably already stretched thin.' Rural hospitals have long operated on the financial edge, especially in recent years as Medicaid payments have continuously fallen below the actual cost to provide healthcare. More than 20% of Americans live in rural areas, where Medicaid covers 1 in 4 adults, according to the nonprofit KFF, which studies healthcare issues. President Trump's $4.5-trillion tax breaks and spending cuts plan would worsen rural hospitals' struggles by cutting a key federal program that helps states fund Medicaid payments to healthcare providers. To help offset the lost tax revenue, the package includes $1.2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs — cuts they insist only root out fraud and waste in the system. But public outcry over Medicaid cuts led Republicans to include a provision that will provide $10 billion annually to buttress rural hospitals over the next five years, or $50 billion in total. 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No state stands to lose more than Kentucky. The report estimates the Bluegrass State would lose a whopping $12.3 billion — nearly $5 billion more than the next state on the list. That's because the bill ends Kentucky's unique Medicaid reimbursement system and reduces it to Medicare reimbursement levels. Kentucky currently has one of the lowest Medicare reimbursement rates in the country. It also has one of the highest poverty rates, leading to a third of its population being covered by Medicaid. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a two-term Democrat widely seen as a potential candidate for president in 2028, said the bill would close 35 hospitals in his state and pull healthcare coverage for 200,000 residents. 'Half of Kentucky's kids are covered under Medicaid. They lose their coverage and you are scrambling over that next prescription,' Beshear said during an appearance on MSNBC. 'This is going to impact the life of every single American negatively. It is going to hammer our economy.' Beck and Haigh write for the Associated Press. Haigh reported from Hartford, Conn.
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
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Boston Globe
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The search for around 2,600 missing Americans from the Vietnam War has been a first-order issue for Washington and Hanoi ever since the conflict ended. But on that humid June afternoon in northern Vietnam, grave diggers with doctorates were gathering the bones of Vietnam's own missing warriors, whose ranks exceed 1 million, with an urgency and reverence befitting a task long overdue. The scientists were there to advance a recent breakthrough by putting it to use. A few months earlier, they and their partners — including the International Commission on Missing Persons, in The Hague — had figured out the chemistry and computing required to identify remains as badly degraded as those often found in Vietnam's acidic, tropical soil. For the first time, tiny snips of DNA taken from bones up to 70 years old could be used to link the country's fallen soldiers to distant relatives, unlocking lost truths and deeper healing. Families from Vietnam's north and south, their anguish still festering 50 years after the war ended, could find reconciliation in graves where their war dead lie together. Americans still unaccounted for might be found, too, as Vietnam's identification efforts expanded. Methods honed locally could also extend far beyond Vietnam, to help identify those lost to wildfires, typhoons, or other natural disasters worldwide. Advertisement 'Groundbreaking,' said Tim McMahon, director of DNA operations for the US Defense Department. That's how he described the new methods of accounting for the lost, adding: 'It's the next jump in identification.' Advertisement One thing that DNA analysis requires, however, is practice. Repetition at scale improves technique. But for Vietnam and the world, the opportunity that comes with the largest human identification project on the planet is now being threatened by the Trump administration's hostility toward foreign aid. 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Experts such as Thomas Parsons have tried to fill gaps in the effort. Wiry and lean, with a frame easily lost in a lab coat, Parsons is a globally recognized authority on forensic genetics and the international commission's lead scientist in Vietnam. Advertisement In March, at the lab near Hanoi, he resembled a mountain climber with no mountain to climb. On a table, a NextSeq 1000, a 'high-throughput' sequencing system delivered in November at a cost of about $220,000, sat idle. It was one of many sophisticated machines covered in plastic after USAID's elimination. Parsons and his Vietnamese colleagues stressed that US foreign aid was not a handout, but rather a way to train Vietnam's researchers for an ambitious task using new genetic methods and technologies. 'We've already achieved a lot,' said Tran Trung Thanh, a molecular biologist and the lab's deputy director. 'We need more time to apply it in practice.' 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