NO-SH*T CURE FOR BALDNESS discovered by accident

Boffins in California who were trying to deal with problems of stress in combat veterans say they may have accidentally found a cure for baldness. For now, the miracle drug is known to work only on experimental mice genetically engineered to go bald early, but there is apparently every prospect it will benefit humans too. "Our …

[Smallbrainfield]

Million Mulugeta?

Sounds like a great name for a super villain.

Does he plan to hold the world to ransom with his hair regrowth technology?

[Tim Brown 1]

baldness is not normally a disease

With a few exceptions baldness does not need a 'cure' since it is not a disease. It's simply a part of the natural evolution of the human body and humanity in general to be less 'hairy' Chimps -> us.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: baldness is not normally a disease

Neither is erectile dysfunction, but viagra sells well.

Do not under-estimate the purchasing power of men (or their partners) looking to recapture the glories of youth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation

Don not underestimate the purchasing power of men trying to get laid!

[HRH Martin]

Obviously someone with a full head of a hair

F**k sorting out cancer and the cold, this is the SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mark 125]

...chronically stressed mutant mice

I for one welcome our chronically stressed mutant mice overlords!

[hexx]

hmm

could grow few dreadlocks on my back with this to look like an ancient creature

[Anonymous Coward]

Cure boldness or look like a troglodyte?

It will be interesting how they manage to control it.

Though some people would probably like with little or no control anyway so they have the looks to fit their ego.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dailymash+putin&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[TeeCee]

boldness?

I thought the cure for that was war.

That usually gets any boldness genes out of the breeding population really quickly....

[Gav]

That's not a sweater...

Read what the article says people! "expecting to easily separate their stressed mice by looking for **hairless backs**".

If you wish a hairy back then this is the drug for you. Ain't nothing promised for your folically free bonce.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That's not a sweater..

I can just comb my back hair over my head. Problem solved.

[Ammaross Danan]

Re:

"I can just comb my back hair over my head. Problem solved."

<--- Icon. 'nuff said.

[Anonymous Coward]

too bloody late

At this rate there is going to be hundreds of millions of old giffers moving in slow motion with their zimmer frames flicking robert plant hairdoes as they go.

I dont know wether to laugh or cry.

[Mike 140]

this is a title

So to hide my dome, I cover my head with hairy mice. Have I got that right?

[Fluffykins]

Only if

You are Paul Daniels

[TeeCee]

@Mike 140

Don't say it!

You'll have Elton John wandering around with his ears full of mouse piss.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Mouse piss

Well, that will make a change as it's usually coming out of his mouth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't want mine back....

...saves a fortune in haircuts and shampoo :-)

[Fluffykins]

SHAMpoo?

Hey, I got money. I can afford REAL poo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Don't want mine back

I salute my fellow chrome domed A/C...

Solar panel for a sex machine!

Now where's the fecking sun gone? It's cold!

[Charles Manning]

Just stay away from the pool table

You might get confused with a cue ball and end up with little round blue chalk marks on your head.

[Steve 48]

Sooo....

...how long before the V1agra bunch start touting this?

Paris 'cos, well, erm I wonder if she knows anything about a particualr form of baldness?

[CT]

Hair on mices' backs -> human heads?

Or will the this just cause any remaining hair in humans to grow, like those annoying bristles coming down your nose and out of your ears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively

It will give every man worried about their attractiveness to women a full head of hair and a lovely hairy back.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know nothing

The sad fact is that many men with no hair on their head already have luxuriant growths on their back - nature's double whammy.

And I just bought a .me domain touting referring to my baldness (but not my hairy back) as my personal website. So if this drug works and takes off I will be faced with a renaming job in a few years.

[Anonymous Coward]

When the cure for baldness finally comes

It won't be cheap. The problem we'll have then is that baldness will become a sign of poverty and will become more of a turn-off than it is today.

[davtom]

Baldness

Or, of course, the sign of a confident individual.

[Boris the Cockroach]

I know what will happen

the drug will be suppressed by wig makers and hair transplant clinics so they can carry on grabbing money from us poor baldies

now wheres my tin foil hat... my bald patch is getting cold

[Anonymous Coward]

"he drug will be suppressed by wig makers and hair transplant clinics "

F.A.S.T.

Federation Against Slaphead Treatments.

[John 62]

Lt. Col. Kojak Slaphead III (Bald Brummies Against The Big-Footed Conspiracy Party)

Headslapping!

[John Sager]

One small issue

This may be a cure for stress-related baldness, but what proportion is that? Us slapheads with too much testosterone won't benefit at all. I'm not sure I would want Robert Plant's youthful locks anyway - too much like hard work to maintain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much testosterone

Is that whay baldies are so angry with the likes of me and my lovely locks?

[Jedit]

Hey, you! Over there!

What's it like to have no hair?

Is it hot or is it cold?

I don't know, coz I'm not bald!

[The Indomitable Gall]

I've not heard that one for AGES.

THE mid-eighties post-haircut playground taunt of choice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah!

I'd still clipper it all back. Looks much better than fairy hair-do's on a man.

Just step outside and your surrounded by 'men' with dodgy hair* and they all look the same no matter how much they try to express their individuality.

(*and usually flashing their arses or just forgetting to wear a belt)

[Hollerith 1]

re-grow your hair, chaps

Because you don't want to signal to the ladies that you got given a double-dip of testosterone at conception, eh?

Baldness is oneof those male-pecking-order problems, I think. I don't know a single straight woman who doesn't see it as the sign of a manly man. Maybe I hang out in the wrong circles.

[Anonymous Coward]

But...

Who would wants a head covered with Soft Grey Fur?

[mmm mmm]

Cure for baldness

I'll believe it when I see it; which probably won't be in my life time.

[paulf]

Medical Patents

During research stage, before patent

"Our findings show that a short-duration treatment with this compound causes an astounding long-term hair regrowth in chronically stressed mutant mice,"

After Patent granted and $$ appear in the eyes of the patent holders/controllers:

"Our findings show that a *regular/daily* treatment with this compound causes an astounding but short-term hair regrowth in chronically stressed mutant mice, that keep paying $$/dose."

There fixed it for you.

Its well documented that the cure for baldness will make more money than the cure for cancer...

[Steve Evans]

Or maybe...

"Imagine the boffins' surprise, then, when it turned out that all their bald mice had grown hair again and could not be told apart from the others any longer."

Sounds like somebody's mother accidentally killed them whilst the boffins were away, and replaced them... "They'll never notice" she was heard to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically

The Salk Institute will probably become richer and better known through this discovery than it was for developing the cure for polio.

[Aaron Em]

Oh my God, who outside of bald guys even cares?

I'd much rather they carry on to find a reliable treatment for things like irritable bowel syndrome, which I assume from "gut problems related to stress" is more or less what they were after, than be satisfied with another palliative for old white guys' egos.

I mean seriously. Who ever ended up with ulcerative colitis or had to have half their large bowel removed because their hair fell out?

[The Indomitable Gall]

Chill...

Viagra was discovered by accident when trying to treat heart conditions, and a good commercial pharmaceutical goes a long way to covering the research costs of the whole lab. A little blue pill for baldness will be pricey, because it's cosmetic, and will help keep the costs of real medicine down.

[Jano]

Already solved

I've been stapling mice to my head for years. Works great however you don't have many friends.

[Tom 7]

Baldness has a evolutionary function

in revealing the incredible intelligence of those who can actually notice it in others and enunciate then fact to let those of us with lower observational and social skills avoid evenings of thrilling monosyllabic banter while waiting agog for the next revolutionary biological discovery.

[Maty]

even better ...

How about a pill FOR baldness?

[Andrew Halliwell]

I'm with you on that one

I often wetshave my bonce, nice smooth scalp, lovely feeling.

But it's such a CHORE, gimme a cure for hair!

[The Grump]

Sold !

I'll buy it.

Hell, I'll even camp out in front of the store, so I'll be first in line the next day. Can't risk them selling out, can I ?

Go - because that's what I'll do when it becomes available.

[DI_Wyman]

Well...

..rugger me up!

[nbc]

Grow your own

wookie suit...

[Tigra 07]

I have a cure too!

I can grow hair on soap aswell, surely i can sell this as a possible cure?

Or just leave a thin layer on your head until it grows hair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's focus on the important things!

A cure for baldness is finally here? Can a pill to give me a bigger todger be far behind?

[alyn]

Yes but..

inserting it will hurt!

[Tom 13]

To hell with 15-20 years,

if they design it so a week of injections fixes you up for 1 year they'll be packing them in the treatment rooms.

[Joe User]

How selective is this drug?

If you aren't careful, you could end up with a pelt like a gorilla (or Bigfoot).

[zen1]

pffft who needs hair

When I started losing my hair, it was hell riding a motor or bicycle as I'd usually return looking like Larry, from the three stooges. In retrospect, it causes too much drag at speed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heading for a comb over...

I wonder if this stuff will be on the market by the time my bald patch rejects its current cover?

It'll probably be priced like Viagra, but that's ok, because the Indian pharmaceutical industry will get hold of it, then we can all buy it cheap on the internet.

Anyway, I'm not going to get stressed over this, that'll only cause my hair to fall out even faster!

[Anonymous Coward]

If i bathe in it

Will it turn me into a rug?

[Anonymous Coward]

But?

But will it cause incredible flatulence?

That might be okay for men but how will women cope with it?

[Barry 1]

Viagra hell, give me some hair

If you thought Viagra made money wait till you sell the balance sheets from A-B.

[Martin Budden]

bald is sexy...

...men lose their hair root by root!

[kain preacher]

Combo pill

Viagra plus hair. the old folks homes will be rocking for sure .

[Pascal Monett]

Shhh ! You hear that ?

That is the sound of a tidal wave of entirely new spam heading toward your mailbox.

[longbeast]

Reminds me of something...

This immediately puts me in mind of the introductory scenes from Idiocracy, in which cures for impotence and baldness were given higher priority in the labs than curing stupidity.

A pleasant surprise then, to go on to read that it was an accidental discovery made while trying to genuinely improve people's lives and cure stress related diseases.

A happy story all round.

[bugalugs]

x the link

" Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) signaling pathways are involved in the stress response, and there is growing evidence supporting hair growth inhibition of murine hair follicle in vivo upon stress exposure."

" The non-selective CRF receptors antagonist, astressin-B (5 µg/mouse) injected peripherally once a day for 5 days in 4–9 months old CRF-OE alopecic mice induced pigmentation and hair re-growth that was largely retained for over 4 months. In young CRF-OE mice, astressin-B prevented the development of alopecia that occurred in saline-treated mice. Histological examination indicated that alopecic CRF-OE mice had hair follicle atrophy and that astressin-B revived the hair follicle from the telogen to anagen phase. "

I've always been interested in the relationship between hair and life events. People go grey and bald at different rates and lengthy observation has lead one to the conclusion that connections may exist between hair condition and ( the accumulation of reactions to ) life events of an individual. A former girl-friend with a history of " interesting times " had alopecia ( only in the best places ) apart from anything else. mmmm.

That astressin-B was administered whilst investigating gut problems amongst service personnel adds an interesting frisson, however. A Godwinian example of stress-related internal dis-orders would feature Hitler's severe intestinal discomfort after knocking off his mentor and collaborator Roem in 1934. No more Mr Nice Guy thereafter. Stalin had a very very nasty pants-soiling fall-on-floor-dribbling stroke soon after he decided to free the motherland from its best medical talent, which included his own physicians.

May their like be seen no more.

On the plus side, I've a full head of light brown tinged at the temples. I steer situations and circumstances that curl my gut and I can remember where I was when LBJ became President.

BootQuestion: Did the astressin-B help the veteran's gut problems ?

[Andy 18]

Side effects

Apologies for the serious comment, but isn't that blocking the same chemical that reinforces memories of bad experiences (i.e. makes you learn from your mistakes). So, we will end up with lots of soldiers/bankers with full heads of hair but no common sense.

[Equitas]

In my experience.......

Females young and old have come flocking in increasing numbers as the hair has disappeared.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: In my experience.......

Female what?