Alopecia or hair loss is the medical description of the loss of hair from the head or body, sometimes to the extent of baldness.
ALOPECIA
The study of genetics will improve hair baldness therapy. Preventing baldness is possible. Treatment pharmacological minoxidil and finasteride has opened the way for others medications to treat hair loss. The future, according to experts, is gene therapy for hair loss. If until recently the treatment of baldness and hair loss was a breeding ground for false promises, at present, the scientific way towards solving the alopecia and hair loss has just begun. New derivatives of finasteride as episteride, the turusteride, MK-963, the RU-58841 or the local palicación receptor antagonists of male hormones are being of various tests to treat hair loss.
Hair loss process
GENE THERAPY
According to a review published in August in New England Journal of Medicine , there are now many fronts in the search fo find a remedy for hair loss. On the one hand, the Boston magazine refers to the need to know all key pathophysiological different kinds of alopecia and well design drugs that protect the follicles which causes deterioration stop producing hair. But without a doubt, scholars have put almost all its hope in the possibilities offered by gene therapy. We have already identified one of the genes associated with alopecia universalis, a type baldness very rare in which a mutation in a gene on chromosome 8 causes the affected person has no hair on any part of your body.
According Authors of this review, identify and explain the operation of all the genes involved in androgenetic hair loss will be critical to develop treatments. For Ralf Paus and George Cotsarelis, a dermatologist in Hamburg University and Pennsylvania, “the hair follicle is the way of access more feasible to implement them. For now, being tested on mice local laboratory introduction of liposomes containing DNA capable of regenerate the damaged follicle. If some of these expectations come to fruition, it will mean a step giant in the eradication of what for many is a very serious problem.
The Two Sigma Research Institute, presented last week a study on the psychological impact of mild to moderate hair loss in 403 males between 25 and 45. 63% of respondents feel less attractive and 28% believed that most hair could find mates more easily. More than half of those who said they felt anxious about hair loss, and 14% of those who say not to worry about the problem, have tried some kind of remedy for hairloss. All who are in these circumstances must know that, for now, only two medications have proven effective to treat baldness.
One is minoxidil, a vasodilator of smooth muscle (whose mechanism of action is still unknown) that triggers the hair follicles and get hair loss improved by over 80% of patients, with little effect side. The second is finasteride, released on 1998. This drug inhibits an enzyme that promotes male baldness genetically predisposed. It has been shown that finasteride slows alopecia in 80% of cases, with a good safety profile and few contraindications.