Baldness could be reversed and even prevented

By Aimee Keenan-Greene

Could it be the root cause of baldness?

Digestive disease researcher Dr. Mulugeta Million was studying gut function in mice, that happened to have hair loss, when he discovered inhibiting key stress receptors could lead to a cure for baldness.

Researchers writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation say Androgenetic alopecia (AGA), also known as common baldness, is characterized by a marked decrease in hair follicle size, which could be related to the loss of hair follicle stem or progenitor cells. 

Baldness and graying have also been linked to stress.

Million said the mice had an increase in corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a compound that plays a role in how the body responds to stress.  When the mice were injected with an antagonist -- a compound that blocks CRF, daily for five days, the mice re-grew hair. It was an effect that held up for four months, according to ABC News. The treatment not only reversed hair loss, it also prevented it if started ahead of time. It also restored pigmentation in the skin.

The authors suggest temporarily blocking CRF receptors might also hold potential for male pattern baldness and hair loss due to chemotherapy.

The antagonist beat out the commercial treatment for alopecia, Rogaine, Million and colleagues reported in the Feb. 17 edition of the online journal PLoS One.

Scientists set out to analyze bald and non-bald scalp from AGA individuals for the presence of hair follicle stem and progenitor cells and found:

"Cells expressing cytokeratin15 (KRT15), CD200, CD34, and integrin, α6 (ITGA6) were quantitated via flow cytometry. High levels of KRT15 expression correlated with stem cell properties of small cell size and quiescence. These KRT15hi stem cells were maintained in bald scalp samples. However, CD200hiITGA6hi and CD34hi cell populations - which both possessed a progenitor phenotype, in that they localized closely to the stem cell-rich bulge area but were larger and more proliferative than the KRT15hi stem cells - were markedly diminished. In functional assays, analogous CD200hiItga6hi cells from murine hair follicles were multipotent and generated new hair follicles in skin reconstitution assays. These findings support the notion that a defect in conversion of hair follicle stem cells to progenitor cells plays a role in the pathogenesis of AGA."

Americans spend $3.5 billion a year trying to stop and reverse hair loss, according to CBS News.