What Hair Loss Treatments Hold in the Future

Research on hair diseases and general hair biology was a relatively small even about 20 years ago, but that has been changing in recent years. Since balding and thinning hair does not represent the threat of a life-threatening illness or one that’s physically debilitating, it makes sense that it’s less researched than many other medical conditions. But hair loss can have an impact on the lives of those suffering from it, and female hair loss has been devastating for some women.

There are a few reasons we’re seeing more growth with the hair loss treatment industry—partially because we live in a free market economy that runs by supply and demand. There is obviously a strong demand for hair loss prevention products and anything that will help promote hair growth, so that has helped strengthened research. But the more important reason is because the growth cycle of hair—the shedding and regrowth—provides a way to use specific molecular biology techniques like gene therapy and cloning as a new growth cycle begins. As we learn more about a specific area in the body, we usually soon realize this new knowledge can be used in another area as well as everything is connected in some way.

What to Expect

Medications that prevent hair loss continue to improve. One of the main medications available now is finasteride. It helps decrease DHT in the blood which can cause baldness or thinning hair in people with inherited patterned baldness. But there is another medication, dutasteride, on the market that some hope will work even better for more people than finasteride because it’s able to block a higher percentage of DHT. Dutasteride is currently used in men with an enlarged prostate.

In the future, it’s likely we’ll have hair loss solutions that can conceal baldness and will be able to effectively block DHT from getting to the hair follicles at the same time. By directly targeting the cells that are the main cause of hair loss, we would be able to reduce the side effects from medications that are ingested and end up affecting the whole body instead of just the area that needs to be treated.

Other hopeful future treatments include cloning hair follicles, gene therapy, and stem cells. But unfortunately right now, these treatments are probably years away from commercial use.