Drug can reduce a specific type of baldness, could it one day reduce them all?
A new type of pharmaceutical is now providing support for alopecia areata. While this autoimmune disease does devastate the lives of many people across the country, there are new prevention methods which are showing promise in the form of a pharmaceutical. The pharmaceutical solution to alopecia is actually creating hope for those that suffer from the condition. It's allowing patients to regrow their eyebrows, hair and more and it could be just a short amount of time before other types of baldness could also be treated using similar methods.
In one such case of a pharmaceutical trial Mike Thomas at the age of 40 became bald almost overnight with the autoimmune disease. Alopecia severely affected his lifestyle as a real estate agent and it would be years before pharmaceutical studies would actually give him all but potentially regrowing his hair once again.
In a study conducted by Stanford, Yale and Columbia 65 patients including Thomas took a pharmaceutical pill called Xeljaz which is generally prescribed to people with rheumatoid arthritis. Over half of the participants in the study were able to see hair regrowth recovering more than 50% of their loss tear over time. Jakafi another drug for cancer treatment was also showcased for its hair regrowth properties. Both of these are going into clinical trials for use with alopecia.
Although his hair grew back with a receding hairline and he was able to receive his natural head of hair is a 47-year-old man.
It could still be some time before male pattern baldness is something that can be combated. This is because hair follicles still persist in people with alopecia but with male pattern baldness a hair follicle is completely gone. By treating male pattern baldness a young age however it could ensure that hair follicles continue their growth rather than die off.
With future testing using this drug we could potentially see an end to early male pattern baldness if individuals were willing to use drug treatments early on.
Hairfear - 10-24-2016
