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Comment by dukeofdoom | Hacker News Reader

hair loss?

I know it’s maybe pure vanity and I definitely wish to see cancer cured first but I think the psychological impact of hair loss, especially in young people (<25), is often underestimated.

I think you can easily make that <45 in case of men, and don't forget about women.

For better or worse, it's not the importance of a disease per se that drives innovation, it's money. So assuming that hair loss is the kind of problem that would get people to spend money, then we might see some progress here.

There are many possible ways to quantify importance? And many many stakeholders with often conflicting ideas, demands, and influence.

If someone is spending money on something, they are voting that it is important FOR THEM - and more important than whatever else they would have done with the money.

If politicians/government aren’t spending money on something - despite saying it’s important - that is a very clear signal that their words and their actions do not align. We have words for that too.

If they don’t even bother saying words about it, then that is a clear signal not enough pressure is being applied to make it even a pretend priority no?

I don't have experience in this field...but w/ hair, someone can get grafts which supposedly look better than plugs from decades ago?

It's still very costly, and carries a long recovery period. Your head will look quite gnarly. Of course we never see that because all the celebrities that do can afford to stay out of the public eye for extended periods.

They still have a number of issues.

* They're expensive (~4-8 dollars per follicle) with a single transplant being 1000-5000 follicles. Severely bald men may need multiple

* There is a finite number of follicles that can be transplanted.

* Permanent scarring in the donor zone.

The ultimate treatment would be either hair cloning (still a ways out, very expensive) or a way to reactivate the dormant follicles. Presumably if you could solve the latter you would become very rich very quickly.

Funny story: finasteride was used to treat enlarged prostates (and decrease risk of prostate cancer) before it was observed to reduce male-pattern balding as a side effect.

I think that DNA methylation is a big factor in hair loss as well as hair color changes. There are other disease processes which are also driven by DNA/RNA methylation, so a treatment for any of these might also lead to treatments for all of them. (And I don't really know what I'm talking about and I hope someone with more expertise can add to this)

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