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Comment by drumhead | Hacker News Reader

A cure for baldness is one of those holy grail drugs like a drug to treat obesity, or a drug to de-age your skin. The profit on this is potentially vast and Im assuming the 10 year patent limit wont apply to it.

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It’s worth mentioning that we actually did get the holy grail drugs for treating obesity - Ozempic and it’s generic versions…

It is a huge step forward, but there still are side effects, just like there are with finasteride.

Note that there are actually a BUNCH of different formulations that do the same thing (mostly) -- the class of GLP1 Receptor Agonists:

- Semaglutide - Tirzepatide - Liraglutide - Exenatide - Danuglipron

Those are just some.

And like others noted, it's not an absolute miracle (there are side effects, it's hard to get right now, somewhat contentious) but it's definitely miraculous in effects so far.

I remember a female comedian, (perhaps Amy Schumer), joking that when she saw Jeff Bezos, she knew there was no cure for baldness.

If a multi-centi-billionaire is bald, then there's no viable baldness cure at any price.

Or perhaps it’s not so important to him to keep up to date with the latest anti-balding techniques?

Given how Bezos otherwise completely transformed his look, I definitely wouldn't say it was for lack of vanity. He just went on enough anabolics/hgh/etc. that he probably felt the Jason Statham look worked for him.

He can delegate it.

> she knew there was no cure for baldness.

Look up Elons photos during balding phase and now.

Elon has good donor area, area from which he had hair transplant. Not everyone have a good donor area and if you are NW7 (north wood scale) then hair transplant will not help you.

Transplants? Fucking pathetic.

It's very obviously thin/wispy on top if you see photos of him outside interviews.

It’s a funny joke, but debunked by Elon Musk, along with a lot of other celebrities and normal people.

Does a hair transplant really count as a cure though? It’s more akin to a pricey baseball cap.

it's hair and it grows so imo it's a cure

It only works for some people. You need to have a good donor area and a lot of hair. And even then transplant can be rejected. Doesn't work for majority of bald people in their 30s/40s.

You are also most likely going to stay on Minoxidil and Finasteride just to stay safe and not lose your "investment". A botched hair transplant can look pretty terrible once you lose the original hair around it.

A transplant isn't any more a hat than having natural untransplanted hair is like wearing a hat. A hair piece could be argued to be something akin to a pricey hat, but a transplant is naturally growing hair that has simply been moved from a donor area.

I guess it's not a full cure but dutasteride is pretty close to one if you start taking it before being like fully bald.

What would the cure be really? Some daily pill that would regrow the hair or just some one time therapy? I don't think it is coming any time soon.

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