The onset of hair loss can be devastating for some men. But research into experimental cell therapy is offering hope of keeping baldness at bay
aul Kemp’s introduction to the issue of baldness came as a rude awakening while getting a haircut at the age of 20. “I remember my hairdresser looking down and saying ‘Oh my God, you’re going bald on top’.”
Baldness implies a lack of hair, but, technically, bald heads are not hairless. As dermal papilla cells are lost, the follicle shrinks and the hair shaft it produces becomes finer and spends longer in the dormant state. Eventually, the hairs become so fine and grow so slowly that they are effectively invisible.
One of those to have banked his hair is Tommy Smith, a 65-year-old planning consultant, who lives in Red Oak, North Carolina. Smith initially began losing hair in his 20s, possibly as a side-effect of powerful acne medications, including high dosages of prescription vitamin A. Smith’s experience highlights the dilemma that hair surgeons and their patients are faced with when planning a transplant. Once transplanted, follicles retain their original identity and so need to be taken from a safe zone of the scalp that is not destined to go bald in future.
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