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Baldness Cure Discovered by Accident?

Single jab reversed hair loss in lab mice

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 17, 2011 3:26 AM CST | Updated Feb 20, 2011 1:18 PM CST

(Newser) – Researchers studying stress hormones were surprised to stumble upon what appears to be a cure for baldness—at least in mice. Mice who had gone bald due to overproduction of a stress hormone were treated with a compound that blocks stress in the gut and then returned to cages where they joined furry colleagues from a control group. Months later, researchers realized that the bald mice had regrown their fur and were indistinguishable from the others apart from ear tags, reports the New York Times.

The mice, without receiving another treatment, kept their hair, and further research revealed that young mice treated with the compound never went bald. "The compound initiates the hair cycle," the lead researcher says. "In bald individuals, and in these mice, the hair follicles are in a resting stage. The antagonist awakes them. It turns on the cycle, and the growing phase starts." They caution that much more research remains to be done and any treatment for humans is, at best, years away.

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"We went back to our data log, and we realized all the mice had grown hair. It was a totally unexpected finding," the lead researcher says. (Shutter Stock)

Single jab reversed hair loss in lab mice. (?Brad.K)

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This was totally unexpected. We do not work on hair; we did not set out to study hair growth. - Researcher Million Mulugeta

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Baldness Cure Discovered by Accident?

Single jab reversed hair loss in lab mice

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