Lots of men wearily accept that one of the curses of getting older is having to say goodbye to a full head of hair.

Around 6.5 million men in the UK suffer are affected by male pattern baldness, which can start to occur as early as their 20s.

Now a research team in the United States believes they’ve found the answer.

It comes down to a specific protein called TGF-beta which both controls the growth of hair follicles on the head and can be responsbile for killing them.

A chemical build-up of TGF-beta leads to balding but, if it can be managed, then the right levels can lead to strong, healthy hair. That’s the theory, anyway.

Dr Qixuan Wang, a mathematical biologist at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) led the research. Her team carried out analysis that, she says, moved them one step closer to ‘controlling’ the mechanisms that lead to baldness.

When ‘just right’ levels of the protein was reached in the follicles cells were triggered to generate new hairs.

‘TGF-beta has two opposite roles. It helps activate some hair follicle cells to produce new life, and later, it helps orchestrate apoptosis, the process of cell death,’ Dr Wang said.

‘Even when a hair follicle kills itself, it never kills its stem cell reservoir. When the surviving stem cells receive the signal to regenerate, they divide, make new cell and develop into a new follicle,’ Wang said. 

If scientists can determine more precisely the way TGF-beta activates cell division, and how the chemical communicates with other important genes, it might be possible to activate follicle stem cells and stimulate hair growth.

The result? A cure for baldness that could finally be used by men across the globe. 

‘Potentially our work could offer something to help people suffering from a variety of problems,’ Dr Wang added.

The research has been published in the Biophysical Journal.

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