Breakthrough treatment could prevent people from going bald in their 20s

Life-changing research could finally help stop baldness in young men and women experiencing hair loss at a young age.

Whether it’s yourself, a friend, or a family member, most of us know someone who has experienced hair loss at a young age.

This can be quite a traumatic experience caused by a number of factors including stress and even gambling.

That’s why hair transplants have grown in popularity over the past decade, led by former England footballer Wayne Rooney, who got one while playing for Manchester United. And last year, Louis Theroux opened up about his fight against alopecia.

For many people who lose their hair at a young age, it’s because of genetics. But all that could be about to change following the publication of new research from some of the world’s best scientists.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (or MIT as it is more commonly known) worked with experts from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School to develop a potential new treatment.

They focused on a clue to alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss and affects people of all ages, including people in their 20s and even children.

As it stands, most people with alopecia areata have no treatment or cure that will bring their hair back. The only treatment available for most patients – injections of immunosuppressive steroids into the scalp – is painful and patients often cannot tolerate it.

But in their studies, the MIT team developed a microneedle patch that can be painlessly applied to the scalp. There, it will release drugs that will help rebalance the immune response at the site, which should, if all goes well, stop the autoimmune attack.

The study looked at deploying the next-level technology on mice, where it was found that the treatment allowed hair to regrow and significantly reduced inflammation at the treatment site.

At the same time, it would avoid systemic immune effects elsewhere in the body, meaning it would be fully targeted. This is a huge development given that one of the only treatments for alopecia areata and other autoimmune skin diseases are orally administered immunosuppressive medications that cause widespread suppression of the immune system, which can have unwanted side effects.

This new strategy could also be adapted to treat other autoimmune skin diseases such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis and psoriasis, the researchers say.

Natalie Artzi is a principal investigator at the Institute of Medical Engineering and Sciences at MIT, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.

She said: “This innovative approach marks a paradigm shift.

“Rather than suppressing the immune system, we now focus on regulating it precisely at the antigen encounter site to generate immune tolerance.”

The next step is to launch a company to develop the technology even further so that it can eventually be used on people after clinical trials.

Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images

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