You may be right… however, a real hair loss cure is at the minimum a 10 billion dollar industry. I am sure someone has already tested your theory and mostly likely Cotts. Just like Sanford-Burnham discovery many researchers are studying hair loss and we don’t have a clue who they are until they discover something that may work. I just don’t believe the fat theory. If fat holds the solution then transplanted hair would not grow in an area that fat has decreased.
OK, on this point – you could actually be right. Maybe no one’s described this phenomenon before because no one’s actually tried restoring fat into the dermis of a bald person’s scalp before. If it’s never been tried (because doctors haven’t considered the idea), then it should be tried.
I would say it’s definitely something worth trying. I have my doubts that it would actually work as well as you think it would, but I still think it should be tried. As I said, I think there’s 2-way signaling between the hair follicles and the fat layer. My theory is that they both support and induce each other. The fat layer sends signals up to the hair follicles promoting hair growth, and the hair follicles in turn send signals down to the fat layer, promoting the fat layer’s healthy maintenance. In both cases, this is done via activated stem cells and their secretions. The stem cells involved are HF stem cells in the case of the hair follicles and ADSC’s in the case of the fat layer.
My personal thinking on this is that there is signaling going both ways, and it adds to the promotion of healthy hair growth, but not to the point of something miraculous as in if you just add fat to a balding scalp, the person will suddenly start growing a full head of hair. I don’t think it reaches that point. It’s a more subtle long-term effect. (The real dramatic, almost overnight cosmetic “wow” effect will actually be achieved by injecting highly inductive DP cells into the scalp, i.e., Sanford-Burnham’s method, because it basically takes a “short cut” to achieve everything all this stem cell signaling would achieve in many months to years.)
In any event, it is definitely worth talking to HT surgeons about this fat transfer idea, and seeing if they’ll try it. It would be a great experiment for HT surgeons, because it’s easy to do, doesn’t require any complicated permissions or FDA approval, and could actually yield some results (I doubt whether the results will be as amazing as you think, but I think it could possibly help promote some visible hair growth in some cases).
After all, it was patients who persuaded HT surgeons to test things like Acell, so why wouldn’t they want to test fat injections?
And I would say start out by testing fat injections, not surgical implantation of fat. You are correct in that injected fat probably wouldn’t stay in the area forever, but it would stay in the area long enough to see if it has some effect. It wouldn’t all leave the scalp immediately upon injection; I think a lot of it would still be around by 6 months or more post injections. Most of it would stay in the scalp for a lot longer than you think.
Many many cosmetic surgeons are doing “fat transfer” especially to add more attractive contours to women’s figures. It’s a huge business now. These procedures involve FAT INJECTIONS, and they wouldn’t sell if the injected fat just dissipated and went elsewhere after a week.
See this –
http://www.smartbeautyguide.com/procedures/injectables/fat-transfer
What I’m saying is that Dr. Terskikh’s DP cells give you the result of having all that signaling from stem cells for years. It’s like a short-cut way to get there, without actually having the signaling. And I think the follicles will be more than peach fuzz. They’ll be terminal-sized follicles. I think if you had a chance to look at Aderans’ work, they were the ones getting only peach fuzz. This Sanford-Burnham stuff is much different.
Go back to the experiment by Dr. Jahoda when he implanted his own fresh (uncultured) DP cells into his wife’s arm. Simple DP cells, but not cultured, so they were highly inductive.
What did his wife Dr. Reynolds get growing on her arm??? Terminal long thick scalp-like follicles, growing in an area that was virtually hairless (or having very light female peach fuzz). She did not get new peach fuzz growing on her arm from those DP cells.
After seeing how both Intercytex and Aderans went out of business, I ain’t putting a penny in hair loss research. sorry.
no text means no text
You might have a point here Roger. Dr. Jahoda did inject cells from his own healthy scalp terminal hairs into his wife’s forearm, a location where it’s doubtful that she had long thick scalp hairs, and his cells produced hairs with his DNA.
Roger, I wanted to run something by you.
I’ve seen countless enlarged pictures of follicles. Almost all of them show the follicle slightly above a layer of fat and ZERO fat cells right up against the follicle. But there was one picture of a follicle I that showed the follicle slightly above the fat layer (just like the other pictures showed) but also showed a couple fat cells right smack-dab on the follicle at the base of the follicle. Those few fat cells were snug-up against the base of the follicle. I think that there’s a chance that could explain why transplanted follicles grow hair similar to hairs in the scalp donor area rather than similar hairs in the recipient area. Perhaps there are a couple fat cells right on scalp follicles (only) at the base of scalp follicles that continuously give growth factors to scalp follicle when scalp follicles are healthy and when scalp follicles become unhealthy those few fat cells vanish. Perhaps the enlarged pics of healthy scalp follicles that don’t show a couple fat cells right up on the follicle (at the base of the follicle) may be erroneous and perhaps they should be showing a few fat cells right up on the scalp follicle like that one picture did.
I think you’re attaching just a bit too much importance to growth factors and signaling from the dermal fat layer.
I am not saying it’s unimportant, just not as critical for actually growing hair as you think. Here’s how I would describe it:
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The HF stem cells which are located NOT IN THE FAT LAYER, but directly adjacent to the follicle, attached to the side epithelium of the follicle, at the bulge, as well as another pool of HF stem cells lower down near the dermal papilla, are the MAIN STEM CELLS which are really contributing the key growth factors and signaling to the follicle to make follicles work.
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The ADSC’s in the fat are like a “secondary source” of signaling to the follicles, NOT THE PRIMARY SOURCE. Yes, they play a longer-term role in terms of promoting hair growth, making sure the hair is lush, healthy, thick and vibrant, and yes they do play a role in signaling the follicles to grow and cycle, but it is not the primary source of this signaling.
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Yes, if the fat layer diminishes or disappears, it will have a pretty big impact on hair growth, but it will generally not make people bald. Diminution or disappearance of the fat layer over time is not the PRIMARY reason people go bald. It’s more of something that occurs over many years, alongside the MPB process. (Remember, there are young men who go bald by 18 years old. I actually worked with a guy who told me he was slick bald, about NW 6-7 by about 18-19. When I knew him he was about 24-25. I doubt that his fat layer had enough time to disappear by the time he reached 18 years old.)
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There are 100 year old people, men and women, who have lost much of that fat, just through the aging process, and yet they still may die with a full head of hair. Granted, it’s not the healthiest looking hair in the world, but they can still literally die with a full head of it.
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The real reason for MPB is a breakdown or paralysis in what the hair follicle stem cells are doing. Drs. Cotsarelis and Garza described how there are just as many HF stem cells in a balding person, except that they don’t do anything. They’re basically paralyzed and called “quiescent”. They stop working and stay put. In people with healthy hair, these HF stem cells are regularly changing from quiescent to “activated”, they migrate down the shaft towards the dermal papilla, convert into progenitor cells, which then become DP cells. All along the way the activated HF stem cells are secreting growth factors and proteins.
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The ADSCs also secrete growth factors and proteins (I would guess the profile of their secretions is somewhat the same as the HF stem cells’ secretions, but not exactly the same), but these influence the follicles at a longer distance, and over a longer-term period of time. So, they are very important in having a nice healthy head of hair, but if DHT comes along and puts them up against the firing squad tomorrow, that is not the reason you go bald. The reason you go bald is what DHT has done (through PGD2, most likely) to the HF stem cells, at the HF level.
So, following the logic of all that, what Sanford-Burnham is doing is basically saying, "Fck everything that DHT is doing to the HF stem cells, we are going to do a workaround". They do, and they provide the inductive DP cells that are absent because DHT has fcked with your HF stem cells. So when the Sanford-Burnham DP cells are injected, it’s kind of like you just bypassed the whole HF stem cell thing, and provided your own final product – the DP cells.
Moreover these DP cells are so good, that they don’t just create peach fuzz, they actually induce terminal hairs. Because they are just like the DP cells of terminal hairs.
So, let’s assume that you are 45 years and you’ve had aggressive Male Patterned Baldness going on for 20 years. A lot of your fat layer is gone (probably not all of it, but it’s probably quite a bit thinner than it was when you were 20). Now Sanford-Burnham injects their DP cells. I think you get nice, visible, long, thick, terminal hairs growing, NOT peach fuzz.
I think the environment for the follicles at this point is not ideal, not like the scalp of a 15 year-old kid or a woman who’s never experienced MPB, but you’ll still get terminal hairs.
At that point if you want the hairs to grow even better, become more lush and thick and vibrant, you can address the fat issue. But just having a thinned-out fat layer is not going to stop this from working.
Then why does AAPE and Histogen’s HSC cause some peach fuzz to turn back into terminal hairs? And repeat treatments of HSC causes increased amounts of peach fuzz to turn terminal which means the effects of HSC can be compounded. And this means that for all we know repeat treatment of AAPE or HSC can turn enough peach fuzz back into terminal hair to take a NW3 or NW 4 back to a full head of hair. I think you’re discounting the value of fat cells.
As a matter of fact, I think that it’s the fat cell growth factors that cause the stem cells to convert to progenitor cells. Keep in mind that the Cotseralis proved that the problem with hair loss is a shortage of progenitor cells, NOT A SHORTAGE OF STEM CELLS. In other words, the problem in hair loss is a shortage of the cells that stem cells turn into, not the stem cells themselves.
I think that the fat cell growth factors are what causes the stem cells to morph into progenitor cells.
I disagree. I think that the success of the ADSC growth factors has proved that it’s the growth factors from fat cells that cause follicular growth. Both AAPE and HSC has been shown to turn some scalp peach fuzz back into terminal hairs. AAPE and HSC are the growth factors that come from fat cells. So you see I have some proof that I’m right - the fact that AAPE and HSC have been shown to turn some peach fuzz into terminal hairs. And there is also some evidence that the results of AAPE and HSC can be compounded with repeat treatments so it is possible that if you increased more and more repeat treatments you might get back a full head of hair.
There is no evidence that shows that cell-based therapies produce new hair. I read at the b@ld truth that Replicel is now planning to market their cell based treatment as a way to arrest hair loss. Give me a break!
First of all, just because something is proven to be able to convert peach fuzz into terminal hairs, doesn’t mean that IT IS THE ONLY THING that will do it. It doesn’t mean that that’s the key to solving hair loss, or the only way, or even the best way.
For instance, Rogaine has been shown to change peach fuzz to terminal hairs in some people. Does that mean that people lose hair because they don’t have Rogaine in their bodies? Or that Rogaine is the only thing that will change peach fuzz to terminal hair? Finasteride has been shown to change peach fuzz to terminal hairs. Does that mean the reason people have MPB is because of a lack of Finasteride in their bodies? Or that Finasteride is the only thing that will do this?
I think the problem is that you’re not understanding or recognizing how the Sanford-Burnham discovery is really something brand new – nothing like this has EVER been done before with respect to hair. Basically what they’re doing is creating brand new inductive DP cells. Aderans, Intercytex, Gho and Replicel never did anything like this. This is not just something that’s just a sight or incremental improvement over Aderans. It’s something completely different from Aderans.
Yes, Aderans was using DP cells too, but how did they get the DP cells? They took old DP cells from the hair-growing parts of your scalp and cultured them. Turns out they were almost completely useless for growing terminal hair follicles.
Sanford-Burnham is using DP cells, but grown completely new directly from pluripotent stem cells.
You’re always talking about how great these secretions of ADSC’s are. Well, what do you think the result is of all that chemical signaling from the HF stem cells and the ADSC’s, that grows your hair? The final result (we hope), is that it creates a pool of inductive dermal papilla cells.
Well, SB has now figured out how to create a pool of inductive DP cells, basically overnight. No adding chemicals to your body, no waiting for months or a year to see if it grows anything.
To use a very rough analogy, using secretions from ADSC’s is a bit like going from A to B to C to D to E to finally get the inductive DP cells. A lot could happen along the way, including a lot of stuff that might complicate things and might make it work not so well.
Dr. Terskikh is going directly from A to E, without any of the steps in-between.
Get it now? Relying on growth factors (like from ADSC’s) is the roundabout way of getting these inductive DP cells. Sanford-Burnham has discovered a quick, direct, “overnight” way of creating these inductive DP cells.
Ok Roger I understand your point but I need some time to think about it before I respond.
That aside, I sent Dr. Nigam and email with a link to the study and I got an email response from him that I thought you might like to see so here it is:
“would like to share with you,that i had injected the pluripotent cultured dp cells on my vertex,2 sessions 45 days apart from cordblood allogenic stemcells.I think ,i can see only aprox.10% growth.”
Thanks for that. I never thought Dr. Nigam had succeeded in changing pluripotent stem cells into inductive DP cells, only that he seemed to be trying. And he was the only researcher who seemed to be trying. I actually thought there was only a small chance he would succeed, because he lacks the technical capability and background (even though he is actually very knowledgeable, he just doesn’t have the research background for such advanced work). But I was happy that there was at least someone trying to do this, and that’s why I gave Dr. Nigam credit while others were trashing him.
It seems here that he has succeeded to a small extent in improving the inductivity of DP cells, taken from stem cells. But, unlike Sanford-Burnham, he hasn’t succeeded in devising a technique that will actually convert stem cells into fully inductive DP cells. Big props to Dr. Nigam for what he’s done, but I didn’t really expect that it would be him who’d make the major breakthrough.
I figured you would say this, and I myself doubt if Dr. Nigam could use the same technique since the author didn’t publish the details.
I recommended to Dr. Nigam that he should determine if the new technique results in more hair inductivity than the cells injected into Dr. Nigam’s scalp had.
I don’t know how Dr. Nigam would be able to determine any of that when Sanford-Burnham hasn’t released the details of their technique… and I don’t expect them to do that without having officially filed a patent application for it, which would lock in their rights. They won’t just disclose this without protecting it first, because it’s proprietary intellectual property. And I know they are currently recruiting for an in-house patent attorney.
I meant that I also doubted if Dr. Nigam used the same technique and created fully inductive follicles when he had his cells implanted since when Dr. Nigam had his cells the new technique wasn’t even publicized yet. So Dr. Nigam’s modest results may have been better if he used the new technique and got full inductivity. I did recommend to Dr. Nigam that he should look into this. I think he plans to.
The way I see it, you either know how to change pluripotent stem cells into inductive DP cells, or you don’t. I don’t think Sanford Burnham is going to tell anyone, not even Dr. Nigam, how they’re doing it just yet. It’s a proprietary process that I am sure they are going to try to patent. If he wants to test this right now, I think Dr. Nigam would have to figure out the whole thing by himself.
Roger you have a lot of patience, I admire you for that.
Since when has Dr. Nigam ever limited the services he offers to just what he can deliver? He might be willing to sell you this stuff right now if you ask him.
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
Since when has Dr. Nigam ever limited the services he offers to just what he can deliver? He might be willing to sell you this stuff right now if you ask him.[/quote]
Don’t forget that there is also the issue that we don’t even know for sure that these cells will work, Yale University says that all that is required to activate follicles is the growth factors from ADSCs, Histogen’s HSC contains these growth factors, and Histogen could come to market in 3 years in Asia.
I’m not as impressed with the cell-based therapies as Roger-that is. I’m more focused on Histogen’s HSC.
Have you any idea when Histogen’s HSC might come to market in Asia?
Jarjar, you’re way off-base in elevating Histogen’s HSC into something it’s not.
Best case scenario, with their cherry-picked photos, Histogen’s HSC has only been shown to be able to promote relatively sparse regrowth. Yes, it does grow some new hair, but look at the BEST PHOTOS HISTOGEN HAS EVER PROVIDED, it’s not going to come anywhere near to regrowing a full head of hair!
Bottom line, you get Histogen HSC a couple of times a year (because that’s as much as they’ll legally allow you to get treated), and at the end of the year you’ll still be seeing lots of scalp. Yeah, you’ll get significantly more terminal hairs, but it won’t come close to filling in your scalp, and at the end of the day (or the year), you’ll still be in a position where you need hair transplants or something else to get a full head of hair. You’re back to square one. You get treated with the stuff for a year or two, and at the end of that period, you’re essentially still in the same predicament as you were when you were nearly bald, because it hasn’t substantially budged your appearance cosmetically. You still need hair transplants.
That is the PLATEAU for Histogen’s HSC. That’s as good as it gets, folks.
Plus, you’re misreading the Yale findings. You say Yale said, “that all that is required to activate follicles is the growth factors from ADSCs”. That is NOT what they said at all. They did not say “ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO ACTIVATE FOLLICLES”. They said this stuff activates follicles, but you’re putting it out of context, they didn’t say “all that is needed”, and they didn’t say to WHAT EXTENT these growth factors can activate follicles. The growth factors act in a relative way; they’re not an “on-off switch” for reactivating follicles.
There is no doubt in my mind that the ultimate solution to hair loss, the only thing that will enable us to have regrown FULL HEADS OF HAIR, will be a cell-based solution, and you don’t seem to understand that we are right on the doorstep of that right now with stem cells, particularly this new stem cell discovery by Sanford-Burnham.
Yes, it will definitely take a long time to get through the FDA and get it approved in the US, but at the same time Histogen is working on approval and commercialization of its outdated, outmoded legacy technology HSC, Sanford-Burhham (and probably other researchers as well) will be pursuing human induced pluripotent stem cells, generating iPSC-DP cells, and growing hair in custom quantities.
For as long as you will wait to see Histogen’s HSC come to fruition, in the exact same time period, you’ll see progress on this. Histogen is yesterday’s technology, Gail Naughton knows it, and the real answer has been found which makes Histogen and its HSC completely obsolete. The only thing needed right now is for Sanford-Burnham to find a really good partner and put into place a strategy for clinical trials in Asia, which will lead to a relatively rapid acceptance of this new method, and worldwide credibility and demand for it.
This won’t guarantee a quick approval in the USA, but it will accelerate the process here. For those who want it much sooner, we can go to Asia…