Why is the news full of stuff about a new "cure"

[Blacklabel3]

this is a valid posting

 

[s.a.f]

Its by no means a cure. All it says is that balding men have a higher level of this. It does'nt actually claim that PGD2 is even a cause of m.p.b.

Dont get excited by this its no real breakthrough since they dont have any idea yet how to use these findings in regards to making any treatments, or even if lowering levels would do anything anyway.

Combatting DHT is still the biggest hope for a cure.

 

[slurms mackenzie]

Dont get excited by this its no real breakthrough since they dont have any idea yet how to use these findings in regards to making any treatments

The bbc article says that drugs are in development, I think they have every idea about the next step.

Here's a quote from the abc article

In a report published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the authors noted that there were several drugs currently being developed to combat male pattern baldness, and a number of these drugs targeted the prostaglandin pathway. Cotsarelis said assuming the drugs pass muster regarding safety and other regulatory hurdles, they could lead to a cream or medication for male pattern baldness

However, the hairloss community has been here a few times before, it's another angle with which to possibly tackle hairloss, and a treatment would be many years away.

Here's a link to the study.

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/4/126/126ra34

Bashing DHT with a hammer may be the best way to tackle male pattern baldness, it may not be, none of us are an authority on that.

 

[s.a.f]

Its the best way ATM.

 

[slurms mackenzie]

Its the best way ATM.

Provided you don't suffer from sides, as far as I know, I concur.

 

[abcdefg]

Nothing in science is ever for sure until its all said and done. That being said its a big story and came from research with stem cells. It could turn out to be a huge deal who really knows. If nothing else if it helps you use that in combination with ascj-9 or propecia and we might be able to stop hair loss. Any news is good news. I wonder how DHT though ties into this or maybe they dont?

 

[kc444]

The bbc article says that drugs are in development, I think they have every idea about the next step.

I think they just mean that there are drugs in development that happen to target this chemical. In other words, they weren't developed specifically for male pattern baldness, but may work for it nonetheless.

I'm not an expert, but I can't imagine this will be a cure in that bald people will grow all of their hair out. The fact that it progresses over time and becomes harder to grow back with treatments suggests that it there is damage done to the follicles or something. It could be that it is acting as an inhibitor as the article says I guess though.

It's pretty promising IMO. It's not just a correlation of high prostaglandin to degree of hair loss because of the genetic experiment with mice. It feels like we're getting closer.

Maybe DHT is a precursor or catalyst to this protein? It doesn't make sense though. If this were the case, you wouldn't expect anyone to regrow hair on Propecia because the prostaglandin would still be present, assuming it builds up and doesn't go away.

 

[slurms mackenzie]

From one of the articles

the authors noted that there were several drugs currently being developed to combat male pattern baldness, and a number of these drugs targeted the prostaglandin pathway

Thinking about it they may have been talking about latanoprost or bimatoprost, which i think would target the prostaglandin pathway, but would work differently.

I'm out of my depth on this one!

 

[kc444]

Ah you just be right. I just figured we would have heard about prostaglandin before now.

 

[BritishUser]

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, is testing laropiprant as a flushing inhibitor to be administered with niacin. Allschwil, Switzerland-based Actelion’s setipiprant is being studied as a treatment for allergic inflammation of nasal pathways. Both therapies are in the final phase of testing generally needed for regulatory approval.

Merck isn’t studying the anti-flushing drug in hair loss, said Ian McConnell, a Merck spokesman, in a telephone interview. “We haven’t seen any signalsâ€￾ in patient trials that the therapy might reduce baldness, he said.

 

[abcdefg]

Yeah there are like 6 threads scattered all over about this same thing. There are like 100 stories about this supposed huge breakthrough in male pattern baldness touting it as some future cure. It sounds to me like they found some results in mice so they need to test more to figure out if it actually does anything. Calling it a cure sounds a little premature to me. Its better then nothing for sure and could be something big, but I think better androgen inhibitors could prevent male pattern baldness if improved upon.

Whether blocking the GPR44 receptor would allow the regrowth of hair after balding -- or just prevent balding in the first place -- remains an open question. It also remains to be seen whether inhibiting the receptor would have any effect in humans.