Do bald men have the potential to grow hair from invisible miniaturized follicles?

In a new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a team at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine has found that stem cells play an unexpected role in explaining what happens in bald scalp.

Using cell samples from men undergoing hair transplants, the team compared follicles from bald scalp and non-bald scalp, and found that bald areas had the same number of stem cells as normal scalp in the same person. However, they did find that another, more mature cell type called a progenitor cell was markedly depleted in the follicles of bald scalp.

The researchers surmised that balding may arise from a problem with stem-cell activation rather than the numbers of stem cells in follicles. In male pattern balding, hair follicles actually shrink; they don't disappear. The hairs are essentially microscopic on the bald part of the scalp compared to other spots.

“Even when a follicle has become miniaturized beyond recognition by the naked eye, it still has the potential of retransformation and of generating hair shafts” Ralph Paus. If not, then how could Finasteride and Rogaine work to reverse miniaturized hair? This has been my mantra and reason for trying to understand cellular therapy.

At a the recent Congress on State of the Art PRP and Growth Factors in Dermatology I spoke at in Milan, Italy Dr Fabio Rinaldi presented a study on himself . He is a Type VII patient who counted 50 hairs on his head before his PRP treatments? After the treatments he counted over 800 hairs!

The body has a symbiotic relationship between GF's and stem cells. Today, peripheral blood is taken from humans and the CD34's (stem cells) are multiplied with specific growth factors and injected into myocardial tissue, lungs etc. Colleagues doing this tell me that some of their patient’s hair thickens and gets darker… like I have been noticing in a group of our patients.

PDGF and VEGF are growth factors vital for hair biology found in PRP and numerous independent studies conclude VEGF increases hair size. I think what we are doing with PRP in Alopecia Areata (AA) is reducing inflammation and also stimulating the follicular stems cells, which was demonstrated in our Alopecia Areata research grant. Sixty percent of the AA patient grew hair. Additionally, I feel we are also stimulating the follicular stem cells in Androgenic Alopecia (AGA), if not, how did Dr Rinaldi increase his hair count after PRP injections?