New guides in development

A number of new guides to hair loss treatments will shortly be available at Hair Loss Heaven, starting with information on DHT inhibitors scheduled for the middle of next month. I hope visitors will find the new info useful, keep an eye on this blog or the HLH newsfeed for further announcements.

It's a miracle!

OK, not exactly a miracle - my hair hasn't grown back - but a brave soul has finally ventured into the forums and decided to tell his hair loss story. "Korny", stand up and take a bow!

Now that the ice has been well and truly broken, why don't you join us too?

LIPH gene may cause inherited hair loss

Scientists have discovered that the LIPH gene may cause some types of inherited hair loss. There are a lot of news outlets covering this story at the moment but here's a link to the CBS story.

Thanks, Ron!

A quick thank you to Ron for providing some additional information and correcting some errors in the "How Hair Transplants Work" article (now updated). If anyone else has any suggestions for improving any other articles, or would like to submit their own, please get in touch. Thanks!

Eyelash transplants

I just finished reading an article in The Sydney Morning Herald about the next big craze in hair restoration - eyelash transplants! Now, apparently they've been around for a while for people who have lost their eyelashes through accident or illness but now it's becoming fashionable to have the procedure. I was a little discouraged by the last few lines, though:

he [the physician] warned that if the hair grew in the wrong direction it could scratch the eyeball and potentially lead to an ulcer and even blindness.

Hmmmmm, OK, lemme think about it...

Worst bald joke ever?

What do you call a bunch of bunnies hopping backwards?

A receding hare line.

EARN $5 FOR POSTING YOUR HAIR LOSS STORY!

I had no idea how difficult people would find it to share their hair loss experiences when I set up the site so I'm going to try a little experiment. If you post at least 300 words to the "Tell Your Story" forum I'll send $5 to your PayPal account as a thank you. I reckon $5 is about the cost of a beer (or whatever you usually drink) which is what I would buy you anyway in person. This offer is limited to the first 20 people to post and open only to those with PayPal accounts. I hope that this will kick start the forums and encourage more people to post in the future (thanks to Jim for suggesting the idea!)

Stranger on a train

The first time I really realised how bald I was happened while visiting the bathroom on a train from London to Newcastle (don't worry, no parental guidance necessary). I'd just closed and locked the door when I happened to notice a very bald man about two feet away in the same cubicle! That was the first shock. The second, even less welcome, came when I realised that due to the positioning of the mirrors in the bathroom what I was really looking at was the back of my own head! For some reason although I'd accepted my baldness from a frontal perspective I'd never realised how bald (or how old) I looked from the rear...

Bald guys make better football players

OK, I admit, it's not strictly scientific, but after Troy Polamalu was stopped by his hair (again) last month I think the conclusion is obvious - bald guys make better football players. USA Today has the full story here but if Bill Cowher's reading this...I'm free most Sundays, just give me a call.

Hair, uh, what is it good for?

In one of those moments you can only really have in the bath, I suddenly wondered the other day why we have hair (which made a change from my usual worrying about why I don't). A quick search on Google provided the following answer:

"At one time, it was believed that body and scalp hair is a useless evolutionary leftover from our primate past. At most, it was believed, hair may have some peripheral functions such as insulating our bodies from extremes of temperature. As our understanding of the human body increased-especially by applications of molecular biology that sees body functions in fine detail-we learned that the hair follicle plays a role in many processes involving the skin. We learned that the hair follicle is a source of stem cells that can be active in wound repair as well as in hair growth and regrowth. We learned that hair follicles can be a source of some types of skin tumors, and may be implicated in diseases of uncertain cause such as alopecia areata. And, of course, we learned how hair follicle function is intimately associated with whole-body systems such as genetic control of androgenic hormone production, thyroid gland responses to internal and external environments, and nutritional status. Hair follicle function is highly integrated with molecular signals to and from these whole-body systems."

Wow! Apparently hair is pretty useful...I'm starting to wish I hadn't asked.