Hey everyone! Its been a while i know. Normal new years craziness… I hope everyone had a good one!

I found this article today on the laser comb and its effectiveness in stopping hair loss. Basically it seems that the author is telling everyone to beware of this product and to buy it at your own risk. Does anyone have any first-hand knowledge of the laser comb that they would share? Do you think it works?

Here is the link and the article in its entirety: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-nuskeptic12-2009jan12,0,3819636.story

According to the HairMax website, “90% of HairMax users notice positive benefits starting in as little as 8 weeks. These results include: increased hair growth, cessation of hair loss, faster growing hair, more manageability and more vibrant color.”

David Michaels, the managing director of Lexington International, the company behind the LaserComb, says it works by “transferring light energy to cellular energy” in the follicles. The device can’t restore hair to a bald spot, he says, but it can make any remaining hair grow “faster, thicker, heavier and stronger.”

The bottom line

Lasers can undoubtedly encourage hair growth, says Dr. Marc Avram, a clinical associate professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

In fact, a small percentage of people who undergo laser hair removal end up with more hair than they had to start with. As Avram and colleagues noted in a 2007 issue of the Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy, many hair-loss centers offer treatment with low-level laser devices, and some patients really do seem to benefit. Nobody knows why hair responds to lasers, he explains, although it’s possible that the beams somehow encourage blood flow to the follicles.

Still, according to Avram, there’s no good evidence that the LaserComb works any better than more-established treatments such as the prescription medications Rogaine or Propecia. For his patients who are unwilling or unable to use the medications, he says that the device could be worth a try. The LaserComb is safe, he says, and it just might help. “But I set low expectations for it.”

Avram recently tested the HairMax LaserComb on a handful of patients in his office over six months. (Contrary to claims made for the LaserComb, Avram says, it takes at least six months to see real results from any hair-loss treatment.)

“In 20% of the subjects, it seemed to maybe have an effect” on the appearance of hair, Avram says. The study hasn’t been published yet, and it didn’t include a control group for the sake of comparison. Avram readily admits his study “isn’t definitive,” but he hopes it might encourage more research in the future.

By contrast, Rogaine and Propecia have already been tested in multiple high-quality studies and have been shown to stop hair loss in 80% to 90% of patients, Avram says.

Uncertainty aside, the LaserComb has clearly captured the public’s imagination. Patients ask about it “all the time,” says Dr. Paradi Mirmirani, a dermatologist with the Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center and a member of the North American Hair Research Society. Mirmirani says the device could potentially stimulate hair growth. “But I don’t have any evidence. If patients want to spend $500 on this device, it’s their choice. But I wouldn’t recommend it. They should save it for something that we know actually works.”

Last May, the FDA issued a warning letter against Lexington International for illegally marketing the device to women when it had been officially cleared only for men. The HairMax website now says that the device is intended for men only, but recorded messages for callers on hold to customer service still say that it “works equally well on both men and women” and that “anyone of any age, male or female, can benefit.”

Michaels says the company has asked the FDA for approval to market the device to women and expects a decision soon.

Found this the other day.  Interesting because it mentions a company called HairDX that is now marketing a genetic test for baldness.  I will have to look at HairDX a bit more and see if I can find out more information.

here is the link to the article:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122393553747430381.html?mod=rss_Health

and the full text:

Hair Apparent? New Science on the Genetics of Balding

The conventional wisdom on baldness has long held that men inherit their mother’s father’s hair, or lack of it.

But that doesn’t explain the legions of men whose pates look more like their own dads’.

Two studies in the journal Nature Genetics this week shed some light on that mystery — even while leaving more men unsettled about the fate of their scalps. Two sets of researchers, working independently, identified a new gene variation strongly associated with early hair loss that can be inherited from either the mother’s or the father’s side.

“Sorry to break the bad news, but we’d known that for years, we just hadn’t figured out why,” says Brent Richards, an assistant professor of human genetics at McGill University in Montreal and the lead author of one study.

Most men and many women have some hair loss by their 70s or 80s. But the telltale loss of hair at the crown and temples, known as male-pattern baldness, starts as early as the 20s in about 20% of men. It’s apparent in about 40% of men in their 40s and 60% of men in their 60s.

What happens on the scalp is that testosterone combines with an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase to form dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, which causes hair follicles to shrink and become more sparse. (Women can have hereditary hair loss, too, but it’s generally more diffuse.)

The link to the mother’s family was first described in 1916, and in 2005 German researchers identified an androgen-receptor gene (labeled AR) on the X chromosome common to many bald men. Men inherit a single X chromosome from their mothers, and have a 50% chance of inheriting an AR gene for baldness if their maternal grandfather has it.

But scientists have long suspected that other factors are involved, since some men with the AR gene don’t lose their hair, and some who don’t have the AR gene still go bald. A study in 2004 found that men whose fathers had male-pattern baldness were 2.5 times as likely to have some level of hair loss than men whose fathers did not, regardless of their maternal grandfathers.

The two latest studies scanned DNA samples from large groups of men with male-pattern baldness and looked for genetic markers they had in common that weren’t present in control groups with abundant hair. Researchers at Bonn and Düsseldorf universities, and a second group from McGill, London’s King’s College and GlaxoSmithKline PLC, both identified variations on chromosome 20.

Humans get one copy of chromosome 20 from their mother and one from the father. The gene variation for balding is neither dominant nor recessive, but additive, says Markus M. Nöthen, a University of Bonn geneticist and the lead author of one of the studies who also helped discover the AR gene on the X chromosome. Men with one affected copy were 3.7 times as likely to show early hair loss, and those with two copies were 6.1 times as likely.

The McGill study calculated that about one in seven Caucasian men have both the chromosome 20 variation and the AR gene, which increases their risk of early baldness sevenfold.

Both groups said the findings could point the way toward future treatments for baldness.

Until then, does knowing the risk make much difference?

Only if you’re determined to hang on to every last hair. Experts agree that treatment for hair loss is more effective if started early. Only two drugs are approved for baldness in the U.S. — minoxidil (Rogaine) and finasteride (Propecia). When the cream and pill, respectively, are used together, dermatologists say, they can slow hair loss for several years.

A company called HairDX is already marketing a genetic test for baldness, based on the AR gene, for about $150. Men who test positive for one variation have a 60% chance of going bald by age 40, according to HairDX.

But dermatologists say that looking at hair shafts under a microscope can spot shrinkage years before it’s apparent. “We can pick it up when kids are teenagers,” says Robert Bernstein, founder of Bernstein Medical Center for Hair Restoration, a treatment clinic in New York. He agrees that medication can slow hair loss only if it isn’t too advanced. Once an area is devoid of hair, only a transplant can restore it.

The other option, of course, is not to fight oncoming baldness. “These days, quite a few men are shaving their heads because they like the look,” says Mike Ubl, mission director of the Brotherhood of Bald People, an online support group. “Hair’s a hassle,” he says.

I found an interesting article on the effectiveness of topical minoxidil. here is the link and a good quote from the article that sums it up nicely.

http://www.ishrs.org/articles/minoxidil-study.htm

While many persons are benefited by 2% or 5% minoxidil in treatment of pattern hair loss, results vary from person to person for a variety of reasons including individual responses to the agent and relentlessness of hair loss progression. Results that are satisfactory to some patients are unsatisfactory to others, perhaps because results do not meet pre-treatment expectations.

And here is the article reproduced in its entirety from the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery website:

Two New Studies Confirm Effectiveness of 5% Minoxidil in Treating Male-Pattern Hair Loss

Two new studies of the effects of 5% minoxidil in treating male-pattern hair loss report that a majority of patients found:

• rapid onset of action in promoting new hair growth;
• very effective to effective results in promoting new hair growth over the period of treatment,
• decreased hair loss; and,
• minimal side effects.

Minoxidil is a topical hair restoration agent that is marketed in the U.S. under the brand name Rogaine®. It is available in 2% and 5% solutions; the 5% solution is approved for use only by men in the U.S.

Results of the studies were evaluated by both patients and physicians; in one of the studies, physicians with male-pattern hair loss were included in the study population.

Both studies were conducted by physician investigators in Germany under post-marketing conditions. The studies were funded by Pfizer Group, the maker of Rogaine®.

The topical hair restoration agent minoxidil has been approved for use in treating male-pattern hair loss for more than 15 years. Available first as a 2% solution, it has more recently been approved for use in 5% solution. In the U.S., the 5% solution is approved for use only in men; the 2% solution is also approved for use in treating hair loss in women. The 5% solution has been generally found to be more effective than the 2% solution in treatment of pattern hair loss. (For more information on minoxidil, see Nonsurgical Options For Hair Restoration.

The two post-marketing studies of 5% minoxidil were reported at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, February 6-11, 2004, Washington, DC.

One-Year Observational Study

Dermatologists conducted a 1-year observational study in 984 men with male-pattern hair loss. The study evaluated the effectiveness of a 5% minoxidil topical solution in halting hair loss and stimulating new hair growth, as well as the patients’ perceptions of efficacy and side effects. Over the 1-year period of the study, patients applied 1 milliliter (ml) of 5% minoxidil solution twice day to hair-loss areas of the scalp. Every 3 months during the study, patients collected hair lost in a hair washing and sent the collected hair to a laboratory for counting.

At the end of 1 year:

• The dermatologist investigators reported that hair loss areas of the scalp had become smaller in 62% of the patients, unchanged in 35.1% and larger in 2.9%.
• In evaluating minoxidil effectiveness in stimulating hair regrowth, the investigators found the 5% solution very effective in 15.9% of patients, effective in 47.8%, moderately effective in 20.6% and ineffective in 15.7%.
• Hairs lost during washing numbered a mean 69.7 at the beginning of the study, and a mean 33.8 at the end of the study-a measure of the effectiveness of 5% minoxidil in halting hair loss in the patients studied.
• The mean score of patient satisfaction on a scale of 0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (very satisfied) increased from 2.9 at study beginning to 4.4 at study end. Patient satisfaction scores were lower than the estimates of the physician investigators: the investigators rated efficacy of treatment as good or very good 25% more often than did the patients.
• Side effects, mostly dermatologic, were reported by 3.9% of patients in the study. None of the side effects was classified as serious.

Four-Month Surveillance Study

A 4-month surveillance study involving 743 men with male-pattern hair loss was designed to evaluate (1) how quickly men using 1 ml of 5% minoxidil solution twice a day began to notice reduced hair loss and/or new hair growth, (2) efficacy of 5% minoxidil solution in improving hair density in areas affected by male-pattern hair loss, and (3) side effects associated with use of 5% minoxidil solution.

All results were evaluated and reported by the men involved in the study; 150 physicians with male-pattern hair loss were among the 743 patients studied.

At the end of 4 months:

• The scalp area affected by male-pattern hair loss (the “balding” area) was judged smaller by 67.3% of the men, unchanged by 31.9% and larger by 0.8%.
• The 5% minoxidil solution was judged very effective in stimulating new hair growth by 7.5% of the men, effective by 55%, moderately effective by 31.3% and ineffective by 6.2%.
• Hair density (the “fullness” of scalp hair) was judged improved by 74.2% of the men, unchanged by 24.3% and worsened by 1.5%.
• Of the 669 men who reported when results of minoxidil treatment were first noticeable, 13.9% reported results in the first month, 52.3% during the second month, and 33.8% during the third month.
• Skin-related side effects were reported by 13 patients.

Results reported by the 150 physicians in the study did not differ substantially from results reported by the other men in the study.

Results of these two post-marketing studies generally confirm results of previous studies of the efficacy and safety of minoxidil. While many persons are benefited by 2% or 5% minoxidil in treatment of pattern hair loss, results vary from person to person for a variety of reasons including individual responses to the agent and relentlessness of hair loss progression. Results that are satisfactory to some patients are unsatisfactory to others, perhaps because results do not meet pre-treatment expectations.

Best treatment results are likely to be realized when the person with hair loss consults a physician hair restoration specialist. Rational expectations for treatment outcome are most reliably based on (1) diagnosis of the cause of hair loss, (2) assessment of the characteristics of hair loss in the individual patient, and (3) a treatment plan based upon diagnosis and assessment, and agreed upon by the patient and physician hair restoration specialist. A physician hair restoration specialist is able to monitor the effectiveness of medical therapy clinically and through use of comparison photos, as well as provide other medical and surgical options to augment the benefits of minoxidil. Minoxidil solution is even more effective when combined with the oral medication finasteride (Propecia®), and is also compatible with hair restoration surgery. For example, a patient may have follicular unit transplantation to create a natural looking hairline near the front of the scalp, and use minoxidil and finasteride to preserve the hair on top of the scalp.