Those of us who have ever experienced a bit if hair loss know the anxiety that comes with seeing that bald spot or thinning area. In those moments you will do anything, try any remedy to restore your precious strands and recover the lost confidence.
The hardest part is the critical stares from others and the comments or judgements passed by insensitive people. I’ve seen how ignorant people can be. The first conclusion some persons draw is that your hairloss is a direct result of braiding and weaves, so of course you deserve what you get.
Sadly, such people are clueless to the fact that there are different types of alopecia besides traction alopecia. Some of these other types are autoimmune diseases, which is basically a state in which the body attacks itself.
In the case of alopecia areata, which we commonly called spot baldness, the body identifies the hair follicles as foreign matter or bacteria and gets into defense mode by attacking the base of the follicles, effectively killing it and making hair growth in that spot dormant.
Well this is probably the news of the century for those suffering from alopecia; scientists have created new enzyme that may cure all types of alopecia! In 2014 scientists in collaboration with dermatologists at the Columbia University Medical Center made a breakthrough when they developed the JAK inhibitors.
This ground breaking find was spearheaded by Raphael Clynes, MD, PhD, who led the research, along with Angela M. Christiano, PhD, professor in the Departments of Dermatology and of Genetics and Development at CUMC.
The miracles of theses JAK inhibitors are called ruxolitinib and tofacitinib. These compounds were able to block the immune pathways that cause alopecia and stop the attack on the hair follicles.
In mice with extensive hair loss from the disease, both drugs completely restored the animals’ hair within 12 weeks. Each drug’s effect was also long-lasting, as the new hair persisted for several months after stopping treatment.
