Washingtob DC: Going bald can be the worst nightmare for many but what if reversing could be as easy as wearing a hat?
Yes, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a non-invasive, low-cost hair-growth-stimulating technology.
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"I think this will be a very practical solution to hair regeneration," said Xudong Wang, a professor of materials science and engineering UW-Madison.
The description of this technology in the journal ACS Nano.
Based on devices that gather energy from a body's day-to-day motion, the hair-growth technology stimulates the skin with gentle, low-frequency electric pulses, which coax dormant follicles to reactivate hair production.
The devices don't cause hair follicles to sprout anew in smooth skin. Instead, they reactivate hair-producing structures that have gone dormant. It means they could be used as an intervention for people in the early stages of pattern baldness, but they wouldn't bestow cascading tresses to someone who has been as bald as a billiard ball for several years.
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What more? This technology is powered by the movement of the wearer, so they don't require a bulky battery pack or complicated electronics.
In fact, they're so low-profile that they could be discreetly worn underneath the crown of an everyday baseball cap.
The hair-growth technology is based on a similar premise: Small devices called nanogenerators passively gather energy from day-to-day movements and then transmit low-frequency pulses of electricity to the skin. That gentle electric stimulation causes dormant follicles to "wake up."
"Electric stimulations can help many different body functions," said Wang.
Because the electric pulses are incredibly gentle and don't penetrate any deeper than the very outermost layers of the scalp, the devices don't seem to cause any unpleasant side effects.
That's a marked advantage over other baldness treatments, like the medicine Propecia, which carries risks of sexual dysfunction, depression and anxiety.
"It's a self-activated system, very simple and easy to use. The energy is very low so it will cause minimal side effects," the researcher explained. (ANI)
