THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 29, 1996 TAG: 9610290264
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ESTES THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: 63 lines
Men who blame women when they start losing their hair may be closer to the truth than they think.
Researchers conducting mouse studies say baldness may be linked to the presence of a female hormone rather than the lack of a male hormone.
The clue to baldness did not begin as a search for more hair.
Dr. Robert Smart and graduate assistant Hye-Sun Oh were studying the effect of a pesticide on skin cancer. The North Carolina State University researchers found that the shaved skin of mice did not grow hair if it had been swabbed with estrogen.
``Estrogen was playing some fundamental role in skin biology,'' Smart said.
Smart's findings were published in Tuesday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The discovery is being tested for possible application in humans, but any commercial use could be five years away, Smart said.
His studies showed that hair growth began when areas in which the hair follicle cells that recognize estrogen, called estrogen receptors, were blocked, he said. Both female and male hormones are found in the hair follicles.
An independent scientist said it was too soon to suggest the research may have applications in humans, either for baldness or for skin cancer.
``It may well be that whatever effect estrogen has is going to be much more significant in the mouse than the human,'' said Dr. Barbara Gilchrest, chair of the dermatology department at Boston University.
Smart said the next research step would be to determine if the estrogen blocker, which acts as a switch to turn on hair growth in the lab mice, exists in humans. That is being studied at Wake Forest University's Bowman-Gray School of Medicine.
Another researcher said the finding is ``likely to help us understand male pattern baldness'' and other hair loss conditions.
``It's almost too new to understand all the implications. But the more we understand about the life of the hair follicle, the better it is for understanding the abnormalities,'' said Dr. Ulrike Lichti, a hair follicle investigator at the National Cancer Institute.
``What's interesting and frustrating about the hair follicle is it requires the interaction of a lot of signals. This is such a clear demonstration of an agent that it's new and it's exciting.''
Smart said the finding could be valuable to people who lose hair through disease or chemotherapy. He said it also was valuable to his original skin cancer research.
Scientists have known that cells at the base of the hair follicle, called dermal papilla cells, regulate the follicle growth and resting periods. But no one knew why. Smart said his research points to a reason.
``In the follicle itself, what we're observing is one particular cell type is being influenced by estrogen and it is influencing the growth of another cell type,'' Smart said. ILLUSTRATION: Scientist finds a clue to hair loss
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dr. Robert Smart, along with graduate assistant Hye-Sun Oh, studied
the effects of estrogen on mice in a lab at North Carolina State
University in Raleigh. The pair's findings have been published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. by CNB