Men and women suffering from hereditary-patterned baldness, the most common cause of hair loss worldwide, can hope of growing back their locks and curls, as scientists have chanced upon a potential new treatment for the condition. 

A breakthrough that would benefit the bald and balding came during research on a sugar that naturally occurs in the body and helps form the genetic material DNA: the ‘deoxyribose’ part of deoxyribonucleic acid in 2024, as per a ScienceAlert report.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield and COMSATS University in Pakistan were trying to determine how these sugars heal the wounds in mice when applied topically when they noticed that the fur around the lesions started growing back more rapidly than in untreated mice.
The finding excited the team of researchers, and they opted to explore the observation further.

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As per a study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology in June 2024, the scientists picked male mice with testosterone-driven hair loss for study and removed the fur on their backs. They applied a small dose of deoxyribose sugar gel on the exposed skin every day and noticed robust regrowth of fur within weeks, with long, thick individual hair.

“Our research suggests that the answer to treating hair loss might be as simple as using a naturally occurring deoxyribose sugar to boost the blood supply to the hair follicles to encourage hair growth,” said tissue engineer Sheila MacNeil from the University of Sheffield.
Hereditary-patterned baldness, also termed androgenic alopecia, is a natural genetic condition caused by hormone levels and ageing, and manifests differently in males and females.

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The disorder impacts up to 40 per cent of the population in the US, and yet the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has so far approved only two drugs to treat the condition.
While the over-the-counter drug ‘minoxidil’ slows down hair loss and promotes some regrowth, it isn’t effective for all those suffering hair loss.

There is another drug ‘finasteride’ for males that has to be taken orally that impedes the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, but it isn’t approved for female patients yet.
Finasteride has to be taken regularly once started but has some unwanted side effects, like erectile dysfunction, testicular pain, reduced libido, and depression, though it slows down hair loss in over 80 per cent patients.

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“The treatment of androgenetic alopecia remains challenging,” write MacNeil and her colleagues, led by biomaterial researcher Muhammad Anjum from COMSATS, in their published paper.

The team designed a biodegradable, non-toxic gel made from deoxyribose, and tested it on mouse models of male-pattern baldness.
The researchers also tested minoxidil on balding mouse models, and gave some of them a dose of both sugar gel and minoxidil for good measure, and found that the mice that received a gel with deoxyribose sugar began to sprout new hair follicles.

Researchers have yet to determine why the deoxyribose gel stimulates longer and thicker hair growth in mice, but they did notice an increase in blood vessels and skin cells around the treated site.
“The better the blood supply to the hair bulb, the larger its diameter and the more hair growth,” the researchers write.

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If the deoxyribose gel proves effective in humans also, then it could treat alopecia and even stimulate hair, lash, and eyebrow regrowth in cancer patients after chemotherapy.
“This is a badly under-researched area, and hence new approaches are needed. The research we have done is very much in the early stages, but the results are promising and warrant further investigation,” write the authors.