There has been a lot of buzz lately regarding a chemical in McDonald’s fries and how it relates to a cure for hair loss. The chemical is a product called Dimethylpolysiloxane which is used in the cooking oil of the McDonald’s fries and other eateries like Taco Bell and Chick-fil-a to help decrease the frothing in oil. It is also used in culture media to help cells grow.
Researchers in Japan have shown that they take these germ cells and they put them in a culture which contains the Dimethylpolysiloxane chemical. In this culture, they are actually seeing some hairs that grow. These cells or hairs are then transplanted into nude mice and some of those hairs grow.
So, how does this translate to humans? Human hairs and mice hairs are completely different. It is a very complicated issue of getting hairs to really grow in culture. It is not really proven that this is going to work in humans and how exactly it would work, but it does show some promise that maybe there is a product or a chemical that gives us the ability to grow hairs better.
Hair transplantation is a great procedure for patients, but getting the right chemicals to help grow them in culture and to grow those and transplant them back into humans is a very complicated issue. Time will tell what comes about from this research and we will have more answers as we move along.
