— The first study (thanks to commen

— The first study (thanks to commentator “nosyu” for letting me know) from Japan has the somewhat difficult to understand title “Hair follicle aging is driven by transepidermal elimination of stem cells via COL17A1 proteolysis.” For non-scientists, the contents of that study are not very easy to understand without spending some time googling the various technical terms listed in there. However, an easier to understand article analyzing the above study’s findings concludes that “One reason your hair is thinning is because some of it turns into skin.” The study also discusses shedding of epidermal keratinocytes from the skin surface. A lot of people complain about dandruff, itching and dermatitis throughout their scalp while they are slowly balding, and I have had those problems many times in the past decade. Nizoral and sunshine have both helped me tackle those problems, but I can never seem to go for more than a few days without at least some itching and skin shedding. Note that a Japanese article on this study actually mentions the word “dandruff” in there when you translate to English.

The study authors found that hair follicles in women over age 55 were smaller and with lower levels of Collagen 17A1. It is good to see a study that is devoted to female hair loss sufferers. Moreover, one of the lead authors of the study is also a female by the name of Dr. Emi Nishimura. The researchers also engineered mice to lack the COL17A1 gene, and found that these mice then had no follicle-generating cells.

— The second study is titled “Foxc1 reinforces quiescence in self-renewing hair follicle stem cells.” Foxc1 (also known as Forkhead box C1) belongs to the Forkhead family of proteins and transcription factors. It seems like Foxc1 regulates the hair growth cycle, and perhaps manipulating this in future could prevent balding.