The group observed that, at the cellular level, one of the side effects of the diet was an expansion
of hair follicle stem cells, leading to increasing hair follicle growth and retention rates.
This role created interest in
studying hair follicle stem cells to better understand androgenetic alopecia (AGA), or male pattern baldness, the most frequent type of hair loss among men.
The bulge is where the majority of
the hair follicle stem cells reside, and these can give rise to multipotent progenitor cells.
Naturally,
the hair follicle stem cells were the prime suspects for causing AGA.
Surprisingly, it was found that different progenitor cell populations, suspected to be derived from
the hair follicle stem cells, were in fact the ones playing the key roles in causing AGA.