Groundbreaking treatment could stop people going bald in their 20s

Life changing research could finally help stop baldness in young men and women plagued by losing their hair at a young age.

Whether yourself or a friend or family member, most of us know someone who has endured hair loss at an early age.

It can be quite a traumatic experience caused by a number of factors, including stress and even gambling.

It's why hair transplants have boomed in popularity in the last decade, spurred on by the likes of former England footballer Wayne Rooney getting one back in his playing days for Manchester United. And last year, Louis Theroux opened up about his struggle with alopecia.

For many who lose their hair at a young age, it's as a result of genetics. But this could all be about to change following the publication of new research from some of the world's best scientists.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (or MIT as it's more commonly known) have worked with experts at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School to develop a potential new treatment.

They have been focusing on a cue for alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss and affects people of all ages, including people in their 20s and even children.

As it stands, most people with alopecia areata have no treatment or cure that will bring their hair back. The only treatment available to most patients — injections of immunosuppressant steroids into the scalp — is painful and patients often can’t tolerate it.

A receding hairline is for many, the first sign of losing your hair (Getty Stock Images)

But in their studies, the MIT team developed a micro-needle patch that can be painlessly applied to the scalp. There, it will release drugs that help to rebalance the immune response at the site which should, if all things go well, halt the autoimmune attack.

The study looked at deploying the next-level technology on mice where it was found that the treatment allowed hair to regrow and dramatically reduced inflammation at the treatment site.

At the same time it would avoid systemic immune effects elsewhere in the body, meaning it was wholly targeted. This is a huge development given one of the only treatments for alopecia areata and other autoimmune skin diseases are immunosuppressant drugs that are given orally that lead to widespread suppression of the immune system, which can have adverse side effects.

Researchers developed a potential new treatment for alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss (MIT)

This new strategy could also be adapted to treat other autoimmune skin diseases such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis, the researchers say.

Natalie Artzi is a principal research scientist in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute of Harvard University.

Losing hair in multiple areas can be emotionally traumatic (Getty Stock Images)

She said: "This innovative approach marks a paradigm shift.

"Rather than suppressing the immune system, we’re now focusing on regulating it precisely at the site of antigen encounter to generate immune tolerance."

The next step is to launch a company to develop the technology even further so that it can eventually be used on people after clinical trials.