McDonald's fries can cure baldness! At least, that's the preliminary claim being made by a group of Japanese researchers, who say a chemical in the greasy treats has shown promise when given to mice and may be useful to humans.
As MSN reports, stem-cell researchers at Yokohama National University have honed in on the "holy grail" of baldness treatment, and it lies in a chemical in Mickey D's fries. The explanation requires discussion of stem cells, chemistry, and other forms of science, so buckle up.
In order to grow hair, your body needs hair follicle germs (HFG) and something to push them into growing, according to researcher Professor Junji Fukuda. That something came in the form of dimethylpolysiloxane. You may not have ever heard of that particular chemical before, but you've almost certainly eaten it — it's used in McDonald's fries, to keep cooking oil from frothing while the potatoes are being cooked.
Dr. Fukuda's team used oxygen-permeable dimethylpolysiloxane (PDMS) at the bottom of a culture to grow HFGs. Then the team arranged the germs onto a microscopic array and injected them into bald mice. Long story short: a few days later, the mice were sprouting thick, black hair in the spots here the arrays had been injected into them.
