Several promising targets for new oral drugs and topical lotions that prevent hair loss have been identified by French scientists.

Research, which involved more than 8,000 people over eight years in France, has found that ageing skin cells on the scalp constrict hair follicles as they lose their flexibility, pushing their roots nearer to the surface and eventually destroying their ability to sustain thick, healthy hair.

The findings suggest that antioxidants — chemicals that combat ageing in many types of tissue — are likely to protect against baldness.

A handful of compounds are being analysed in more detail by scientists from L’Oréal, the cosmetics company, who are convinced that they will pave the way for a new class of alopecia therapies.

The research used data from the Suvimax study, an epidemiological investigation of the effects of antioxidants and vitamins on human health. These chemicals help to prevent and repair damage to cells from oxygen molecules known as free radicals.

The first Suvimax data, which aims primarily to investigate links between diet and heart disease and cancer, were released at the weekend when scientists were first told which of 12,000 volunteers had taken real dietary supplements and which had taken a placebo.

As this information is analysed in full by the L’Oréal team, they will be able to determine more precisely the physiological and biochemical changes that underlie the scalp-ageing process.

Olivier de Lacharrière, the lead researcher, has already been able to chart a clear process of deterioration in the scalps of balding men — and women — that begins long before hair loss is obvious.

First, two types of mark start to appear around the root of an apparently healthly follicle. Cupulae, small bulges in the scalp, grow around the follicle as ageing skin cells squeeze it and force its roots towards the surface. Later, coloured blotches or “halos” can be seen around follicles as they become distressed and inflamed.

In the next stage, certain hair follicles become so compressed that they start to produce finer hairs with thinner diameters. A high-level “hair diameter diversity” — with some thick and some thin hairs on the scalp — is a good indicator of incipient alopecia. Eventually, the follicles lose their healthy roots altogether, and produce only the very fine, downy hairs that are all that remain on a bald head.

After five years a man with follicle markings, also known as “peripillar signs”, can expect to lose 8.4 per cent of his hair density, while one who has a high hair diameter diversity as well can expect to lose 10.4 per cent. “These are new clinical signs that have not been observed before,” Dr de Lacharrière said.

The same process takes place in women, but more slowly and at an older age. “If you draw the graph, it is essentially the same, but the effects come 12 years later on,” Dr de Lacharrière said.

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