A chemical used to make McDonald’s fries may cure human baldness after showing success in trials with mice.
Dimethylpolysiloxane is a silicone chemical added to McDonald’s fries for the purpose of stopping the cooking oil from frothing.
Japanese researchers found the chemical stimulated rapid growth of hair follicle stem cells, which were injected into mice and produced hair growth, Newsweek reported. Preliminary tests seemed to show the hair follicle cells could be transplanted successfully to humans as well.
The study used the chemical as a base in which to grow the cells; the chemical was not ingested by the mice in order to grow the hair; the hair cells still had to be injected into the mice.
“This simple method is very robust and promising,” Yokohama National University professor Junji Fukuda said, Newsweek reported. “We hope this technique will improve human hair regenerative therapy to treat hair loss such as [male pattern baldness].”
Twitter users were very excited about the discovery until they realized it had nothing to do with eating the fries.
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