Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but eating McDonald’s french fries will not cure your baldness. Of course, you haven’t heard it before, because it’s preposterous. Ignore anyone who says french fries can prevent hair loss because some people will.
Various stories are going around conveying a variation of this message: Japanese scientists say eating McDonald’s fries could cure baldness, which is not describing actual real-life events.
Again, eating as many McDonald’s french fries as you can will not initiate a chain reaction with the ultimate result of miraculous hair growth.
Scientists have indeed discovered a way to grow hair in a lab, Gizmodo explains, publishing their findings in Biomaterials last November.
What the researchers did was to come up with a container that could grow hair follicles that could be then transplanted into humans. That’s a significant breakthrough that has nothing to do with McDonald’s food whatsoever.
The scientists did say that the essential element to allow oxygen to reach the cells is “oxygen-permeable dimethylpolysiloxane (PDMS) [placed] at the bottom of culture vessel.”
Let’s focus on that PDMS substance mentioned above. The same chemical is also used in frying oil to prevent foaming.
This is how it all happened. Reports from Daily Mail (Short, back and fries! Scientists claim chemical used in McDonald’s chips can cure BALDNESS and even regrow hair) and Express (REVEALED: Baldness cure hidden in McDonald’s FRIES ‘can regrow hair without transplant’
) turned that connection into something ridiculous, as you can see from the second title.
The scientists, meanwhile, are baffled by the connection. “I have seen online comments asking, ‘how many fries would I have to eat to grow my hair?’” Professor at Yokohama National University Junji Fukuda said, per The Japan Times. “I’d feel bad if people think eating something would do that!”
