Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have reported discovering a way to regrow hair lost to stress, after studying the connection between the brain and gut with colleagues at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

They wrote in the journal PLoS ONE that they began by raising mice with a genetic variation that made them overproduce the stress hormone corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF). Over time, these mice lose the hair on their backs due to high stress levels.

The team said that they treated these rodents with astressin-B, a molecule designed to interfere with CRF. After five injections and three months of lag time, researchers found that the mice had regrown all their hair.

They concluded that astressin-B has the potential to be used to help humans regrow hair.

Baldness can be more than an annoyance. A recent study in the Annals of Oncology determined that men who bald in their 20s are twice as likely as those who bald later to develop prostate cancer.