WASHINGTON (ABC7) — Japanese researchers found that an additive in McDonald’s French fries helped them grow hair follicles.
Don’t let some headlines fool you. Eating fries or rubbing them on your head will not turn your bald spot into flowing locks.
When you think of French fries, the ingredients potatoes, oil and salt come to mind. What about dimethylpolysiloxane?
“Say that five times fast,” said Ryan Brown, an Alexandria, Virginia resident.
“Sounds questionable,” said Washington, D.C. resident Kara Hall-Brown.
It’s a real word and something you really eat when chowing down on McDonald’s fries.
“Things that I can’t pronounce and probably shouldn’t be ingested,” said Shelby Dawson of Falls Church, Virginia.
Dimethylpolysiloxane, the stuff in silly putty, adhesives, sealants and lubricants, is also an ingredient in McDonald’s French fry grease. Micky D’s uses it as an anti-foaming agent.
“As a bald guy, I think it’s a pretty good additive,” said Brown with a laugh.
Researchers at Japan’s Yokohama National University say they used that additive to help successfully regenerate hair follicles that grow and sustain hair in mice.
“I mean it’s interesting. Maybe it works for mice. I don’t know about humans though,” said Chinelo Acikpoh, a Towson, Maryland resident.
One of the Japanese researchers says it’s “promising” that the new technique that regenerates hair follicles could help humans.
But Brown is hopeful.
“If I could get a little extra hair back, that would be great. I’d come to McDonalds even more than I do,” he said.
The study was published in the scientific journal called Biomaterials. If you’d like to read the full studyclick here.