What a hair loss breakthrough could mean for women like me

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. What a hair loss breakthrough could mean for women like me17 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleVictoria DerbyshirePresenter for NewsnightBBCI vividly remember the moment my hair began to fall out. I was kneeling over a bath, washing it in a hotel room one Saturday evening, getting ready for my friend's 40th birthday celebration. Seventeen days earlier, I'd had the first of six chemotherapy sessions to treat my breast cancer, but days had gone by with no hair loss.

I'd convinced myself I might be one of the lucky ones. But as I held the shower over my head, suddenly the stream of water turned dark, as long strands of brown hair began coalescing around the plug hole in front of my eyes. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

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"Oh wow," I said to myself, because I honestly hadn't expected it. During chemotherapy, I had been wearing a cold cap – the freezing helmet designed to help preserve hair during treatment. I was told it didn't work for everyone.

It may sound dramatic, but for me, losing my hair was worse even than losing a breast through a mastectomy. Because without my hair, I wasn't me. I had no idea until I started losing it that my hair was part of my identity.

Victoria DerbyshireVictoria: "It may sound dramatic, but for me, losing my hair was worse even than losing a breast through a mastectomy"Now, scientists in Japan believe they may be a step closer to changing the reality of hair loss for millions of people. In what researchers are calling a "major breakthrough", a team, led by Prof Takashi Tsuji, say they have managed to recreate the full cycle of hair growth in mice - meaning hair could grow, fall out and grow back again naturally. While transplanted hair can already grow, recreating follicles that can behave like the natural hair inside the body - repeatedly growing, shedding and regrowing over time - has proved far more difficult.

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For women living with hair loss - whether through cancer treatment, alopecia or ageing - breakthroughs like this hint at something once thought impossible: that hair loss can be reversed. It affects millions of people worldwide, with studies suggesting around one-third of women will experience hair loss at some point in their life. So why is the emotional impact of hair loss still often underestimated and what does our reaction to losing it reveal about our identity, sense of control, and the way we see ourselves?

Hair across historyAcross history, hair has rarely just been hair. In Ancient Egypt, pharaohs and noblewomen wore embellished braided wigs to show power, and in the Middle Ages, women's long hair became associated with femininity and virtue. Men in the 17th century wore the "periwig" - long, voluminous artificial curls - to denote wealth and high social status.

And by the 1920s, women with bobbed hair came to represent female independence and rebellion. "Hair shapes our identity", says psychiatrist Sylvia Karasu.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.