Why can you transplant beard and body hair but NOT hair from someone else?

DoneWithIt

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I don't understand why you can transplant pubic hair from your own body up to the head,
but another person willing to donate head hair to you won't work.
WHY?
 

Quantum Cat

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some organs can be transplanted from other people - livers etc. There's the danger of rejection but I think they have ways to try and minimise this. And it depends on blood type and things

But where are you going to find someone willing to permanently donate parts of their scalp/follicles, leaving them scarred/bald? Who would do that unless they were paid mega bucks, or were a sympathetic family member?
 

DoneWithIt

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some organs can be transplanted from other people - livers etc. There's the danger of rejection but I think they have ways to try and minimise this. And it depends on blood type and things

But where are you going to find someone willing to permanently donate parts of their scalp/follicles, leaving them scarred/bald? Who would do that unless they wre paid mega bucks, or were a sympathetic family member?

If they can transplant organs I dont see why hair shouldt count in that. I was thinking about sympathetic family members. my mom and aunts have plenty of hair and if they donated 1000 follicles to me each it wouldn't even be noticeable on them *dreaming*

of course i'd have a few different textures going on and some gray's but i'd just color and style it, it'd be better than no hair any day!

... since i'm a girl i obviously dont have much body hair to transplant, and anyway if i did they dont grow long and it would look just horrible lol. and be sorta disgusting!
 

Bowser

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This simply would not be realistic or possible.
While there are no cells in the shaft of the hair, there are plenty in the hair follicle. Our bodies are genetically programmed not to 'attack' our own cells (unless you have an autoimmune disorder).

When a foreign cell is implanted/transplanted into another person it would be rejected and attacked by the immune system very quickly.

In the case of liver and other organ transplants, the recipient is given life long immunosuppressants to basically dampen the immune system before it can kill the foreign material. A quick Internet search will tell you that the potential side effects of these drugs would rule out their use for hair!
 

InCider

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If they can transplant organs I dont see why hair shouldt count in that.
It not as simple as that.

Organ transplant patients have to take immunosuppressant drugs like Rapamycin to prevent the body from rejecting the new organ.

Not only that, the patient has take the immunosuppressant drug daily for the rest of his/her life........and there are a lot of problems with adverse side-effects because the drug has to be taken in high doses.

In future there might be gene therapies that "trick" the body into accepting the transplanted organ (or hair) without immunosuppressants, but the technology hasn't reached that point yet.
 
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