Personal anecdote, I received glucocorticoid-based medication as treatment of my asthma-allergy-dermatitis trifecta for most of my life, still experienced considerable hereditary hair-loss starting in my twenties. So the solution might not be that straightforward.
I think this was less about male pattern baldness, and more on the mechanism of acute alopecia. I used to get steroid shots in my scalp as the only real treatment. The thinking at the time, was that it was suppressing my immune system. This is saying it may have been something other than that. Is my read.
Combined with the FDA just approving an alopecia drug, exciting time for folks with this. I'm less worried about having passed it to my daughters, now.
That complaint is reasonable when some headline makes some simple result sound like a possible cure for some dread condition. When it's just complaining about an article that's simply general biological research, it becomes annoying.
Agreed, I regularly make comments about how the latest "eating X shown to improve Y" study is effectively an irrelevant guide for your own behavior when it's "just shown in mice". People think they, as a human, should copy a diet that probably doesn't even work in several mice strains, and has a reasonably high chance of never working in humans. So saying "in mice" is a way of saying "maybe don't change your grocery list just yet", which is sensible.
But there's nothing in this article that purports to guide/influence the behavior of a member of the general public who wants to promote hair growth. It's just research.
Another reason rodents are used as models in medical testing is that their genetic, biological and behavior characteristics closely resemble those of humans, and many symptoms of human conditions can be replicated in mice and rats. "Rats and mice are mammals that share many processes with humans"
Sure, but many of us are aware that rodent tests have flaws even when they share processes with humans: You know, things like drugs for x condition (present in both rodents and humans) is processed different in the bodies. It is prudent to remember that rodent studies are simply preliminary and often unavoidable if you want to eventually test on humans.
So this research has a broader application, no?