$8.5 billion dollars per year: that’s the amount spent each year for hair loss treatment.  That’s a lot of money- and it apparently represents a lot of anguish when it comes to hair loss. So how much bang(s) have these spenders gotten for their hair loss bucks? Not so much, according to some recent reports about the state of relevant research.

As previously reported in agebuzz, there are some, but not many, options to try when hair loss enters your life. And while stem cell therapy may offer a promising avenue down the road, to date little tangible success has been achieved. For a good overview of where things stand in the hair loss research world and why success is so scientifically challenging, pull out your comb and watch this BBC video here. And, according to The Guardian, with the rise of social media and selfies, balding is now not only a physical problem but increasingly a source of mental health distress as the pressure to present a flawless public image grows. While new research advances are in the pipeline (take a look at this recent Atlantic article on progress using stem cells and 3D printing), the best approach to baldness may be, as conservative scholar and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks recommends, just letting go: As he admits, “The more we focus on ourselves and on things that feed our ego, the unhappier we will be.” So take a page from Brooks and read more here.