Science is there for you

Soon there will be an FDA approved libido enhancing nasal spray, or as its makers like to call it: the first real, honest-to-God, horny-making, body-shaking, equal-opportunity aphrodisiac. Seriously. Plain as it is, however, there is one thing that distinguishes PT-141 from the 4,000 years’ worth of recorded medicinal aphrodisiacs that precede it: It actually works. And it’s coming to a medicine cabinet near you. The drug will soon enter Phase 3 clinical trials, the final round of testing before it goes to the Food and Drug Administration for review, and with the FDA’s approval it could reach the market in as soon as three years. The full range of possible risks and side effects has yet to be determined, but already this much is known: Putting that inhaler up your nose and popping off a dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as few as fifteen minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel “genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,” not to mention “a strong desire to have sex.” Among men, who’ve been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is, shall we say, richer. The Good news doesn't stop there. Bald? Scientists are now working on helping you clone your hair. In England, meanwhile, a company called Intercytex has just begun human studies of an approach sometimes called hair cloning. It focuses on a particular kind of cell, found at the base of the follicle, that can team up with skin cells to produce new follicles. Here's the idea: Extract some cells from the areas of a man's head that resist balding, put them in a lab dish and expand their numbers by thousands of times. Then inject these new cells back into the scalp, where they'll work with skin cells to form new follicles. So, unlike transplants, the guy actually ends up with more hairs than he started with. The company has recently tested this on seven men with thinning hair due to male pattern baldness, and five of them gained hair, says Intercytex chief scientific officer Paul Kemp. This was just an initial study to look for side effects like inflammation, Kemp says, and no such problems appeared. So now you can regain your hair and libido. Congratulations. Add Viagra to the mix and science is helping make midlife crisis your own personal bitch. Life is good. In other news, there is still no cure for Aids, Lukemia, Herpes, M.S. or Alzheimers. Sigh...