According To Scientists, A Chemical In McDonald’s Fries Could Cure Baldness

There’s quite a few different ingredients in McDonald’s crispy spuds that turn some heads, but apparently an ingredient found in them could cure baldness.

According to The Sun, researchers in Japan have been able to mass produce “hair follicle germs” from polymethylsiloxane, which is used to prevent McDonald’s cooking oil from foaming. The “germs” help fuel hair development, and while the current experiment was done on mice, they could potentially used to help grow hair back on bald individuals in the future.

“This simple method is very robust and promising,” Professor Junji Fukuda told The Sun. “We hope this technique will improve human hair regenerative therapy to treat hair loss such as androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness).”

While curing baldness may not seem like a major health problem, products treating hair loss are part of a rapidly growing industry worth about 2 billion Euros (about $2.48 billion USD), The Sun reports.

Of course, actually eating the polymethylsiloxane from the McDonald’s fries won’t help out, since they need to be put in a production process to make the hair follicle germs to begin with. But it’s interesting to know that something in our fast food fries could one day be used to help people regrow hair.