Most of the ads sell snake oil

People have many different weaknesses, but one of the most common is vanity - the sense that we are somehow special, endowed with extraordinary abilities and attractive to the opposite sex. Unfortunately, most of us are slightly overweight and "ordinary". If we are attractive, it is only to those who are equally ordinary. Yet, there is a major industry "out there" which sucks up money from all those people who want to look better. It ranges from a little foundation powder to hide blemishes, lifts in shoes to add an inch, to the more extreme forms of body renovation and redesign through different forms of cosmetic surgery. For men, the great fear is loss of hair. Whereas women can more easily hide under hair pieces and wigs, men are routinely mocked if they suddenly appear in public under a rug. Go back a few centuries, and mountebanks would ride their wagons into town to sell quack medicines - pills to cure all ills, potions to rub on the affected areas and liquors to drown all pains. Their plan was simple. Sell as much as possible in one day and then ride the wagons quietly out of town that night. It was dangerous to stay until the deceptions were discovered. Angry people do not ask for the return of their money politely.

Do not think the morality of marketing is any better today. Open a newspaper, turn on your tv or surf the internet and you cannot avoid all the same extravagant claims. Buy these pills, this topical cream, or this emulsion or suspension and not only will your hair loss stop overnight, it will immediately start to grow so fast you will have to keep a place permanently booked at your hairdresser to keep it under control. On the scale of miraculous cures, it is up there alongside Lazarus. The only difference between the old mountebanks and the modern merchants are the words. The claims are the same, but now they are all wrapped in the language of science. Active ingredients are given interestingly impressive names or codes. You will be referred to reports from clinical trials. Doctors will apparently endorse their effectiveness. Yet there is one underlying truth. Not one of these products has to be approved by the FDA before they are sold on the market. There are no tests required to prove effectiveness or safety. People can put anything in a bottle and sell it as a "stop hair loss" product. This always was and continues to be the snake oil sold by the travelling medicine shows.

That's what makes it so refreshing to actually have a product like propecia. This is a drug that has been through the clinical trials required by the FDA to prove that it works and has no serious adverse side effects. When claims are made about this drug, they are backed up by real scientific evidence and vouched for by real physicians. When it comes to male pattern baldness, propecia really does stop hair loss and, in many cases, it encourages some regrowth. There are just two simple rules to follow. Start taking it early before too much hair is lost. Do not stop. Once you stop, hair loss resumes.