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Fuel for Your Follicles: How an Injury-Triggered Metabolic Relay Wakes Sleeping Hair Stem Cells
Aging Mechanisms Jul 31, 2026

Fuel for Your Follicles: How an Injury-Triggered Metabolic Relay Wakes Sleeping Hair Stem Cells

Subcutaneous fat is more than a storage tank. In a Cell Metabolism mouse study, skin injury prompts macrophages to make fat cells release fatty acids; hair follicle stem cells take up these monounsaturated fatty acids via CD36, switch on Pgc1-alpha for energy, and exit dormancy to regrow hair, forming a macrophage-to-adipocyte-to-follicle metabolic relay.

#Gut & Metabolism