Health and Wellbeing: The Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher was asked on Radio One recently whether his band would continue rockin� into old age. �If Liam keeps his hair,� he replied.

The Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher was asked on Radio One recently whether his band would continue rockin' into old age. "If Liam keeps his hair," he replied, speaking of his little brother.

"You can never remain a rock'n' roll star if you go bald. It just doesn't work."

Now, the older Gallagher wasn't particularly worried about what would happen to the hair of his hirsute sibling, but what he said highlights that men are now prepared to acknowledge the fear of baldness and that our increasingly ageist society's judgment of those with less hair is harsher than ever.

The British Journal of Psychology has produced a report which claimed that far from being a laughing matter, male hair loss is associated with a marked decrease in psychological wellbeing. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, to discover that global revenues for medical therapy for male pattern baldness surpassed £290m last year. And the two-thirds of the men in the UK who are suffering from hair loss spend £6m a year on hair recovery.

But can baldness really be treated? Male pattern baldness is caused by a truly evil substance called dihydrotestosterone. If hair was Superman, DHT, as it's known, would be its kryptonite. DHT develops when the testicles secrete hormones into the blood stream which then enter the cell of the hair follicles, where an enzyme converts androgen into DHT. DHT then hooks itself onto a specific cell protein and together they give follicles the order to destroy themselves.

Can DHT be tackled? Well, it's true that castration will prevent the supply to the scalp, but some may suggest this option is a little drastic.

Man has, of course, been battling hair loss for centuries. Ancient Egyptians treated it with a scalp treatment based on equal parts of fat from a snake, a lion, a hippo and an ibex (whatever an ibex was). And through the centuries all sorts of lotions and potions and snake oil have been tried.

Julius Caesar came up with the laurel wreath because he was bald and bored of being ribbed by the boys in the Senate. And all manner of hair coverings have been tried out. Celebrities such as Sinatra and Heston all failed to convince that the hair on their head was home-grown.

So is there a modern solution to baldness? Not surprisingly, in recent decades the fight to find a cure has been stepped up, with pharmaceutical companies, realising there are billions to be made, creating products containing everything from amino acids to alcohol.

Shampoo makers have also invented products that claim to make your hair look thicker and topical solutions such as minoxidil (Regaine) claim to improve hair quality. But the successes, if any, are limited. Finasteride pills, which were originally used to treat prostate problems, can offer good results, although the hair that's regrown generally isn't thick and plentiful.

However, the good news is that no-one has to be bald. Wigs are much improved these days, as are hair weaves, where your existing hair and new hair (probably Russian, it's the strongest hair in the world) is woven into a membrane that's glued to your scalp. But weaves will cost around £3000 and have to be maintained every month.

Five to ten years down the line, hair cloning will be the answer, according to companies such as Intercyclex, but right now you can have a hair transplant. In the seventies and eighties, transplants involved taking clumps of hair from the back of the head and inserting them into relatively large holes on the top of scalp, with the result looking like a potato field. Comedian Russ Abbot had one such transplant, but later had the plugs removed. Elton John, too, had a transplant disaster.

Nowadays, a strip is taken from the back of the head and dissected using stereoscopic microscopes into follicular units, little groups of between one and four hairs (hair grows naturally in such sized units). These units are then inserted into microslits in the scalp. The transplanted hair falls out after about 10 days, but then grows naturally around three months later. For a transplant to work, however, there has to be a good donor area from which to extract the follicles. It can cost from £3000, depending on the area to be covered.

There's an argument, of course, that balding men should grin and bare it, just buy a Die Hard vest and shave it all off and look like Bruce Willis (although when Bruce plays a warm, sympathetic human being he wears a hairpiece).

However, the American broadcaster Spencer Kobren describes hair loss as cancer of the soul. And for millions, that's not hyperbole.

"It's thickened so much I bought myself a new comb for Christmas"
THE realisation all was not right on my head came at 7.30am on August 22, 1974, when I washed my 18-year-old hair in a Hull landlady's sink. As I pulled the plug out I noticed the water swirling round the vortex was slower than usual. The reason? It was blocked by my David Cassidy hair.

Now I was terrified. I knew this was the onset of baldness. I knew I would be one of the two-thirds of men who check in to the Follicle Free Hotel by the age of 60. Luckily, however, my hair didn't fall out all at once. It thinned over the years. And thankfully the creeping baldness didn't overly depress me because I researched the subject, and I came to understand not only hair loss, but that doctors and drug companies were desperate to find a solution.

That first glimmer of real hope came from Elton John. He had a transplant in the late seventies and even though it failed, I reckoned that one day medical techniques would improve to the point where transplants would work. It took a while of course, and over the past 30 years I studied the reworked heads of Francis Rossi of Status Quo, John Cleese, Dick Advocaat - and none was entirely convincing.

However, by the age of 50 I began to panic. I was close to becoming a shinyhead. I needed to find a solution. I'd tried all the shampoos, the hair restoration products, the chinese medicine, hanging upside down like a bat, et cetera. And nothing worked. And I didn't want to wear a wig or a weave.

Yes, now was the time for a transplant. But the problem was they were still receiving very bad press. A trawl of the internet revealed countless tales of rogue surgeons and some disastrously hideous - and hideously expensive - results.

I researched the clinics in Britain, Greece, Argentina and the States, but the words of the hair god David Cassidy himself filled my head: How Can I Be Sure? Then I discovered Duncan Bannatyne had had a successful treatment at the Farjo Clinic in Manchester, as had the actor Shaun Williamson.

So I headed down to check out the possibility. And I was delighted. The clinic manager, Mick, was very down to earth: strictly no pressure to sign up, and more importantly I had a meeting with the man who would carry out the transplant, Dr Farjo. I really liked what I heard. And he had a list of accreditations as long as Rapunzel's hair. He was also honest about what I could expect: "A decent hairline with a good covering."

Three months later I had the procedure. Was it painful? Not a bit. It took 12 hours, but lying back in a big comfy chair was actually relaxing. And the new hairline looked great. My scalp was numb for a few days and the back of the head a bit tender for a couple of weeks, and rather purple. But after a couple of months I could feel the little spikes of new, or rather repositioned, hair appear on my scalp. It was the most fantastic feeling. And it's continued to thicken since, to the point where I bought myself a new comb for Christmas. And I'm delighted to say I can rejoice in having bad hair days.

• For more information, visit www.farjo.com and www.hairtransplantnetwork.com Diary of a Hair Transplant: A Journalist's Search for David Cassidy Hair by Brian Beacom is published by Phantom, priced £6.99. Visit www.diaryofahairtransplant.com