The Reason Trump Thinks McDonald's Fries Are Responsible For His Hair
This just in. Donald Trump, via Twitter, credits the existence of his mane of hair to McDonald's french fries. To be clear, McDonald's fries are not the secret to Trump's hair color. Just ask Ivanka. She knows how much effort her father, The President, puts into his locks. In his 2018 book, Fire and Fury (as quoted by Intelligencer), journalist Michael Wolff reports that Ivanka likes to make fun of her father's elaborately constructed comb-over. The distinctive shade, Ivanka purportedly whispered to her friends, is the result of Just for Men, a comb-in coloring product. The longer you leave it in, the darker it gets. If, however, you're impatient like Donald Trump, your hair might end up french fry-blond.
HuffPost reports Trump underwent scalp reduction surgery in 1989, presumably to diminish the bald area on his crown. And, as The New York Times investigators uncovered while looking into the President's income taxes, Trump does not skimp when it comes to hairstyling. POTUS wrote off over $70,000 dollars worth of hair styling expenses as "business expenses" while he worked on The Apprentice. We also know that the president uses Head and Shoulders. "I don't dry it though. I let it dry by itself," he told Rolling Stone. Scalp reduction surgery, Just for Men, and Head and Shoulders aside, could french fries be the reason that Trump hasn't gone completely bald? The ABC News article that President Trump quoted might lead you to believe so.
Could McDonald's fries, in fact, cure baldness?
The article Trump quoted claims that a "chemical in McDonald's fries may be a cure for baldness." If anybody were to benefit from such a side effect, President Donald Trump certainly would. Trump (who, according to Wolff's investigation, eats McDonald's because he knows it's premade, and he's worried about being poisoned) is not shy about his love for Mickey D's. In our modern lexicon, Trump and McDonald's go together like peanut butter and jelly or green eggs and ham.
Alas, munching on McDonald's french fries will probably not prevent baldness. As Grub Street and Wide Open Eats pointed out, the 2018 study that the ABC cites links polydimethylsiloxane to aiding hair growth in mice. Polydimethylsiloxane, in turn, is an anti-foaming agent that McDonald's happens to use (in small amounts) in its cooking oil. Even then, the chemical itself doesn't stimulate hair growth. Rather, it serves as a kind of foundation that enables hair to grow.
Polydimethylsiloxane, it's worth noting, is also found in cosmetics, gas-relief medicines, and Silly Putty. But, in case you're still considering shifting to a McDonald's french fries-only diet, we'll give the mic to Professor Junji Fukuda, who headed the 2018 study. "I have seen online comments asking, 'How many fries would I have to eat to grow my hair?'" he reportedly commented in the wake of the 2018 news coverage, "I'd feel bad if people think eating something would do that!"