A small fries is seen at a McDonald's restaurant in Tokyo, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014. (Eugene Hoshiko | AP)

A new study says a chemical used by McDonald's for fries could also help cure baldness.

The Evening Standard reports Japanese scientists at Yokohama National University (YMU) have found dimethylpolysiloxane can help mass produce hair follicles, which can grow hair when transplanted into mice. Metro reports the rodents had furry backs and scalps within days.

According to MSN, preliminary tests suggest the "simple" method could also be used on humans suffering from hair loss.

Dimethylpolysiloxane, which is found in silicone, is added to the cooking oil McDonald's uses to cook french fries to keep it from frothing, according to Business Insider. Taco Bell, Domino's, Five Guys, Chick-fil-A, KFC and other fast food restaurants also reportedly use dimethylpolysiloxane; the chemical is even found in Silly Putty.

The paper said researchers were able to generate up to 5,000 hair follicle germs (HFG) to regenerate hair growth, using dimethylpolysiloxane.

"The key for the mass production of HFGs was a choice of substrate materials for culture vessel," YNU professor Junji Fukuda wrote. "We used oxygen-permeable dimethylpolysiloxane (PDMS) at the bottom of culture vessel, and it worked very well."

But if you're bald, eating more fast food won't turn you into Fabio or Rapunzel. Business Insider notes that PDMS does not trigger hair growth on its own, without the method used in the study.

"This simple method is very robust and promising. We hope that this technique will improve human hair regenerative therapy to treat hair loss such as androgenic alopecia," Fukuda added. "In fact, we have preliminary data that suggests human HFG formation using human keratinocytes and dermal papilla cells."

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