New research links early baldness to array of positive conditions

An international genetic study has revealed a wealth of information about the links between premature baldness and a range of illnesses and physical conditions.

A group of scientists led by the University of Bonn in Germany looked at the genetic material of more than 20,000 men from seven countries – 11,000 with premature hair loss and 12,000 with no hair loss – to find 63 alterations in the human genome that increase the risk of baldness.

Those genetic “alterations” were also linked with many other physical characteristics and conditions.

The study was published in Nature Communications and reported by Science Daily.

Among the most interesting findings were:

• Short men may have an increased risk of balding early
• Premature baldness is linked to having gone through puberty earlier than the norm
• Men who go bald prematurely more frequently have light skin and increased bone density. “These could indicate that men with hair loss are better able to use sunlight to synthesise vitamin D,” Markus Nothen, the director of the human genetics institute at the University of Bonn, told Science Daily. “They could also explain why white men in particular lose their hair prematurely.” Poor vitamin D intake is linked with a higher risk of type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
• Men who lose their hair earlier in life have an increased risk of prostate cancer – a link that’s previously been identified but was confirmed by the study.
• The link between premature baldness and an increased risk of heart disease is more complicated. In 2013 the British Medical Journal published research that showed male pattern baldness was linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease, after studying just under 40,000 men. But they found that this was only true for men who lost their hair on the crown of their head, not those who lose their hair at the front. The new study by the University of Bonn found that men who went bald prematurely did have genes that increased the risk of heart disease, but also had ones that reduced the risk.
• Men with male pattern baldness appear to have a reduced risk of colorectal cancer and chronic lymphatic leukaemia

Nothen says the study’s findings should not be a cause for concern for men who went bald early.

“The risks of illness are only increased slightly,” he says. “It is, however, exciting to see that hair loss is by no means an isolated characteristic, but instead displays various relationships with other characteristics.”

Indeed, Frank Muscarella, a clinical psychologist at Barry University in Florida, has been studying baldness since the 1990s, and has found that the appearance of a bald head in men causes other people, both men and women, to rate the man as more intelligent, influential, well-educated, of higher socio-economic status, honest and helpful. He’s speculated that male pattern baldness may have evolved as a signal of non-threatening dominance, as a way for some early humans to stand out from the pack of largely hairy peers.

Did you go bald prematurely? Do you think it’s linked with other physical characteristics that you have? Has it made you more successful or been a millstone around your neck?