Hi Dr,
I lift weights and I was told by a personal trainer that when you work out your legs, it shoots the testosterone throughout your body. My question is this: can that accelerate hair loss? I asked the pt if it increases testosterone & he said no it just sends what you have throughout your system. Can you tell me if this is something that can accelerate hair loss? Thank you.
Exercises should not increase hair loss, though I do not know if the testosterone shooting through your body occurs from leg exercises. If you’re suggesting that your personal trainer is saying that leg exercises accelerate testosterone and therefore hair loss, I’d believe he’d be incorrect, but there are sources of evidence that suggest he may have a point. In other words, I really don’t have a clear cut answer for you.
The use of steroids or exogenous testosterone will cause hair loss in those who are genetically prone to it (has the genes for balding), but it is not clear that diet or exercise will produce enough testosterone to cause balding.
Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):
http://www.baldingblog.com/2008/01/09/hair-loss-from-exercise/
In your answer in the link above you definitively say working out will not cause hair loss, but in the response that I’m commenting on, you seem unsure. I need some clarification. I’ve heard that workingout boosts testosterone but it also lowers it as well. You even said in another posting that we could have all the testosterone (and DHT) in the world but if we don’t have the gene for MPB it won’t cause hair loss. But since most of us readig this site think we have MPB or we do, we all want a definitive answer as to whether working out will INCREASE THE RATE of baldness. I think the only way to do this is to see if we haev a pair of twins, one who works out with weights and the other who doesn’t, and track them over a period of time…
Derek, I have made a study on this and I have noticed a considerable increase of hairloss when you do heavy exercise. Well the study was not just based on me, I have discussed with many people who share the same concern.