Balding Blog

The following is taken from MSN Lifestyle:

1. HOW HAIR TURNS GREY

Hair grows in a follicle, a bulb-like tube on your scalp. The average head has 100,000 to 150,000 follicles, each operating independently from the others. Hair in its basic, unpigmented state is white. It gets its color from melanin, a pigment that also determines skin color. Two types of melanin, eumelanin (dark brown or black) and phaeo-melanin (reddish yellow), combine to make all the hair colors. One hypothesis for why hair goes grey is that aging slows or stops the hair from accessing the melanin, so it comes out grey, silver, or white instead.

3. GREYING IS CAUSED BY HEREDITY

When you’re born, your genes are already hardwired for when and how your hair will turn grey. This includes premature greying—people who grey before age 30 usually do so because it runs in the family. For most of us, greying starts in middle age. Dermatologists go by the 50/50/50 rule of thumb: by age 50, half the population will have at least 50 percent grey hair—although a worldwide survey showed that number was much lower, with only 6 to 23 percent of people half grey by age 50.

4. RACE IS ALSO A FACTOR

In a related matter, race also determines when you’re likely to grey. In general, Caucasians gray in their mid-30s, Asians in their late-30s, and African Americans in their 40s.

5. PLUCKING ONE GREY HAIR WILL NOT CAUSE THREE TO GROW IN ITS PLACE

This old wives’ tale is a myth. Each follicle can contain only one hair, and plucking it won’t make it able to produce multiple hairs. Furthermore, what you do to one follicle has no effect on the ones around it. That said, excessive plucking isn’t a good idea—it can damage the follicles and even stop hair production in that area altogether.

6. STRESS PROBABLY PLAYS A ROLE IN GREYING

When President Obama went grey his first term in office, was it stress, age, or a combination of both? Scientists aren’t sure. While some researchers say that your genes alone are responsible for grey hair, others say that there seems to be a connection between greying and stress, just no direct link to prove it. In 2011, a study by Nobel Prize winner Robert Lefkowitz discovered that long-term productions of the body’s fight or flight response—the instinctive ability to mobilize energy in response to a threatening situation—can damage your DNA and cause premature aging, including greying hair.

7. TRAUMA WON’T MAKE YOU GO GREY OVERNIGHT

Another myth is that a major shock will cause your hair to suddenly turn grey. This is sometimes called the Marie Antoinette Syndrome because the French queen’s hair supposedly turned white the night before she was beheaded. But hair, once grown, doesn’t change color, so waking up with a head of white hair isn’t going to happen. Although there is a very rare condition where all of the colored hairs can fall out, leaving only white hairs behind, the simpler answer is that Marie Antoinette probably just took off her wig.

8. SMOKING MAY CAUSE YOU TO PREMATURELY GREY

Multiple studies have linked smoking with premature aging, which includes early greying. In 2013, a study found that there is a significant relationship between smoking and grey hair in people under 30. In fact, “smokers were two and half times more prone to develop PHG” or premature hair greying.

9. BODY HAIR ALSO TURNS GREY

All your body hair—chest, nose, pubic, etc.—can turn grey. Body hair tends to grey at a different rate than the hair on your head, which is why some men can have grey beards and brown hair, or vice versa. By the way, dyeing grey pubic hair is a thing.

10. SOMEDAY, RESEARCH MAY LEAD TO A GREY HAIR CURE

Scientists in Europe discovered a breakthrough with vitiligo, a disease where skin loses pigment and develops white patches. Like hair, vitiligo is caused by “massive oxidative stress via accumulation of hydrogen peroxide,” causing the skin to bleach itself from the inside out. Researchers have successfully treated the discolored skin and eyelashes of vitiligo patients, which has led some to predict a potential cure for grey hair. But while the idea sounds promising, history is full of tonics and creams claiming to cure grey hair. As far as we know, none of them have worked yet.

In a recent issue of the Hair Transplant Forum, Dr. Jeff Donovan reported a review of the literature which showed that “Levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, and HDL levels were compared between those with AGA (genetic hair loss) and controls. Results showed that total cholesterol, TG, and LDL levels were significantly higher in individuals with AGA and HDL levels were lower.”

We have known for some time that men with AGA seem to have more heart disease than other men without genetic hair loss. It was particularly notable with men who had crown balding had more heart disease than the comparable genetic balding peers. In April 2012, baldingblog reported that heart disease was 32% higher in men with genetic balding (https://baldingblog.com/2013/04/08/in-the-news-balding-men-32-more-likely-to-have-coronary-heart-disease/).

My advise to balding men, particularly for those reading this on baldingblog.com, is that for those of you over 40 years of age and every five years thereafter, you should get a coronary artery scan for calcium (it is a CAT scan) which picks up early coronary aging. For 70% of men, the first symptom of heart disease is death, so take this advice and put it into your overall preventive health picture as you will never know that you had heart disease when you drop dead. All of my friends and family over the age of 40 have had this test at my insistence, including myself. What I learned about myself, will save my life and hopefully allow me to match my grandfather’s age, when he died, at 102.

Hello Dr Rassmann,this blog is great.
Sir suppose a person has genetic hairloss for around last 3 years. If he also has abdominal pain for around last 6 months, so is it possible that his abdominal pain can increase/accelerate his genetic hairloss but without causing acute/chronic telogen effluvium?

I am not sure how you can make a correlation between abdominal pain and hair loss. Abdominal pain is not related to genetic hair loss or any other type of hair loss from my experience.

(female) I had my hair highlighted approx 1 week ago, i thought everything was fine, but i now have a very sore bald patch at the top of my head,do you think this was caused by the hairdresser at all,i have had my hair done in this way many times ,but have never had anything like this happen before!

Thanks

PS, im really scared that all my hair is gona fall out!!!

Ouch! Chemical burns from dyes start off just like you’re describing. You may want to see a dermatologist to find out if the burn did indeed go deep enough into the skin to cause the problem.