Fair and short men more likely to bald prematurely – Study reveals

• Posted on March 28, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

It has been long suspected that men with premature hair loss are prone to suffer from cardiac diseases and prostate cancer. According to a recent genetic study, the suspicion has been confirmed as it stated that men with shorter height and lighter skin tone are at an increased risk of hair loss.

Researchers at University of Bonn confirmed through their study that premature hair loss is also linked to various other physical characteristics and ailments that can take place in an individual.

How Was The Study Conducted?

The researchers to find conclusive results studied genetic materials from more than 20,000 men from seven different countries.

The participants were divided in two groups, one group contained 11,000 men suffering from premature baldness, and the control group consisted of 12,000 men who did not experience hair loss.

Findings Of The Study

The researchers found 63 alterations in human genome which elevates the risk of premature balding.

“We were thus able to identify 63 alterations in the human genome that increase the risk of premature hair loss,” stated Dr. Stefanie Heilmann-Heimbach, who is a human geneticist at the University of Bonn. Dr Heimbach is also the lead author of this study.

He further stated that the results also revealed that these alterations that were discovered had connections to other physical attributes and ailments such as reduced body size, early puberty and cancer.  

Heimbach confirms that there is definitely a link between premature hair loss and prostate cancer in men.

Additional Results

It was also found in the study that the alterations apart from having links to cancer and body attributes also had connection to light skin color and high bone density.

Although the study has been a success, the researchers state that they have been able to understand the molecular mechanisms only upto a certain extent. They plan to take the study further in order to analyze these connections that have been discovered and to observe the signal paths in detail. 

Prof. Markus Nöthen, the Director of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Bonn, also assured that the men with premature hair loss that there is no need to worry much as the risks of illness have increased only to some extent.

He further added that it was stimulating to observe that hair loss as a phenomenon is not isolated in nature, but has various other links with the human anatomy.

This study has been published in Nature Communications Journal.

-techtimes