Why Do Men Grow Bald?

Why Do Men Grow Bald?

Just one look in the mirror is all you need to tell if your hairline has been receding more than is typical. While this may come as a shock, it’s still not as uncommon as you may think. Recent studies show that almost 30% of men start to lose their hair by age 16 and more than 50% of men have started to lose their hair by the time they’re approach 50 years old. So why do men grow bald all of a sudden?

Blame it on the Hormones

According to Stephen Fox, the leading expert in hair restoration, “Among the elements adding to hair loss are sexual hormones.” The inevitable change in a males sexual hormone level can induce or lead to premature natural hair loss called Androgenic alopecia. Androgenic alopecia is a particular type of hair loss caused by steroidal hormones. This is very different from other forms of alopecia that aren’t usually brought on by hormonal changes. According to skin specialist Maheep Goyal, MD, these hormonal changes can impact men’s hair growth differently depending on their actual dihydrotestosterone levels and genetic makeup.

Who Loses their Hair?

According to Goyal, enzymes in the male body transform testosterone – the primary male sex hormone – into dihydrotestosterone. “The quantity of this enzyme a male ends up with is genetic and is still unknown whether it’s identified by the mother or the father’s gene pool or maybe both,” says Fox. Dihydrotestosterone is a hormone that in higher levels has typically been shown to make hair much shorter and thinner.

Researchers have found that men of Asian descent have less of this enzyme in their roots, which is why they are more likely to not experience hair loss than Caucasian men. These enzymes do not collect with age, Fox says. However, what ends up taking place instead is a sluggish procedure that starts long before you would even experience any hair loss at all. According to Cato, not only is it about the levels of dihydrotestosterone you have, but also some hair receptors on your scalp. Simply put, the more the receptors, the higher the hair loss.

Half of All Men Grow Bald

Did you know that approximately 35% of men have already started to lose their hair by the time they are thirty? By the time men turn 40, 40% of men have already experienced hair loss, and when men turn 50, almost half the entire male population has dealt with varying degrees of hair loss.
“Variations are seen worldwide. Just 25% of Chinese men have started to lose their hair by age 50, which is substantively less than that of American men” states Fox.
So why does it happen to some guys and not others? We’d literally need to return to the roots of balding for the answer.

More Fully-Grown and Less Aggressive

Researchers like Fox, have started to theorize that baldness is the next step in our naked ape development. The evolution from a fuzzy primate to the human involved a tremendous amount of hair loss. While evolution would certainly back this theory, scientists cannot be definite about when men initially started to grow bald. “Hair does not fossilize like bones do. As far back as historical paperwork goes, guys have grown bald,” says Fox.

Wear a Hat if you want

Even though there are many theories as to why men actually grow bald, it’s important to recognize that most of these are simply myths that come from years bad advice and snake oil salesmen hustling to sell their goods. For starters, there is a widely held belief that wearing a hat, indoors and outdoors, can lead to hair loss however, according to Fox, “Hair loss is known to be triggered by hormones and not by so called head equipment.”