Why Do People Go Bald?

For most men, losing your hair is an inevitable side effect of aging. Christian describes the growth cycle of hair, types of baldness that affect men and women, and how most ladies feel about bald dudes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hi, I'm
Christian Saga and this is brain stuff. Have you ever
heard that if your maternal grandfather went bald that you
will to? Or what about the one we're getting? A
scalp massage will send more blood to your head and
cause your hair to grow back. Some people also claim

(00:24):
that if you shave your hair, it will grow back
even fullier than before. Sorry to break it to you,
but all of these are bogus myths. As long as
men have been losing their hair, they've been trying to
figure out what causes baldness and how they can cure
this sign of aging. In fact, it's estimated that forty
million Americans are losing their hair, and that's men and women,

(00:48):
and all of those people are spending more than one
billion dollars a year on everything from hair transplants to
two pays and spray on hair. Now, hair, real hair
is just under the skin on our heads from the
close to one hundred thousand follicles there. This growth happens
in three phases, the antigen phase where it's growing, the

(01:10):
catagen phase in between, and the telligen phase where it
falls out and hair falling out is totally normal. We
should lose fifty to one hundred hairs every day as
part of the intelligence cycle. But if more hair falls
out then is replaced, you are probably balding. If the
hair that grows back is thinner than what fell out,

(01:32):
you're probably balding. And if it starts falling out in clumps,
oh yeah, you are balding. But hey, take comfort that
you are not alone. My friends. By age thirty, a
quarter of all men have already started to lose their hair.
What's weird is why do humans go bald in the
first place. Baldness is actually pretty rare in other animals,

(01:54):
and hair serves a lot of important purposes. It protects
our heads from the sun, maintain as our body heat
when we're cold, and may even attract mate. Some researchers
think it suggests a dominant status or a sign of
maturity in different societies. In fact, a paper from the
journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found evidence that women

(02:17):
find completely bald men more attractive than partially bald ones.
The study also found that baldness was highly associated with
two traits, dominance and strength. So if you're starting to
lose your hair, maybe you should take action, shave it
all off and show the world what a tough, assertive
man you are. To understand baldness a little better, let's

(02:40):
look at the different types that occur. First. The most
common type is called androgenetic alopecia, otherwise known as male
pattern baldness. It's related to our inherited genetic predisposition from
both of our parents. This affects how sensitive we are
to a hormone called die high drow testosserone hereafter referred

(03:02):
to as d HT. For most guys, five percent of
their testosterone is converted into d h T. If you're
sensitive to d h T, it acts like a toxin
on your hair follicles, producing thinner, weaker, almost colorless hair
until hair production in the follicle simply stops. Researchers have

(03:24):
also found that male pattern baldness also causes men to
have an abnormal amount of a protein lipid called prostaglandin
D two. Some dermatologists even think that men could regrow
their hair if this inhibiting protein were removed. Other types
of baldness include the female pattern baldness that occurs in

(03:45):
some women post menopause, an autoimmune disorder called alopecia ariata
and a condition called telligent effluvium that makes your hair
fall out faster than normal. People can also have brittle
hair from air shaft defects, or in rare cases, they
may even pull out their own hair compulsively if they

(04:07):
have a disorder called trick atilla mania. You think that
sounds scary. You can also lose your hair from illnesses,
fungal infections, burns, chemical applications, medications, and of course, cancer
treatments like chemotherapy. Smoking is also reported to increase the
risk of baldness. You should definitely see your doctor if

(04:29):
your hair starts falling out in clumps or if you
get a burning, itching irritation on your scouting. Check out
the brain stuff channel on YouTube, and for more on
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com.