Does Baldness Have Any Relationship With Height?

Researchers speculate that short heighted men are more prone to baldness than taller men. A study based on genetics, conducted by University of Bonn highlights the bond between baldness and height. The study was based on the genetic investigation of about 20,000 men. The collected data indicated that premature loss of hair is associated to numerous physical characteristics and factors such as illness. The genetic based study also got published in Nature Communications.

It has already been established in the world of advancement that men who go through premature loss of hair are also more likely to suffer from prostate cancer and certain heart diseases. Recent genetic data and statistics reveal that there may be an evident connection between premature hair loss and other illnesses and characteristics.

Details Of The Study

For their study, the researchers selected participants from 7 different countries. 12,000 men unaffected by premature hair loss were marked as control group and the test group comprised of 11,000 men who were affected by premature baldness. The study led the researchers to identify almost 63 alterations in the genome of humans that may potentiate the risk of premature loss of hair.

The lead author of the study is also the human geneticist at University of Bonn and stated that many of the identified alterations were also with respect to certain illnesses and characteristics like early onset of puberty, several types of cancer and reduced size of the body.

The findings of the international genetic study also confirmed the evident association between elevated risk of prostate cancer and hair loss. However, the connection of hair loss with heart disease was found to be rather complicated i.e. the genes that potentiate the risk as well as genes that minimize the risk were found alongside each other.

Prof Markus Nothen, the Director of Human Genetics Institute at the University of Bonn, believes that they have also discovered the links related to bone density and light toned skin. All of this suggests that men suffering from premature hair loss can are better at using sunlight for the synthesis of vitamin D. This also suggests why white men are more prone to premature hair loss.

Inferences

This leading genetic study also highlights the biological factors that promote premature hair loss such as identification of various involved genes. Following are involved up to various degrees in promoting hair loss:

• Fat and immune cells in the scalp
• Cells present in the hair follicle

However, the researchers think more work is required in order to clearly understand the underlying molecular mechanism behind the correlation of premature hair loss and certain illnesses. The future studies will focus on the determination of such links and the mechanism involved.

The researchers assure that the men with existent premature hair loss have no need to be concerned as the risk of associated illness are slightly elevated. The bottom line is hair loss itself is not any individual characteristic but in actual, it exhibits substantial association with various other characteristics.

References

• Hagenaars, S. P., Hill, W. D., Harris, S. E., Ritchie, S. J., Davies, G., Liewald, D. C., ... & Marioni, R. E. (2017). Genetic prediction of male pattern baldness. PLoS genetics, 13(2), e1006594.
• Heilmann-Heimbach, S., Herold, C., Hochfeld, L. M., Hillmer, A. M., Nyholt, D. R., Hecker, J., ... & Heng, X. T. (2017). Meta-analysis identifies novel risk loci and yields systematic insights into the biology of male-pattern baldness. Nature Communications, 8, 14694.