There are many myths regarding the possible causes of baldness and its relationship with one's virility, intelligence, ethnicity, job, social class, wealth etc. While skepticism is warranted due to lack of scientific validation, some of these myths may have a degree of underlying truth.
* "You inherit baldness from your mother's father."Previously, early baldness of the androgenic type was thought to be sex linked dominant in males and to be sex linked recessive in females.
Research suggests that the gene for the androgen receptor, which is significant in determining probability for hair loss, is located on the X chromosome and so is always inherited from the mother's side. There is a 50% chance that a person shares the same X chromosome as their maternal grandfather. Because women have two X chromosomes, they will have two copies of the androgen receptor gene while men only have one.
However research has also shown that a person with a balding father also has a significantly greater chance of experiencing hair loss.
* "Intellectual activity or psychological problems can cause baldness."This myth probably was inspired by the fact that the human brain is located inside the skull, very close and just below where hair grows, and so it was thought that the use and abuse as well as mental diseases could have negative effect on hair growth and number.[citation needed] It may also be due to the fact that cholesterol is involved in the process of neurogenesis and also the base material from which the body ultimately manufactures DHT. While the notion that bald men are more intelligent may lack credibility in the modern world, in the ancient world if a person were bald it was likely that he had an adequate amount of fat in his diet. Thus, his mental development was probably not stunted by malnutrition during his crucial formative years, he was more likely to be wealthy, and also have had access to a formal education. However a sedentary lifestyle is less likely to correlate with intelligence in the modern world, and dietary fat content is less strongly linked to economic class in developed countries.
This is sometimes used as a stereotype in films, where the more intellectual or rather frustrated characters are most usually portrayed as bald and generally unattractive, as opposed to the main characters which are usually portrayed as attractive, fit, mentally stable and generally with no apparent hair problems.
This same myth normally extends to considering people having intellectual jobs more prone to baldness problems compared to manual laborers, sometimes further extending the myth to male college or university students when compared to workers of the same age.[citation needed] The myth is suspect because counterexamples can be found in any case.
There is evidence, confirmed by cross cultural studies, for an association between androgen levels and intellectual ability. These findings are controversial due to their implications regarding psychology and gender.
Total testosterone exhibits a positive relation to tactual-spatial abilities and to the degree of lateralization. Total testosterone is negatively correlated with verbal fluency. Testosterone in the saliva is also significantly positively correlated to tactual-spatial test scores and, in addition, to field independence. DHT and the ratio DHT/total testosterone are positively related to verbal fluency and negatively to the degree of lateralization of tactual-spatial performance.
* "Baldness can be caused by emotional stress, sexual frustration etc."Emotional stress has been shown to accelerate baldness in genetically susceptible individuals.
Stress due to sleep deprivation in military recruits lowered testosterone levels, but is not noted to have effected SHBG.
Thus, stress due to sleep deprivation in fit males is unlikely to elevate DHT. Whether it can cause hair loss by some other mechanism is not clear.
* "Bald men are more "virile" or sexually active than others."Levels of free testosterone are strongly linked to libido and also DHT levels, but unless free testosterone is virtually non-existent levels have not been shown to affect virility. Men with androgenic alopecia are more likely to have a higher baseline of free androgens. However sexual activity is multifactoral, and androgenic profile is also not the only determining factor in baldness. Additionally, because hair loss is progressive and free testosterone declines with age, a person's hairline may be more indicative of their past than present disposition.
* "Shaving hair makes it grow back stronger"Proposed as a popular remedy against baldness, it's very probably just an illusion similar to the one perceived after shaving one's beard or mustache. Shaving one's head doesn't increase the number of healthy hair present on the scalp, and, when the remaining hair has grown a few millimeters, no enhancement in thickness or overall quality can be observed.
* "Frequent ejaculation causes baldness"There are many misconceptions about what can help prevent hairloss, one of these being that frequent ejaculation may have an influence on MPB. While ejaculation significantly lowers levels of relaxin (a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor) in a male's body and causes testosterone levels to temporarily elevate, the claim that frequent ejaculations can cause baldness is often viewed with skepticism. Higher free testosterone levels may correlate with both hairloss and increased sex drive in predisposed individuals.
* "Standing on one's head alleviates baldness"The "blood-flow" theory, which led men to stand on their heads in the 1980's, can be found in the advertising for many of the fake hair-loss treatments for sale on the internet. While Minoxidil is a vasodilator and is speculated to work, in part, by increasing blood flow to hair follicles, there is no evidence that standing on one's head can alleviate baldness.
* "Tight hats cause baldness."This one probably started in the military where young men entering the service were required to wear hats and soon showed signs of going bald, or at least of hair thinning. This is due to coincidental timing. The age that young men enter the military is also the same age that male pattern hair loss begins. This is due to dihydrotestosterone, not hats. Hats do cause hair breakage and, to a lesser degree, split ends. Since hats are not washed as frequently as other clothing, they can also lead to scalp uncleanliness and possible P. ovale contamination in men with naturally oily scalps
This article was found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness
