Hair Loss Myths
From time immemorial man has been concerned about baldness. Consequently innumerable are the myths and legends that have centred around it. What causes it? Is it connected to virility, intelligence, race, work culture, socio-economic class, money etc. None of the answers have any scientific basis. There are many contrary examples to counter stand points. Nevertheless baldness continues to be a source of worry to man.
Let us see what some of these myths are:
There is a view that too much of mental work or mental problems can result in baldness. It is not difficult to reason why this thought arose. The brain is just below the skull. The skull is the base from where the hair sprouts. So tax your brain and hair growth will be affected. Mental diseases too will cause the number and thickness of hair to decline.
This view had gained so much strength that it became the favourite theme of movie stories. The intelligent, frustrated and unattractive characters would appear bald on the screen, while the hero would sport a flourish generous growth of hair matching his mood of fitness goodness and manliness.
Off the screen the stereotyped idea about baldness made one think that men going in for intellectual activity whether in universities or offices would be more prone to falling hair while the man working in the field or factory would not be affected. But countless number of cases in actual life contradicts such silly notions.
There is another view that sexual frustration or mental tension can cause baldness. Emotional problems might lead to hair falling off sometimes but there is no rule of thumb to make such a sweeping statement. There are many cases of bald happy-go-lucky people who are neither stressed nor frustrated in life. Unfortunately loss of hair might lead to emotional and psychological problem - but not the other way round. A person with thinning hair might think he is unattractive being treated like an outcast in society.
At the opposite end of the scale is the idea that bald men are more sexually attractive to women. This idea has sprouted from the hard fact that some types of baldness in persons who are prone to it are cause by androgens. Removal of androgens (a form of castration) halts this process of hair loss. Further damage is stopped. Here again nothing can be said for certain as regards cause and effect. Men with the best of hair and androgens may or may not be most attractive and virile. Some say that shaving hair improves growth.
This very popular notion most probably came after observing how the beard or moustache bounced back with force after each shave. But careful scrutiny has shown that shaving does not thicken growth. The hair grows to its usual length and thickness - that is it remains at the stage it was before the treatment.
Perhaps then some races or ethnic groups are less inclined to be bald than others. To a cursory observer, looking at the Caucasian male and their counterparts from Asia or Native-America might come to the conclusion that this indeed is the case. Nature seems to have targeted the Caucasian to be victims of baldness. Taking another yardstick it seems that men from underdeveloped/third world countries seem to be more prone to baldness. Unfortunately there is no proper scientific (anthropological or otherwise) authoritative statement to back up these claims. So these appear to be old wives tale centering round stereotypes without any proper bearing.
Between the innumerable European ethnic types there are many broad statements drawn. The people of Southern Europe are more dark skinned and have more hair on their body. In the case of Northern Europeans like the Germans and those coming from the Scandinavian countries the reverse is said to be true. They are more prone to baldness and their women suffer from cellulite problems. In all probability these stories grew out of political and diplomatic tensions with one group downgrading the other. But nothing is the scientific truth.
