Testosterone and Baldness; What's the Relationship

18 days ago

There is one thing that is common with men especially as they grow old. While they might have different body structures, different completion and other phenotypic characteristics, one thing they have in common is being bald. Some people have attributed being bald to high testosterone in men while some people say it isn't the cause but one thing about science is that it helps us to find the truth and stick to it.

My grandfather has bald head, my brother has begin to show sign of baldness and this is a good reason for me to want to understand why these people are bald, and what can be done to prevent being bald if it is available.

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The testosterone of males peak during adolescence and during early adulthood, after which it slowly begins to decline after the age of 20 years at a rate of 1% per year throughout the middle age till old age, so why is it that my brother didn't experience baldness when his testosterone levels were high rather he experienced it when it began to drop.

In the ancient times in Egypt and other parts of the world, young males were castrated for different purposes and even though we must say that it is cruel especially in our civil world, this practice was done then for a lot of purposes including turning the men to Eunuch who were male servers in the female quarters, While this practice is terrible, it helped ancient scientists like Hippocrates to understand a few things about men who didn't have their testes. Hippocrates noticed that men who were Castrated didn't suffer Gout and didn't become bald.

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Hippocrates observation were then re-established in 1942 when James Hamilton published a paper regarding baldness where he looked at men without testicle and baldness. He looked at men who had testicular issues since childhood and men with well developed testicles, and he noticed that men with testicular issues didn't suffer from male related baldness but men who were later castrated in their life did suffer from baldness which indicates the role of testosterone in baldness. He decided to administer testosterone to 12 men who had testosterone issues since childbirth and noticed that only 4 out of them experienced male patterned baldness after 1 year. Those who had signs of male baldness had family members who were bald.

Testosterone is not completely the cause of hair loss rather, as a result of an enzyme 5-alpha-reductase, it is converted to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) which binds to androgen receptors in the scalp causing the hair follicles to shrink causing hair production to become thinner and dormant overtime. People without the 5-alpha-reductase enzyme do not get bald so I do not know if I should say it is good or bad for men with this enzyme deficiency.

Science on Baldness is still being investigated, and while testosterone production ability and DHT is a prerequisite for baldness in males, it is not the only factor responsible as Androgen receptor variant is also a factor so are scientists still looking to understand this topic.