Swings and roundabouts though.
When I was at Law school last year I was so unbelievably stressed that I think had I carried on that way all my hair would have fallen out.
I have since given up (and started exercising regularly) but I found smoking really helped me cope with the stress of exams and in that narrowly defined context helped my hair. In other words out of smoking and stress, stress is definitely the worst of 2 evils.
Anyway back to the question in hand. Can smoking cause or accelerate hair loss. Yes, probably.
[1] According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, smoking can increase almost all the major androgenic hormones including DHEA, androstenedione, testosterone, and dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the hormone most closely linked to hair loss.
The study, which examined a cross-section of 1,241 randomly sampled middle-aged U.S. men, compared hormonal levels of nonsmokers and smokers. The study made made sure that weight and age were not a factor in the study results. According to the study, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) was 18% higher in smokers, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) was 13% higher in smokers, androstenedione was 33% higher in smokers, testosterone was 9% higher in smokers, and DHT, the hormone most closely linked with hair loss, was 13% higher in smokers. Although the study did not study hair loss specifically, it is commonly accepted that DHT is the main hormone associated with hair loss.
Propecia, the oral pill for hair loss, works by blocking testerone from being converted into DHT. Increasing levels of Testosterone and DHT are known to be associated with an increase in the amount and rate of hair loss. Smoking alone will not make someone not predisposed to lose hair start losing hair, nor will stopping smoking prevent your hair from falling out if you are predisposed to hair loss. However, if this study is correct, it is possible that smoking may increase the rate at which your hair does fall out and possibly the amount.
[2] Besides being the single most preventable cause of significant morbidity and an important cause of death in the general population, tobacco smoking has been associated with adverse effects on the skin. Smoke-induced premature skin ageing has attracted the attention of the medical community, while only recently an observational study has indicated a significant relationship between smoking and baldness. The mechanisms by which smoking causes hair loss are multifactorial and are probably related to effects of cigarette smoke on the microvasculature of the dermal hair papilla, smoke genotoxicants causing damage to DNA of the hair follicle, smoke-induced imbalance in the follicular protease/antiprotease systems controlling tissue remodeling during the hair growth cycle, pro-oxidant effects of smoking leading to the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines resulting in follicular micro-inflammation and fibrosis and finally increased hydroxylation of oestradiol as well as inhibition of the enzyme aromatase creating a relative hypo-oestrogenic state. In view of the psychological impact of androgenetic alopecia on affected men and women, increasing public awareness of the association between smoking and hair loss offers an opportunity for health education against smoking that may be more effective than the link between smoking and facial wrinkles or grey hair, since the latter can be effectively counteracted by current aesthetic dermatologic procedures, while treatment options for androgenetic alopecia are limited.
Copyright © 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel
[3] By Dianne Partie Lange Los Angeles Times [04/21/03]
The same destructive effects that smoking has on skin, causing premature aging among other visible changes, also may contribute to baldness.
Wound-healing experiments have shown that the smallest blood vessels that supply the scalp are constricted by both acute and long-term smoking, reports Dr. Ralph M. Trueb, a dermatologist at the University Hospital of Zurich, in an editorial in the April issue of Dermatology. Researchers also have detected nicotine and cotinine, a toxic byproduct in smoke, in smokers' hair. Studies have shown that when these substances are processed by cells in the hair follicle, mutations occur in the cell's DNA.
[4] Toxicol Lett 2000 Apr 3;114(1-3):117-23
Induction of alopecia in mice exposed to cigarette smoke.
D'Agostini F, Balansky R, Pesce C, Fiallo P, Lubet RA, Kelloff GJ, De
Flora S.
Section of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Department of Health
Sciences, University of Genoa, Via A. Pastore 1, I-16132, Genoa,
Italy.
Besides being responsible for a high proportion of those chronic
degenerative diseases that are the leading causes of death in the
population, tobacco smoking has been associated with skin diseases.
Smoke genotoxicants are metabolized in hair follicle cells, where they
form DNA adducts and cause DNA damage. The suspicion was raised that, in humans, a link may exist between smoking and both premature grey hair and hair loss. In order to check this hypothesis, we carried out a study in C57BL/6 mice exposed whole-body to a mixture of sidestream and mainstream cigarette smoke. After 3 months exposure, most mice eveloped areas of alopecia and grey hair, while no such lesions occurred either in sham-exposed mice or in smoke-exposed mice
receiving the chemopreventive agent N-acetylcysteine with drinking
water. Cell apoptosis occurred massively in the hair bulbs at the edge
of alopecia areas. Smoke-exposed mice had extensive atrophy of the
epidermis, reduced thickness of the subcutaneous tissue, and scarcity
of hair follicles. On the whole, exposure to smoke genotoxic
components appears to alter the hair cycle with a dystrophic anagen
pattern. Although this mechanism is different from that of genotoxic
cytostatic drugs, N-acetylcysteine appears to exert protective effects
in both conditions.
