Does stress really accelerate male pattern baldness?

[Ryukil]

http://www.beIgraviacentre.com/blog/anxiety-and-hair-loss-something-to-panic-about/
A study Wikipedia cites that is evidence of stress increasing hair loss:http://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/

I'm somewhere between 2 and 3 on the Norwood scale...and I've had generalized anxiety disorder all of my life. So I'm kind of chronically stress. There is a history of younger hair loss in my family, but more around 30, not 20. My hair started to recede at around 18. I'm just wondering if all of this chronic stress somehow accelerated my male pattern baldness. If so, how much earlier do you think it could have caused it to begin? Is it possible I wouldn't have begun to lose my hair until around 25 or something?

 

[Ryukil]

Well yes, it kind of seems like common sense reasoning. You know, "stress is bad - of course it accelerates male pattern baldness."

But did you look at the study I cited?

 

[badgenetics1]

It's possible. Are there any studies that look at the causality between cortisol and Androgenetic Alopecia? It is interesting that elevated cortisol was found in people with Androgenetic Alopecia, but Androgenetic Alopecia could be the cause of stress and not the other way around.

Anecdotally, I was in a very bad relationship a year ago and it finally ended about 9 months ago. Several months later people commented that my hair was looking better (before I started any treatment). Who knows, maybe the reduction in stress helped out my hair.

 

[Ryukil]

It's possible. Are there any studies that look at the causality between cortisol and Androgenetic Alopecia? It is interesting that elevated cortisol was found in people with Androgenetic Alopecia, but Androgenetic Alopecia could be the cause of stress and not the other way around.

Anecdotally, I was in a very bad relationship a year ago and it finally ended about 9 months ago. Several months later people commented that my hair was looking better (before I started any treatment). Who knows, maybe the reduction in stress helped out my hair.

Your first point: that's interesting. Could be. It is interesting that cortisol was higher in ALL of the people with Androgenetic Alopecia. Surely not everyone who starts losing their hair would be stressed out right before they start losing their hair...although the study seems to take it that way. It specifically mentions "the observation of exacerbated AH in periods of increased stress."

 

[beholder]

Nope, don't blame yourself. There is no relation between stress and male pattern baldness. It might be a factor in alopecia areata but even for that, it's just pure speculation. In the end, I think it's mostly an old wives tale.

au contraire, FredTheBelgian,

please look at my reply in another thread for some indirect links of stress/anxiety/caffeine on hair loss:
http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interac...s-trigger-it?p=1202500&viewfull=1#post1202500

 

[beholder]

epinephrine(adrenaline) is highly vasoconstrictive and is implicated as one of the causes of hair loss after hair restorative surgeries. Study on rats related to epinephrine and hair loss:
http://www.goums.ac.ir/journal/files/site1/user_files_56ad45/eng_abst/a3pgae89.pdf

Study of epinephrine on rats in relation to unwanted hair color change:
http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/v53/n2/full/jid1969122a.html

Cortisol:
http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2...-loss-of-alopecia/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
http://www. h a i r l o s s t a l k .com/interact/archive/index.php/t-23058.html

insulin resistance + hair loss:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/10/22/baldness-insulin.aspx

Melatonin (you can find similar studies for other anti-oxidants):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3681103/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14996107

The rest of the studies here.

 

[dps]

yep so does depression.
which sucks cause Ive been really depressed and stressed since my hair loss started and im like "stop being so stressed youre making it worse" and that makes me even more stressed and depressed.

and I know for certainty that it causes hairloss cause I know a girl.. young girl in her teen who lost all her hair because of bombings and air raid sirens that have happened here in Israel not so long ago.

 

[beholder]

I am sorry FredTheBelgian that you dont see it, I am not here to prove a point. Go ahead, stress yourself as you can, prove for yourself that it doesn't cause hair loss.

 

[corvidae]

Stress shortens the telomeres, which more or less accelerates aging. Therefore, it should theoretically mean you will bald younger if put under intensely stressful situations.

Telomeres provide a unique model for understanding cell aging and senescence. Telomeres are the protective nucleoprotein structures capping the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, consisting of a simple repeat sequence (TTAGGG). When cells divide, the end of the telomere cap may not be replicated because the DNA polymerase does not function properly at the end of a DNA strand.3 Therefore telomeres tend to shorten with mitosis so that cells in older organisms have on average shorter telomeres than cells in younger organisms.

Telomere shortening and replicative senescence is thought to be indicative of bodily aging. Several genetic premature aging syndromes are characterized by cell sencescence

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057175/

However, male pattern baldness is not explicitly mentioned in this article. Given the context, however, I don't think it's unreasonable to state that it might effect male pattern baldness

 

[abcdefg]

I dont know how you measure or quantify the effects of stress in comparison to what would have normally happened minus the stress. I dont think stress does much of anything and its just a big safety net we use as an excuse for why something happens that is beyond current understanding. I can say x,y,z is partly from stress and you cant argue it because stress is such an abstract unquantifiable thing. I dont know if stress changes aging but we certainly age with or without stress so its hard to say stress relates to male pattern baldness at all.
I think its just people guessing at something we still know little about