Smoke and you will get bald

NI Wire

New Delhi

Mon, 26 Nov 2007: 

Nov 26:  Attention male! This time you can not help but simply take a bold step to kick smoking out of your life.

A new study shows that smoking might be the cause of age related hair loss ong men.

The doctors in Taiwan have reached to a conclusion that though genetic is one of the main reasons behind baldness but it sometime is environmentally induced.

The survey led by Dr Lin-hui-Su of far Eastern memorial Hospital in Taiwan was conducted among 740 Taiwanese men of age group 40 -91 with their smoking habits, age at which they began losing hair, family background and other risk factors associated with baldness.

“After controlling for age and family history, statistically significant positive associations were noted between moderate or severe Androgenetic Alopecia and smoking status, current smoking of 20 cigarettes or more per day and smoking intensity,” the authors wrote.

“Androgenetic Alopecia, a hereditary androgen-dependent disorder, is characterized by progressive thinning of the scalp hair defined by various pattern,” he wrote further.

The researchers suggested that smoking may destroy hair follicles, damage the papilla that circulate blood and hormones to stimulate hair growth or increase production of the hormones to stimulate hair growth or increase production of estrogen to counter the effects of androgen.

Though Asian men are less likely to develop baldness than Caucasians but fagging led to a significant loss of hair even after other factors were taken into account.

Though smoking is known to be associated with heart, lung disease and is also known to facilitate graying of hair and aging, recently a study showed smoking related with impotency in male.

This study will surely help doctors to persuade the smokers to kick off this habit who have equally become conscious of their looks.