Does Scalp Health Play a Part in Balding?

Hi Dr., I was curious about scalp health and wondered if you noticed that people who are balding have a tendency to have a more oily scalp or perhaps quite the opposite?

I’ve heard a few celebrity stylists say washing the hair only once a month will thicken hair. Personally I have to shampoo everyday because my scalp is always very oily the next morning. Anyway is this a sign of good health and can I do anymore than wash regularly?

Hair is dead, so what you do with your dead scalp hair is make it look ‘alive’ (a cosmetic term used by the hair cosmetic industry). Actually, the status of your health is reflected in your hair. In the middle ages, men with tuberculosis and other wasting diseases lost or thinned their hair, and women caught on that healthy men that are good marital candidates will have a good, healthy head of hair… so women chose men with normal full heads of hair. That is why genetic balding was such a problem, because balding men looked like those men with diseases in those days.

Today we are wiser, because we know about genetics and its association with balding. Oily hair, dandruff in the scalp and other topical problem probably do not impact the growth of your hair.