Are we seeing more balding today because of living with more stress than say 30 years ago?

We are clearly more informed today that previous generations have been so today’s young people think that balding should not happen today when in our father’s time, it was just an accepted fact. In reality, Dr. Otar Norwood published his balding patterns in in early 1980s. What he said is that men bald in patterns and these patterns of genetic patterns that we inherit. The few balding men who have very advanced balding patterns (Class 7 patterns), usually, but not always, have them by the time they are 26 years old. Many of the less advanced patterns take years to occur. The reality is that each hair follicle has a ingrained number of hair cycles in its life time. If you have a 3 year hair scalp cycle for example, and you have an advanced Class 7 pattern of balding, the number of hair cycles that are ingrained in the hair follicles are about 7-8 cycles, at which time the hair follicles die out (called medically Apoptosis). Drugs like finasteride (Propecia), alter the length of these hair cycles and that is why they have become very popular.

Stress does add to the causative factors for hair loss. We see this in stressed college students and/or people who have romantic relationships that fall apart so managing stress is important to hold on to your hair. I do not believe that today, we see more balding than 30 or 100 years ago. Balding is genetic.