In the News – Study Finds That Drinking and Smoking Are Associated with Severity of Hair Loss

Snippet from the article:

To evaluate its association with environmental factors, the researchers at Chung-Ang examined 3,114 Koreans with androgenetic alopecia who attended dermatology clinics between March 2011 and February 2012. Then dermatologists evaluated the patients using a questionnaire to ascertain the perceptible duration of hair loss and personal factors including family history, disease and medication history, and drinking and smoking habits. They also medically classified the hair loss based on shape and density of the hair.

The research showed that the men in the “both the drinking and smoking” group tended to have more severe hair loss. In female patients, however, they found no association, probably due to the relatively small number of the women in the smoking and drinking group.

“The mechanisms by which smoking causes hair loss may be multi-factorial. Cigarette smoking may be deleterious to the microvasculature of the dermal hair papilla and to the DNA of the hair follicle itself,” noted the research.

Read the rest — Drinking, smoking aggravating hair loss

You can see the full results as published in Clinical and Experimental Dermatology — An epidemiological study of androgenic alopecia in 3114 Korean patients.

The survey included 1883 males and 1231 female patients in South Korea, and looked at eating, sleeping, alcohol, and smoking habits. It’s an interesting survey, but I’ve noticed that many (if not most) men I see at my clinic do not smoke cigarettes, yet they are balding.

If the study finds that smoking and drinking can worsen hair loss, then maybe this is a good thing. Perhaps it will get some people to stop smoking and drinking in excess, even with the previously established health risks.