Steroids and Hair Loss

Hello, i just found out my male cousin aged 26 has colitis of the intestine, thus the doctor wants to put him on steroids namely cortisone. He has some recession but no definitive signs of male baldness yet but he has a strong family history of baldness with his mothers father and father balding early, most of his uncles on his fathers side are bald except one who maintained his hair. So at age 26 my cousin feels pretty lucky to have escaped the MPB gene thus far, which leads to his obsessive compulsive disorder, he is now worried to start taking steroids because its known that if you have a genetic predisposition to MPB, then taking steroids can acerbate the hair losss, if you don’t have the dispensation then you still wont suffer.

Now when they talk about steroids they are usually steroids ( androgens that promotes more testosterone production- anabolic) such that of athletes mainly baseball players take to make them stronger. Also if you ever watch bodybuilders many of them are balding or bald at young ages, so i have doubt there is a correlation.

My question are the steroids they give to colitis sufferers or anything that’s associated for medicinal purposes differ rent than the steroids athletes to promote strength? OR do they consist of basically the same chemical composition, the only difference is the usage ( how frequently)

Should my cousin be concerned about losing his hair due to the steroid usage, will it exacerbate the MPB? I know the MPB is trivial to what he is suffering and shouldn’t be any concern even if he does loose his hair but understand he’s in his mid 20’s. I tend to think if he was in his mid 50’s when this occurred, he would have absolutely no reservations in taking the steroids even if that means the hair loss because at that point looks are not as important to many people.

Your response would be appreciated, thanks

If your cousin has genetic male patterned baldness, but has not started to bald yet, the steroids will most likely accelerate the balding process. If he is not genetically ‘impacted’ (does not have the gene for balding) the steroids should have no balding effect.