New Study Shows Long Office Hours May Cause Hair Loss

[Melvin- Admin]

Have you guys heard about this new study which examined over 13K men over a 5 year period. They found that men who work longer hours are generally balder. What do you guys think is this just a correlation or causation? I'd love to hear your thoughts?

New Study Shows Long Office Hours May Cause Hair Loss

[Future Hair Doc]

Thanks for sharing Melvin. Per the the article  you shared:

 

"Researchers say that it is likely due to stress and not enough downtime and work-life balance. 

Changes in hormone levels which occur during stress can negatively impact several areas on the body. Previous studies have revealed that stress can cause the immune system to attack the hair follicles on the scalp. This auto-immune condition is called alopecia areata. "

 

The primary stress hormone cortisol, has indeed been shown to cause hair loss. See:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27538002

I've seen this firsthand with many people who work stressful jobs or work long hours

[LonelyGraft]

17 minutes ago, Dr. Suhail Khokhar said:

Thanks for sharing Melvin. Per the the article  you shared:

 

"Researchers say that it is likely due to stress and not enough downtime and work-life balance. 

Changes in hormone levels which occur during stress can negatively impact several areas on the body. Previous studies have revealed that stress can cause the immune system to attack the hair follicles on the scalp. This auto-immune condition is called alopecia areata. "

 

The primary stress hormone cortisol, has indeed been shown to cause hair loss. See:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27538002

I've seen this firsthand with many people who work stressful jobs or work long hours

Are you saying stress and elevated cortisol causes/accelerates  male pattern baldness or stress causes alopecia areata?

Edited October 25, 2019 by LonelyGraft

[Melvin- Admin]

16 hours ago, Dr. Suhail Khokhar said:

Thanks for sharing Melvin. Per the the article  you shared:

 

"Researchers say that it is likely due to stress and not enough downtime and work-life balance. 

Changes in hormone levels which occur during stress can negatively impact several areas on the body. Previous studies have revealed that stress can cause the immune system to attack the hair follicles on the scalp. This auto-immune condition is called alopecia areata. "

 

The primary stress hormone cortisol, has indeed been shown to cause hair loss. See:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27538002

I've seen this firsthand with many people who work stressful jobs or work long hours

Great study, I agree stress has so many negative impacts on our lives. I would attribute accelerated hair loss a lot more to stress than I would air pollution.

[gillenator]

From what I have observed, higher stress levels can induce more shedding, not necessarily an advancement in the progression of MPB.

[Future Hair Doc]

On 10/24/2019 at 8:53 PM, LonelyGraft said:

Are you saying stress and elevated cortisol causes/accelerates  male pattern baldness or stress causes alopecia areata?

Great question. There are so many research papers on the questions you raised and a lot that we don't know

Stress itself can increase cortisol levels to such an extent as to damage hair follicles. It can induce hair follicles to regress into the catagen phase, inhibit the hair matrix (by damaging proteoglycans, etc.), and promote apoptosis (cellular death) of hair follicles. You need some cortisol in your body to function properly and our integumentary system (skin, which includes hair) has it's own HPA axis whereby it produces cortisol separate from the central pathway axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal grands). 

I'd suggest the following studies for the topic you raised:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306293727_Stress_and_the_Hair_Growth_Cycle_Cortisol-Induced_Hair_Growth_Disruption

https://www.fasebj.org/doi/abs/10.1096/fj.04-1968fje

Alopecia areata is more of an autoimmune process whereby your body's cells (primarily lymphocytes) attack hair follicles through several mechanisms such as the lack of a protective factor normally conferred to our cells so that our immune system doesn't attack us. That's why steroids are used to help treat alopecia areata since steroids blunt the immune and inflammatory response

Male pattern baldness is more due to the effects of having DHT on the hair follicle. The follicles more susceptible to DHT tend to have a higher concentration of DHT receptors. 5-alpha reductase converts testosterone into DHT and that's where meds like finasteride come into play because they inhibit 5a-reductase, thereby lowering the concentration of DHT in our body. Here's a great paper on male pattern baldness:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4174066/

I hope my reply makes sense. Please feel free to ask me more questions. There is SO much we don't know about hair and it's an exciting field to research.  

[Melvin- Admin]

Great post 🙌🏼