Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Christian Saga and this is brain stuff. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard that if your maternal grandfather went bald that you
Speaker 1: will to? Or what about the one we're getting? A
Speaker 1: scalp massage will send more blood to your head and
Speaker 1: cause your hair to grow back. Some people also claim
Speaker 1: that if you shave your hair, it will grow back
Speaker 1: even fullier than before. Sorry to break it to you,
Speaker 1: but all of these are bogus myths. As long as
Speaker 1: men have been losing their hair, they've been trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what causes baldness and how they can cure
Speaker 1: this sign of aging. In fact, it's estimated that forty
Speaker 1: million Americans are losing their hair, and that's men and women,
Speaker 1: and all of those people are spending more than one
Speaker 1: billion dollars a year on everything from hair transplants to
Speaker 1: two pays and spray on hair. Now, hair, real hair
Speaker 1: is just under the skin on our heads from the
Speaker 1: close to one hundred thousand follicles there. This growth happens
Speaker 1: in three phases, the antigen phase where it's growing, the
Speaker 1: catagen phase in between, and the telligen phase where it
Speaker 1: falls out and hair falling out is totally normal. We
Speaker 1: should lose fifty to one hundred hairs every day as
Speaker 1: part of the intelligence cycle. But if more hair falls
Speaker 1: out then is replaced, you are probably balding. If the
Speaker 1: hair that grows back is thinner than what fell out,
Speaker 1: you're probably balding. And if it starts falling out in clumps,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you are balding. But hey, take comfort that
Speaker 1: you are not alone. My friends. By age thirty, a
Speaker 1: quarter of all men have already started to lose their hair.
Speaker 1: What's weird is why do humans go bald in the
Speaker 1: first place. Baldness is actually pretty rare in other animals,
Speaker 1: and hair serves a lot of important purposes. It protects
Speaker 1: our heads from the sun, maintain as our body heat
Speaker 1: when we're cold, and may even attract mate. Some researchers
Speaker 1: think it suggests a dominant status or a sign of
Speaker 1: maturity in different societies. In fact, a paper from the
Speaker 1: journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found evidence that women
Speaker 1: find completely bald men more attractive than partially bald ones.
Speaker 1: The study also found that baldness was highly associated with
Speaker 1: two traits, dominance and strength. So if you're starting to
Speaker 1: lose your hair, maybe you should take action, shave it
Speaker 1: all off and show the world what a tough, assertive
Speaker 1: man you are. To understand baldness a little better, let's
Speaker 1: look at the different types that occur. First. The most
Speaker 1: common type is called androgenetic alopecia, otherwise known as male
Speaker 1: pattern baldness. It's related to our inherited genetic predisposition from
Speaker 1: both of our parents. This affects how sensitive we are
Speaker 1: to a hormone called die high drow testosserone hereafter referred
Speaker 1: to as d HT. For most guys, five percent of
Speaker 1: their testosterone is converted into d h T. If you're
Speaker 1: sensitive to d h T, it acts like a toxin
Speaker 1: on your hair follicles, producing thinner, weaker, almost colorless hair
Speaker 1: until hair production in the follicle simply stops. Researchers have
Speaker 1: also found that male pattern baldness also causes men to
Speaker 1: have an abnormal amount of a protein lipid called prostaglandin
Speaker 1: D two. Some dermatologists even think that men could regrow
Speaker 1: their hair if this inhibiting protein were removed. Other types
Speaker 1: of baldness include the female pattern baldness that occurs in
Speaker 1: some women post menopause, an autoimmune disorder called alopecia ariata
Speaker 1: and a condition called telligent effluvium that makes your hair
Speaker 1: fall out faster than normal. People can also have brittle
Speaker 1: hair from air shaft defects, or in rare cases, they
Speaker 1: may even pull out their own hair compulsively if they
Speaker 1: have a disorder called trick atilla mania. You think that
Speaker 1: sounds scary. You can also lose your hair from illnesses,
Speaker 1: fungal infections, burns, chemical applications, medications, and of course, cancer
Speaker 1: treatments like chemotherapy. Smoking is also reported to increase the
Speaker 1: risk of baldness. You should definitely see your doctor if
Speaker 1: your hair starts falling out in clumps or if you
Speaker 1: get a burning, itching irritation on your scouting. Check out
Speaker 1: the brain stuff channel on YouTube, and for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com.