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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Sign Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio Horhea

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Speaker 1: Cham and today we are tackling the science of baldness.

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Speaker 1: Going bald is something that happens to a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: But why do we go bald? Who goes bald? And

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Speaker 1: why does it affect us so much? I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be reviewing the most current theories about the origins of baldness,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to talk to a couple of experts

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Speaker 1: on two related questions. Why is there a negative stigma

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Speaker 1: about baldness and is baldness really hereditary? In both cases,

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Speaker 1: I think the answer will surprise you, so comb over

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Speaker 1: with us as we uncover the hairy truth about the

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Speaker 1: science of baldness. Enjoy. Hey, everyone, here are some interesting

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Speaker 1: facts about baldness. According to a recent paper in the

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Speaker 1: prestigious journal Nature Reviews, about fifty percent of men and

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent of women experience some form of balding

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Speaker 1: or hair loss by the time they're fifty years old.

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Speaker 1: This translates to roughly fifty million men and about thirty

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Speaker 1: million women in the US alone. It also varies a

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Speaker 1: lot with ancestry or race. If you're of South Asian descent,

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Speaker 1: like from India or Pakistan, your chances of losing hair

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Speaker 1: by the time you're fifty jumps to fifty eight percent,

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Speaker 1: whereas if you're of East Asian descent, like from China

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Speaker 1: or Korea, the number drops to twenty five percent. It

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Speaker 1: also depends a lot on your age. For example, if

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Speaker 1: you're of East Asian descent, your chances of losing hair

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Speaker 1: in your twenties is small, only about two point three percent.

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Speaker 1: In your thirty s it's four percent. In your forties

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Speaker 1: it's eleven percent, although way up to forty seven percent

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Speaker 1: by the time you reach seventy. There are several types

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Speaker 1: of baldness for men and women. If names like M

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Speaker 1: one or C two, or YOU three or type three,

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Speaker 1: depending on the pattern of hair loss that you get,

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Speaker 1: whether it starts in your forehead or the corners or

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Speaker 1: the top of your scalp. Now, when I started this episode,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to answer the question why do we go bald?

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Speaker 1: But I quickly found out the answer is, we don't know.

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Speaker 1: From an evolutionary perspective, we don't know why this is

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Speaker 1: involved in humans. It's sort of related to your age.

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Speaker 1: So evolutionary biologists have proposed theories with that in mind.

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Speaker 1: For example, one theory says that it may be assigned

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Speaker 1: to the rest of your tribe that you're older and

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Speaker 1: therefore more mature and wiser, and therefore you should have

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Speaker 1: a position of dominance or leadership. But there are also

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Speaker 1: theories that say that it's as signed to others that

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Speaker 1: you're old and therefore not very good material. Both theories

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Speaker 1: but explain why baldness helps your species survive. We also

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Speaker 1: don't quite know why baldness happens at the level of

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Speaker 1: hair follicles. We know that when people experience androgenetic alopecia,

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Speaker 1: which is the scientific name for male and female pattern

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Speaker 1: hair loss, the hair follicles in your scalp shrink and

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Speaker 1: become the kind of follicles that cover the non hairy

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Speaker 1: parts of your body, But we don't really know why

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Speaker 1: this happens. Our current best theory is that it's kind

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Speaker 1: of the opposite of when young men start to grow

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Speaker 1: a beard during puberty. At some point, your hair follicles

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Speaker 1: are just preprogrammed to be more sensitive to your hormones

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Speaker 1: and change from one kind of hair to another. So

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Speaker 1: when you're a teenager, the hairs on your armpits pubic

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Speaker 1: areas and your chin and upper lip for men, turn

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Speaker 1: into the kind of thick and hairy kind of hair,

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Speaker 1: and at some point, when you get older the hair

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Speaker 1: is on your head do the opposite and turn into

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Speaker 1: the thin, wispy kind. There are hormones that scientists think

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Speaker 1: are involved, like testosterone or diehydrotest ptosterone or DHT, and

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Speaker 1: enzymes that contribute to this, like five alpha reductase type

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Speaker 1: one and two. We can see that these molecules are

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Speaker 1: more active involving hair follicles, but what sets this process

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Speaker 1: in motion for what is actually happening at the cellular

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Speaker 1: and molecular level is not quite clear. Now, there are

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Speaker 1: some cool things we do know about the genetics of baldness.

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Speaker 1: I'll get to that later in the program with a

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Speaker 1: scientist who's done one of the largest ever genetic population

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Speaker 1: studies on baldness. But first, there was one section in

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Speaker 1: this Nature Journal paper that caught my attention, and that

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Speaker 1: is a section about how baldness impacts your quality of life.

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Speaker 1: The scientists right, quote androgenetic alopecia can trigger profound negative

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Speaker 1: psychological effects in affected individuals, owing to social pressure to

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Speaker 1: maintain quote good hair end quote. In other words, the

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Speaker 1: only negative effective bondness are psychological. So to get to

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Speaker 1: the bottom of this, I reached out to a psychologist

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Speaker 1: who's made it his mission to debunk this negative stigma

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Speaker 1: that bondness has in our society and to teach people

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Speaker 1: that bondness, no pun intended, is all in our heads. Well,

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Speaker 1: thank you, doctor Jenkowski for joining us pleasure. Can you

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Speaker 1: please tell us who you are and what do you do?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm doctor Glennankovski. I am a associate professor University

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Speaker 2: College Dublin, and I'm a researcher in psychology who specializes

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Speaker 2: in the social and cultural interpretation of alopecia.

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Speaker 1: And is that the term we should be using for

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Speaker 1: bondness or are ukay we say bondness or.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm much more for a further term, boldness as well.

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Speaker 2: I tend to use alopecia in the Ireland because my

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Speaker 2: accent and a lot of Irish people think I'm saying

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Speaker 2: bravery rather than boldness.

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Speaker 1: Is that true?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I say boldness like being bold. Oh, I see,

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Speaker 2: and it's happened so many times now an island that

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Speaker 2: I really I've switched a bit.

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Speaker 1: Well, there might be another interesting topic for you to

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Speaker 1: research boldness. Yeah, and whether it's related to baldness.

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Speaker 3: Yes, but you've done a lot.

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Speaker 1: Of research on this stigma against baldness. Can you tell

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Speaker 1: us what that stigma is?

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Speaker 2: So there is a tendency for people to have attitudes

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Speaker 2: that are stigmatizing towards men and their boldness in particular.

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Speaker 2: Typically there's experimental studies that show that people hold more

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Speaker 2: negative attitudes towards men with boldness than they do men

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Speaker 2: with full heads of hair.

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Speaker 1: Okay, can you describe these studies a little bit.

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Speaker 2: It is actually a large evidence space. So the majority

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Speaker 2: of studies actually tend to be experiments where a group

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Speaker 2: of people are divided randomly into two conditions and presented

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Speaker 2: images of the same man airbrushed, typically with a full

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Speaker 2: head of hair, and then with some boldness. And so

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Speaker 2: it's that say, mimbiture of the man, same facial features, etc.

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Speaker 2: And they are asked to rate the image of the

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Speaker 2: man on certain characteristics like how masculine, how successful, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And there's a bias towards certain attributes there.

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Speaker 2: Is, Yeah, and those tend to be that those men

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Speaker 2: are less attractive, older, that they may be less dominant

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Speaker 2: and some other negative characteristics.

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Speaker 1: So there is a negative bias that people have about

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Speaker 1: bald men. But here's the thing about those studies. According

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Speaker 1: to doctor Jenkowski, A, people also have a positive bias

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Speaker 1: towards bald men in some categories, and b these negative

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Speaker 1: and positive biases are not that big.

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Speaker 2: The re such does show that, and I don't mean

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Speaker 2: to minimize it. However, I do question how totalizing that

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Speaker 2: stigma is because there are also some positive attributes that

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Speaker 2: people make about bold men, like that they're more inclined

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Speaker 2: to be leaders, or that they're more affablen approachable than

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Speaker 2: haired men. And then sometimes these differences are also quite small.

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Speaker 2: People can exaggerate how bigly are, especially journalists or businesses,

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Speaker 2: but actually if you look at their data, they're quite small.

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Speaker 1: New characterized how small they are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So one study found that out of a scale

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Speaker 2: of one hundred of attractiveness, bold men were seven percent

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Speaker 2: less attractive than their head counterpouts and rated on average

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Speaker 2: about two years older than the head counterpart images. So

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Speaker 2: two years older, seven cent less out of one hundred.

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Speaker 2: It's not a huge amount.

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Speaker 1: No, it's not. I would have thought it was higher,

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Speaker 1: but that seems are most negligible.

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Speaker 2: I would have thought that too if I wasn't a

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Speaker 2: researcher studying this. Most people think this too, because most

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Speaker 2: of us are influenced by advertising and marketing of anti

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Speaker 2: bold products.

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Speaker 1: And this brings up the question where does this negative

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Speaker 1: stigma against bog people, or at least the impression that

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Speaker 1: is a big negative stigma against boldners come from. And

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Speaker 1: here doctor Tinkowski has a s pricing theory.

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Speaker 2: It really does come from anti boldness businesses. They are

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Speaker 2: the ones who profit from this stigma. And we've had

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Speaker 2: a long history of it, and it's ramped up since

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Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties when anti bold products for the first

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Speaker 2: time in history, got more official approval.

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Speaker 1: Wow, so you're looking it to the business of selling

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Speaker 1: anti partners treatments. It's sort of a timing issue.

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Speaker 2: Well, we've always had boldness since men have been around.

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Speaker 2: But what we can see in the historical record is

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Speaker 2: that there were many neutral interpretations of boldness. There were

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Speaker 2: some negative and there were also some very positive interpretations.

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Speaker 2: When we see the rise of snake oil products in

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Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds and the nineteen hundreds, some of them

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Speaker 2: were for hairy growth. Of course, they weren't effective, but

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Speaker 2: their marketing was designed to show that old men needed

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Speaker 2: these products, needed these treatments for this devastagencies, and if

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Speaker 2: they didn't take it, they might not get a job,

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Speaker 2: they might not get a date, they might not be happy.

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Speaker 2: When they became approved in the eighties and onwards, that

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Speaker 2: gave them scientific legitimacy these products so that doctors and

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Speaker 2: professionals could start to say, these are treatments I see.

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Speaker 1: Whereas before you might tell your doctor, oh, I think

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Speaker 1: I'm losing my hair, and the doctor might be like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's normal, no big deal, nothing's going to happen to you.

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Speaker 1: Now they might be like, oh, there's a treatment for that.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. Those pharmaceutical companies have done training videos, they've done

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Speaker 2: training programs, They've targeted medical professionals and doctors to convince

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Speaker 2: them that bolding men and bolding people in general need

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Speaker 2: these treatments.

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Speaker 1: Now, it's hard to say how much of a role

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Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical and Bontner's treatment industries have had in creating

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Speaker 1: this negative stigma against baldness. As I mentioned, there are

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Speaker 1: theories that tie it to our evolutionary history, but it's

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Speaker 1: also hard to discount. For example, remember the Nature Journal

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Speaker 1: paper I've been citing. That paper was written by nine scientists,

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Speaker 1: all of whom have positions at major universities, but at

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Speaker 1: the end of the paper, the journal requires them to

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Speaker 1: disclose any conflicts of interest. So here's the list of

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Speaker 1: those conflicts of interest for that paper. Authors one two

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Speaker 1: are inventors on patent applications related to hair loss treatment

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Speaker 1: filed by the University of California, Irvine. Author two is

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Speaker 1: co founder and chief scientific officer at a corporation and

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Speaker 1: has received consultation fees from Audit Labs and lorel Author

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Speaker 1: three has received consultation fees from DS Laboratories, Almirale, thirty Madison,

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Speaker 1: Eli Lilly and Company, Peiser, Iovan Sciences, Bristol Meyers, quibb

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Speaker 1: Ortho Dermatologics, and Sun Pharmaceutical. Author four has received consultation

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Speaker 1: fees from Eli Lilly and Company, peiser Olaplex, and Maovn Sciences,

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Speaker 1: and they direct the Ethnic Skin program at John Hoppins University,

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Speaker 1: funded by an educational brand from Jansen. Author five has

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Speaker 1: received salary payments from Life and Brain GNBH. Author six

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Speaker 1: has received clinical trial funds from Eli Lilly, and company.

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Speaker 1: Author seven has received consultation frees from Eli Lillyan Company

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Speaker 1: and has received clinical study funds from Eli Lillien Company, Pfizer,

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Speaker 1: and ATB. Authors eight and nine declare no competing interests. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of conflicts of interest.

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Speaker 3: All right.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, we're gonna talk about whether the

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Speaker 1: treatments all these companies are pushing actually work. Do they

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Speaker 1: stop baldness or is it all snake oil. Stay with us,

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Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Welcome back. We're talking about the

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Speaker 1: size of baldness, and so we've talked about what we

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Speaker 1: know and don't know about what causes baldness. Now we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about the treatments that are out there

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Speaker 1: for hair loss. In terms of medicines, there's one called monoxidyl,

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Speaker 1: which was originally made to treat hypertension, but then women

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Speaker 1: patients started reporting extra hair growth and so it became

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Speaker 1: a baldanis medicine that you put on the scalp. Scientists

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Speaker 1: have some ideas about what this medicine actually does, but

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Speaker 1: not really. Another class of treatments are five alpha reductase inhibitors,

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Speaker 1: which includes the popular drug called finasteride. Scientists know these

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Speaker 1: treatments block the enzyme that splits the stosterone called five

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Speaker 1: alpha reductas, but they don't know much beyond that. Now,

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Speaker 1: do these treatments actually work a sort of, according to

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Speaker 1: doctor Jenkowski.

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Speaker 2: So there are metro analyzes. These are series of studies

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Speaker 2: that look at large pools of data of menking these

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Speaker 2: products versus men who don't take these products, and they're

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Speaker 2: more objective. So these matronalyses have looked many anti baldness

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Speaker 2: products and what they've found is that most produced between

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Speaker 2: eight to twelve hair follow calls in a centimeter squared

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Speaker 2: area of scalp that's monitored, and that's some hairy growth.

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Speaker 2: It's not nothing, but on average most people have one

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty hair follow calls and that's centimeter squared

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Speaker 2: area of regrowth.

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Speaker 1: What doctor Jenkowski seeing is that these treatments do help

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Speaker 1: you grow back on average about eight to ten percent

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Speaker 1: of the hair you lose, which is not nothing, but

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Speaker 1: it's also not a lot.

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Speaker 2: So most people do not find that to be a

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Speaker 2: cosmetically meaningful amount of hair regrowth. I see these products

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Speaker 2: might be better at preventing further boldness. It's a bit hard

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Speaker 2: to determine that, but in terms of actual hair regrowth

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Speaker 2: is quite minimal.

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Speaker 1: And of course you have to weigh that against the

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Speaker 1: potential side effects of these treatments.

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Speaker 2: And obviously the bigger issues which the Metro analyses to

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Speaker 2: show as well, is that some of these products do

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Speaker 2: risk quite severe side of x. You know, if you're

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Speaker 2: taking finasteride, for example, this is a common antibodleness product.

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Speaker 2: Typically it's taken orally and it disrupts your hormonal system,

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Speaker 2: that's how it's working. But there's evidence so it's affecting

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Speaker 2: all sorts of other things that are really important to

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Speaker 2: your bodily functions, like your mood. Men who've taken a

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Speaker 2: finanasteroid of reported vision problems, reported mood issues, sexual dysfunction issues,

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Speaker 2: these hosts of side effects.

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Speaker 1: For finasteride fills. The US Food and Drug Administration or FDA,

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Speaker 1: has issued a warning that there is a risk of

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Speaker 1: depression in suicide ideation when using this drug, and according

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Speaker 1: to the Nature paper, there's also a risk of impotence

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Speaker 1: after you start taking the drug.

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Speaker 2: And what's really difficult for men taking finasteride is you

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Speaker 2: don't which kind of man you're going to be. The

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Speaker 2: one that's going to be negatively somewhat permanently affected by

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Speaker 2: these side effects, or the ones that might have safe

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Speaker 2: experience of it.

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Speaker 1: Wow, in which case, maybe it's not worth it for

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Speaker 1: those extra eight twelve pollicles exactly. There's also the possibility

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Speaker 1: of hair transplants, which is where they take follicles from

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Speaker 1: one part of your scalp and implant them in the

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Speaker 1: areas where you're losing hair. This treatment is expensive and

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Speaker 1: it's not for everyone. It sort of only works for

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Speaker 1: thinning hair, not full hair loss. So now my question

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Speaker 1: was is this all worth it? What's really the impact

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Speaker 1: that baldness has in people's lives? Is there any data

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Speaker 1: as to how baldness affects you in life, or in

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Speaker 1: your profession or in your social life?

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Speaker 2: There is, yeah, Bolting men are surveyed about discrimination romantically

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Speaker 2: and employment socially. What's difficult is that most of these

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Speaker 2: studies are commercially funded and biased, and some of the

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Speaker 2: studies are very very poor, So it might just be

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Speaker 2: a market research a series of questions that are really leading,

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Speaker 2: that are kind of pishing men to suggest they're discriminated

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Speaker 2: against when they're not. Those surveys do show that some

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Speaker 2: men report some discrimination and many men do not report any.

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Speaker 2: A really important study by Goslin and colleagues in their

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Speaker 2: eighties asked bolding men and haired men what they expected

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Speaker 2: boldness discrimination to be, and then what the actual reality

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Speaker 2: of old discrimination was, and in all cases the reality

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Speaker 2: was much easier than bold men and haired men predict it.

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Speaker 2: So I think those are really useful to put it

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Speaker 2: into perspective for bolding men. We get told that there's

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Speaker 2: huge amounts of discrimination, but actually the reality is that

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Speaker 2: really it's quite rare.

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Speaker 1: What effect do you think this negative stigma and this commercialization,

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Speaker 1: what does it have on men and people who might

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Speaker 1: be dealing with boldness.

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Speaker 2: You know, there's a word called medicalization, and it's this

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Speaker 2: term for how normal aspects of our bodies are often

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Speaker 2: changed into diseases, sometimes for commercial profit, and it really

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Speaker 2: changes how we respond to those aspects of our bodies

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Speaker 2: and how we view them. Bold men increasingly see their

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Speaker 2: boldness as a devastating, disadvantageous disease. It's real shame because

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Speaker 2: if you look properly at history and you see so

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Speaker 2: many bolding men of the norm, and that many many

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Speaker 2: accept it, and that also find positives from it. Shakespeare,

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Speaker 2: for example, said boldness gives you wits. You don't have

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Speaker 2: to listen to the political opinions of barbers. Shakespeare said,

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Speaker 2: there are all these lovely little advantages from it as well.

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Speaker 2: So it's a little bit about having a healthier perspective

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Speaker 2: about it. The loveliest thing for me is that many

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Speaker 2: bold men report a healthier perspective from it, including feeling

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Speaker 2: less superficial about their own appearance. You know, they accept

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Speaker 2: their bodies and that's great because all of us age

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Speaker 2: and all of our bodies change in different ways and

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Speaker 2: that shouldn't be feared. But also they don't look at

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Speaker 2: other people so superficially. They can also see past appearance,

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Speaker 2: and that's a beautiful thing in a vain world.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that's interesting. It can change how you see others. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is beautiful. It can also help you see.

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Speaker 2: Beauty, real beauty, which is inner beauty, which is making

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Speaker 2: someone laugh or you know, acts of kindness. It's that

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Speaker 2: kind of beauty that you know, sustains a long term

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Speaker 2: relationship as well. If we're judging people on their head

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Speaker 2: hair follow calls, I don't think that makes a good marriage.

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Speaker 2: I think a good marriage is you know most people

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Speaker 2: realize is beyond the surface.

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Speaker 1: All right, we talked about the word when and why

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Speaker 1: of boldness. Now we're going to talk about the who

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Speaker 1: who ends up losing their hair is a genetic and

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Speaker 1: if it is, is it something we can predict When

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Speaker 1: we come back, We're going to talk to each geneticis,

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Speaker 1: especially in appearance traits, and who was involved in creating

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Speaker 1: one of the largest and most comprehensive genetic population models,

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Speaker 1: that is the world's or most expert in predicting who

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Speaker 1: will go bald. We'll see what it says about me.

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Speaker 1: So stay with us and we'll be right back. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome back. We're now going to talk to Professor Manfred Kaiser,

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Speaker 1: a molecular biologist at Erasmus University in the Netherlands who

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Speaker 1: specializes in the genetics of appearances. Now this is pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Imagine that you're at a crime scene and you find

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Speaker 1: some DNA of the person you think might have committed

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Speaker 1: to crime. What if you could take that DNA and

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Speaker 1: from that genetic code you could tell if the person

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Speaker 1: was tall, or had dark hair or blue eyes, or

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Speaker 1: had a small nose, or was bald or what if

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Speaker 1: you found the DNA of a famous historical person like

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Speaker 1: Genghis Khan or Cleopatra, or the DNA of a distant

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Speaker 1: human ancestor, could you tell from their DNA what they

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Speaker 1: looked like. That is the dream of doctor Kaiser and

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Speaker 1: his colleagues, and to test his idea, they decided to

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Speaker 1: start with baldness. In twenty twenty two, they published the

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Speaker 1: results of one of the largest genetic population studies ever

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Speaker 1: done on baldness, where they looked at the DNA and

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Speaker 1: the hairline of one hundred and eighty six thousand men

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Speaker 1: of European descent, and then they looked at whether the

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Speaker 1: resulting data could predict who was going to go bald

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Speaker 1: or not. To tell us about what they found, here

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Speaker 1: is Professor Manfred Kaiser. Well, thank you doctor Kaiser for

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Speaker 1: joining us.

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Speaker 3: Well, you're welcome.

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Speaker 1: You recently posted the paper on the genetic markers of baldness.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So, baldness, of course is a very remarkable visible trade,

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Speaker 3: especially in men. So we were interested in looking into

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Speaker 3: the predictability. So people do what they call genome white

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Speaker 3: association studies, so they basically scan the genome of one

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Speaker 3: thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 3: which they know, for instance, may it pad on baldness.

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Speaker 3: So you need these two types of information, and then

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Speaker 3: they ask is there one site in the human genome

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Speaker 3: that is more frequent in people with baldness.

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Speaker 1: In other words, doctor Kaiser and his team had access

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Speaker 1: to the DNA of one hundred and eighty six thousand

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Speaker 1: men in Europe, for which they knew if they had

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Speaker 1: baldness or not. Then they asked that there was one

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Speaker 1: gene that could predict whether a man was going to

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Speaker 1: be bald or not. And they found two things that

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Speaker 1: are surprising. The first is that there isn't a gene

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Speaker 1: that is going to make you bald. There's hundreds of them.

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Speaker 3: For male pattern baldness. It seems to be hundreds of genes.

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Speaker 3: All these different genes work together and make what we

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Speaker 3: actually see in the end as made pattern baldness.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it's not just one gene that makes you go bald,

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Speaker 1: it's hundreds of genes. Wow, so many genes. Why are

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Speaker 1: there so many genes involved in something like hair loss.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. That's a good question. You

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Speaker 3: have to ask evolution why they made it so complicated. Apparently.

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Speaker 3: You think, oh, so the hair falls out, that is simple,

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Speaker 3: But the reason why a hair may fall out is

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Speaker 3: not simple at all. And of course these genes, they

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Speaker 3: all play different roles in molacular pathways that exist, and

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Speaker 3: that makes the complexity.

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Speaker 1: I see. It's not a simple process, even though the

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Speaker 1: end result is relatively simple. Indeed, yeah, baldness is complicated.

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Speaker 1: You might have heard that male pattern baldness was due

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Speaker 1: to one gene that is passed down from your mother's

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Speaker 1: side of the family, but this is not quite true.

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Speaker 1: When you look at the genome of hundreds of thousands

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Speaker 1: of men, you see that there are hundreds of genes

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Speaker 1: that influence the end result of losing your hair. There

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Speaker 1: is one gene in particular that does come from your

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Speaker 1: X chromosome, which is passed down from your mother, that

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Speaker 1: has a higher influence than others, but it's not higher

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Speaker 1: by a lot, according to doctor Kaiser, and there are

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Speaker 1: still hundreds of other genes involved. And doctor Kaiser says

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Speaker 1: this is not unusual. In the human body. Any single

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Speaker 1: thing about the way you look is determined by many

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Speaker 1: many genes. Your height, your skin color, the shape of

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Speaker 1: your face or nose, whether you have curly or straight hair,

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Speaker 1: studies have found that those are also determined by many

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Speaker 1: many genes. According to doctor Kaiser, there's only one appearance

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Speaker 1: trade that scientists have found is the by a single gene.

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Speaker 3: So red hair is the only human appearance trait which

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Speaker 3: is actually monogenic, one gene, one trade, but all other

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Speaker 3: appearance traits are influenced by a large number of genes.

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Speaker 1: That's right, there's a single gene for red hair. If

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Speaker 1: you have it, your hair is red. If you don't

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Speaker 1: have it, your hair is not red. But that's the

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Speaker 1: only gene related to how you look. That's like that.

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Speaker 3: Well, people thought in the past. Eye color is simple.

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Speaker 3: I mean, there is the notion that brown eye is dominant,

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Speaker 3: and in many cases, if you have one brown eye parent,

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Speaker 3: the child is brown. But not in all cases. And

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Speaker 3: this is not because the father is not the father.

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Speaker 3: This is actually because eye color does have many more

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Speaker 3: than one or two genes. We actually found more than

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Speaker 3: fifty genes for eye color, but there is indeed one

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Speaker 3: or two that have a larger effect. And therefore, in

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Speaker 3: many situations, if you have one brown eyed parents, you

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Speaker 3: have a brown eyed child, but not in all cases.

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Speaker 1: All right. The second surprising thing that doctor Kaiser and

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00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: his colleagues learned about the genetics of bondness was when

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00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: they tried to use the one hundred genes they found

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00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: to predict who is going to go bald and who

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00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: is not. And when you do that, you find that

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00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: you can't.

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00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 3: And we have done this prediction and tens of thousands

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00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 3: of people. Yeah, so it's large data set. So in

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00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 3: a prediction studies, people use a term that includes sensitivity

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00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 3: and specificity, and you don't have to understand what that

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00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 3: term is. You only have to know that this term

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00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 3: runs between point five and one. So what we see

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00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,360
Speaker 3: with these different categories of maypattern baldness is that they

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00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:47,160
Speaker 3: run between say point seven and maybe point seventy five.

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00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 3: So it's somewhere in the middle between random prediction and

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00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 3: accurate prediction.

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00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: What doctor Kaiser is saying is that even if you

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00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,199
Speaker 1: take these one hundred genes into accounts that we know

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00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 1: are associated with baldness, you still can't accurately predict who's

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00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: going to go bald. Your prediction falls somewhere between a

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00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: random guess and always being right. So what does that

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00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 1: tell you? So it tells you that they predict something,

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00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: but this is far away from accurate prediction, which also

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00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: tells you that these hundreds are not enough, and that

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00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: tells that people have to find more genes. Doctor Kaiser

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00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: thinks there may be more than a thousand genes that

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00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: determine whether you will go bald or not, and to

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00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: find out what they are we need more data because

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00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: that difference in accuracy might be hidden in genes that

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00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: have a low effect on hair loss, which means they

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00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: are hard to find. Okay, you might be wondering, for hey,

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00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: what if hair loss is not one hundred percent genetic,

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00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't that explain why it's so hard to predict? And

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00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: that is true. There may be some environmental components to baldness,

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00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: but doctor Kusler says scientists are pretty sure baldness is

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00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: mostly genetic, and we know this from twin studies. Scientists

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00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: attract identical twins separated at birth and compare them to

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00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: twins that grew up together. For the most part, if

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00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: you're twin who has the same DNA you do is bald,

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00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: there is a pretty good chance you are bald too. Okay,

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00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:24,120
Speaker 1: so what does this all mean and specifically, what does

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00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: this all mean for my hair. Okay, so I'm training

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00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: fifty this.

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00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 3: Year, but you know that's quite good in terms of bolts,

476
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 3: I cannot see.

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00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: Thank you. So far, so good. So my father still

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00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 1: has all his hair. And on my mother's side my grandfather,

479
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: her father was bald. Oh, and some of my mother's

480
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: brothers are bald, but some are not. So what does

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00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: that mean for me? Do you think?

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00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 3: Well? Not so easy indeed. But obviously this one gene

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00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 3: that comes from your mother's side, that's only one of

484
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 3: one hundreds of thousands, so that per se doesn't tell

485
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 3: you much. So if they're fifty percent from your father,

486
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 3: give you all the non bold then of course the

487
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 3: sum of all the others is larger than the effect

488
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 3: of this one gene on the X chromolome. So maybe

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00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 3: you will not develop it.

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00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: At least that's the hope.

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00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 3: If you would do the genetic tests, you would come

492
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 3: up with a fairly low probability.

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00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess my hair loss is TBD to be

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00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: determined or is it to bald determined. We'll have to

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00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: check in in a few years to see how good

496
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: this prediction was. But doctor Casher thinks there's maybe a

497
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: more important question to ask here.

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00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 3: So the question is why are you doing this? Why

499
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 3: do you want to know?

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00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: In other words, if someone could predict whether you were

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00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: going to go bald or not, what are you going

502
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: to do with that information? We now know it's not

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00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: going to be possible to perfectly predict baldness. I mean

504
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: not even red hair can be predicted with one hundred

505
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: percent accuracy, because our ability to read genes and identify

506
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: mutations and sequences is never are going to be perfect.

507
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: So what if a doctor told you you have a

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00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance of going bald or an eighty percent chance.

509
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: Would that make you start treatments which have serious risks

510
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: of side effects, or would you wait and see, knowing

511
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: that starting treatments then might be too late, Or, as

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00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: doctor Kyser argues, maybe it's better not to know, or

513
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: maybe we should just accept that there's nothing wrong with

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00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: being bald.

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00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 3: No indeed, And actually I can tell you that this country,

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00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 3: in the Netherlands, I'm not Dutch and Germans. I came

517
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 3: here for work, so it's quite fashionable here to shave

518
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 3: completely boiled. So I've never seen so many completely shaved persons.

519
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 3: It's just fashionable.

520
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: Wow. Maybe the real solution Niston moves to the Netherlands. Indeed,

521
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: all right, there you have it. Maybe the real cure

522
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: for baldness is for everyone to go Dutch to see

523
00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: it as normal or even beautiful. Thanks for joining us.

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00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: See you next time you've been listening to Science Stuff.

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00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: The production of iHeartRadio written and produced by me Or

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00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: hitch Ham, credited by Rose Seguda, executive producer Jerry Rowland,

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00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: and audio engineer and mixer Kasey peckram Hey. Thanks to

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00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: our experts today. If you're interested, Doctor glenchen Kowski has

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00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: written a book called Branding Baldness, published by Cambridge University

530
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: Press that he has pushed to make open access, which

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00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: means it's free for anyone to download. I also want

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00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: to thank Professor Luis Garza of John Hopkins University for

533
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: filling me in on a lot of the details of

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00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: what we know about baldness. And you can follow me

535
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: on social media. Just search for PhD Comics and the

536
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: name of your favorite platform. Be sure to subscribe to

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00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: Sign Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever

538
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and please tell your friends we'll

539
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: be back next Wednesday with another episode