I’ve seen so many old guys rocking beautiful beards yet their head is literally devoid of hair. How come balding doesn’t affect beards or the rest of their body?
In: Biology
Older, hairy guy here and you do lose hair elsewhere. Most of my body hair is noticeably thinner and the hair is almost entirely gone on my legs. Thinning on top, but looks like I will keep enough hair to avoid the cue ball look. Bottom line is that men do lose hair elsewhere, but it is maybe not as dramatic.
Male pattern baldness (Androgenetic Alopecia) is caused primarily by DHT which is an androgen (hormone) created from testosterone. DHT binds to receptors in the scalp that cause hair follicles to shrink over time which leads to hair loss. DHT also causes higher body and facial hair growth because it stimulates the androgen receptors on the face. DHT is good / required for body and facial hair, but causes scalp hair loss.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4174066/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4174066/)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6989660/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6989660/)
DNA and dihydrotestosterone impact head hair loss, that DNA doesn’t impact facial hair. https://youtu.be/zxR5K8zqdEw
Testosterone impacts hair follicles in a patterned fashion across the body. This leads to the beneficial result of sexual signaling — men high in testosterone physically look different from men low in testosterone. It’s similar to sexual dimorphism (how men look different from women).
It is, counter-intuitively, a form of peacocking, though one that doesn’t carry off as well in our youth-obsessed culture where the appearance of young men (with a full head of glossy hair) is weirdly idealized throughout life.
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