Baldness may cut men’s prostate cancer risk--study

Researchers at the School of Medicine at University of Washington, Seattle have established that baldness at an early age due to high levels of testosterone leads to reduced risk of prostate cancer.

Lead researcher and prostate cancer expert, Professor Jonathan Wright, School of Medicine said, “At first, the findings were surprising. But we found that early onset baldness was associated with a 29 percent to 45 percent reduction in their relative risk of prostate cancer.”

Details of the study
The research team studied 2,000 men to come up with this finding. Of these, 999 men aged 35 to 74, were diagnosed with prostate cancer between the years 2002 and 2005, and another 942 individuals were healthy volunteers.

The team compared the rate of tumors in people facing hair loss by the age of 30 with those who did not suffer hair loss.

The rate of baldness and prostate cancer in men is often affected by the testosterone levels; therefore, these conditions were also taken into consideration during the study.

Results of the study
Analysis revealed that men with the least risk of cancer were the ones who had started to develop balding patches on the top of their heads along with thinning hairlines.

Researchers found that 25.2 percent cancer-free men had suffered hair loss at the age of 30, in contrast to 19.8 percent of prostate cancer patients.

Therefore, it was established that men suffering baldness at the age of 30 had 29 percent lesser tendency of developing prostate cancer than those who did not suffer hair loss.

Hence, researchers concluded that early onset of baldness ‘was associated with a reduced relative risk of prostate cancer’ in the study subjects.

It was found that baldness is typically caused when hair follicles--tiny sacs in the scalp from which hair grow--become exposed to too much dihydrotestosterone (DHT)--testosterone molecules.

Dr. Alison Ross, senior science communications officer , Cancer Research UK said, “Based on this small study, we can’t say if baldness is really associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer, especially since previous studies have actually said the opposite.”

“Further research into a possible mechanistic link between these prevalent and androgen-related conditions is warranted,” stated the study researchers.

The study appears in the journal Cancer Epidemiology.