Acne, psoriasis, eczema, shingles, baldness, alopecia totallis (total loss of all hair on the body), alopecia areata, loss of eyebrows, vitiglio (loss of skin pigment--particularily devastating to black people), are all dermatolgocial conditions that we can hope that someday will be eradicated by scientific research.


I went to school with a kid who was going male pattern bald at 15 and was pretty much bald headed by the time we graduated. I also went to school with a few kids who had very bad scarring acne. These seeming trifling dermatological conditions were probably very devastating to them because it happened to them at such young ages. For old farts like me, slowly receeding, greying temples are no big thing---but to a young person under 22 or so, they would be devastating.

but it seems to make male pattern baldness seems like a much more problematic condition than it really is.


Wait till it happens to you! :)

Well come on Razib, some guys just don't look good with domes! How are they supposed to pick up the hot young chix?! I speak from experience: I've done the super-short buzz and the luxurious mane, and I get more attention from women in the latter condition.

Luckily I have 20 years left of having the option given the modal experience of the men in my family, but (Patrick Stewart aside) we should all empathize with those unfortunate souls staring down the barrel of cranial glaberosity while still otherwise in their primes -- the special shampoos, the delicate drying, the fretting examination when one catches sight of one's scalp in the mirror, the twinges of mortification every time one notices how much hair is caught in the drain ... shudder.

I am a bit confused by the data. So there is one baldness risk gene on the X-chromosome, and also, another risk gene on chromosome 20. If you have both, you are likely to go bald? What if you have only one?

I'm not surprised there are different loci responsible for male hair loss, because there seems to be at least (to my eyes) three or four different kinds of male pattern baldness.

There's the cue-ball baldness of Patrick Stewart (my grandfather had this); and then there's the baldness that starts at the crown of the head, but leaves the front alone; and then there's the baldness that is really just a receding hairline that keeps on inching backward.

My father had none of those. He had a kind of balding-ness (and I say balding-ness, because it never graduates to full bald) where the hair just keeps getting thinner and thinner in the front quadrant of the scalp. Not really a receding hairline, and not really an "M" pattern either. Just thinning. I have the beginnings of this also. (I look at my dad's picture, and I see my future)

Since my father and grandfather don't share an X-chromosome, I wonder if the frontal thinning is what happens when you just have the chromosome 20 allele, but not the X-chromosome allele. Perahps my grandfather had both, but Dad only had one.

I'm confused by the data. The article says "two risk variants" on chromosome 20. Do they mean two distinct loci on that chromosome? Or do they mean two variants of the same gene? (sort of the way there are several variants at MRC1, each of which can produce the red-hair phenotype through hemizygosity)

How soon can we expect gene therapy? And how can I enroll in the clinical trials?

On a less serious note, do either of the loci look recently selected? There is no obvious selective advantage for getting ugly faster. Well, I suppose if it hits after children with the first long-term relationship, it might encourage men to raise children they already have rather than womanizing. But per Rushton, Asians should as bald/balder than whites. What else do these two genes do?

I think it is interesting that baldness is most common in light-skinned men of European ancestry. It would be interesting to know if the "risk variants" have been subject to recent selection.

What I am thinking is that the high "risk" of male pattern baldness in northern Europeans may be a result of selection for greater vitamin D production. The main argument against that line of reasoning would be that male pattern baldness tends to manifest at too late an age to have high evolutionary salience. Nonetheless, the high incidence of baldness in this group seems too much of an outlier to be easily attributable to genetic drift or some other non-selective process.

So I've been thinking about what effect vitamin D might have that would be of high evolutionary salience in middle-aged men. What I've come up with is fertility. My hypothesis is that vitamin D might possibly have a strong effect on sperm counts/viability in older men. Up until recently, childbirth was a very common cause of death among women of reproductive age. Men who lost their wives frequently went on to remarry younger women - sometimes more than once in serial fashion. So a mechanism by which such a selection process might occur is at least plausible.

As far as I'm aware there is no direct evidence showing that vitamin D affects male fertility in humans, but I did find a reference to a study showing that sperm cells do have vitamin D receptors and the abstract mentions animal studies showing vitamin D to play a role in male fertility.

Admittedly, this is all speculative but it at least has the merit of being testable. The "risk variants" could be studied to determine if they have been subject to recent selection, and the effect of vitamin D on fertility in middle-age men seems highly testable as well.

The Neel Kashkari photo is hilarious! He's quite an odd looking guy, almost looks like he's starring in some bad B-grade movie wearing a "bald wig"!

Most observable things like this that have changed recently appear to be weird side-effects from selection elsewhere, like light hair and eye color.

Maybe baldness is associated with higher IQ? Google "+baldness +intelligence" and you see that it's not a new idea, some people in the early 20th C saying that baldness was more frequent among intellectual and white collar workers.

I think it is interesting that baldness is most common in light-skinned men of European ancestry. It would be interesting to know if the "risk variants" have been subject to recent selection.

i'd say they have. the snp with the strongest association with baldness is almost fixed between african and non-african pops
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SNP/....cgi? rs=6625163

Baldness is associated with neuroticism and poor mental rotation.

Also associated with: introversion; fewer female sex partners; other's perception of unattractiveness, age, and maturity; depression; low self-esteem; the total area on the face where beard hair is growing; diabetes; hypertension; larger prostate; prostate cancer; sisters with ovarian cancer; higher free testosterone levels; higher cortisol; benign prostatic hyperplasia; alcohol consumption; lower lean body mass at 21; and lower rates of testicular cancer.

Yeah, maybe the observations about baldness being more frequent among intellectual workers is picking up on their greater introversion. Also would make sense from the recent evolution angle, the Chinese, Japanese, and N. Euro Mormons being more introverted than Nigerians.

Isn't that where the term "egghead" came from? Baldness -> geeky smartness.

I don't believe any of it -- I've known bald people from basically all walks of life. Many are hypermasculine; perhaps a compensation mechanism?

Vijay Prozak -

I believe the term "egghead" was inspired by 1950's presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. His largely bald head indeed looked egglike, and he was much more of an intellectual than most politicians. Over time, the term began being used to describe intellectual types, especially those who seemed rather out of touch with reality.

"I think it is interesting that baldness is most common in light-skinned men of European ancestry. It would be interesting to know if the "risk variants" have been subject to recent selection."

Studies done between 6 countries in Western Europe, incl. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Ireland and 4 countries in Eastern Europe including Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania show that Greek men of the same age group and study period had the highest percentage of full crown baldness or Alopeciae totalis (front, top and back) Another typical study during the same period showed that Greek men, 1700 out of 2457 total studied males also suffered the highest amount of random alopecia areata among men (aged 16-28, typical, non-drug using males)

baldness being more frequent among intellectual workers is picking up on their greater introversion

Aren't ugly people in general more introverted, functionally if not by preference?