Balding men more likely to get prostate cancer, study reveals
Published 1 Mar 2016
Male pattern baldness may be an indicator of men's susceptibility to fatal prostate cancer, new research suggests.
A large-scale study by medical professionals at America's National Cancer Institute in Maryland concluded that any degree of baldness in men is associated with a 56 per cent higher risk of fatal prostate cancer compared with men who experience no balding.
Men who have moderate balding are specifically at risk, seeing an 83pc chance of suffering from the cancer.
Dr Michael Cook, an investigator of of prostate carcinogenesis and the study's lead author, explained to Telegraph Men why hair loss could point to this prevalent male disease.
"Male sex hormones called androgens, such as testosterone, are thought to underlie both male baldness and prostate cancer progression," says Cook. "And our study, combined with others, provides an evidence base that supports the ideas of shared risk factors for these two conditions.
"We hypothesize that male pattern baldness and aggressive forms of prostate cancer overlap in their causes," continues the researcher, revealing that a specific androgen called dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is associated with both prostate cancer progression and male pattern hair loss.
"In these types of studies, male baldness – the degree, and often the pattern, in which head hair has been lost – has often been assessed using validated pictorial scales such as the Norwood-Hamilton scale," says Cook. "And no prior study has had the advantage of baldness being assessed by dermatologists. This makes the current prospective study – in which we have followed this group of men from the early 1970s through 2011 – the strongest study to date to assess this relationship."
Cook's latest results, which have been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, detail how the study followed a sample of 4316 men – from which 107 deaths were attributable to prostate cancer – and made links between specific types of hair loss and those who developed the disease.
The researcher explains how his study found an increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer only in men with a very specific pattern of hair loss: baldness at the front and moderate hair-thinning on the crown of the head. Other hair loss patterns appeared unaffected.
But men who are slightly thinning on the top shouldn't panic prematurely, says Cook. "The lower-bound limits of our risk estimates indicate very small increased risks," reveals the researcher.
Over 10,000 UK men die from prostate cancer each year, with almost 45,000 new cases of the disease reported annually. It is the second most common cancer-related cause of death in men after lung cancer, so any new screening techniques or early detection methods are likely to attract a lot of attention.
But how long is it likely to be before baldness becomes an accurate indicator of men's susceptibility to prostate issues?
"Replication of our results is required," says Cook, "as is a better mechanistic understanding of this association. It is conceivable that, in the future, patterns and degree of male baldness may play a small role in estimating risk of prostate cancer and may contribute to patient-doctor discussions about whether to opt for prostate cancer screening.
"At this time, however, these results should be interpreted in a cautious manner. Men with any degree of baldness should not be additionally concerned about their individual risk of developing, or dying from, prostate cancer."
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