Beer At 21, Hair Loss At 25?!

As if life isn’t complicated enough…what do you do when just 4 years after you (legally) can drink…you start losing your hair? For 1 in 4 men these days…this is the reality. But sometimes the change is so gradually you don’t start noticing until your early 30’s and by then the problem has become impossible to ignore.

More recently, for the first time many high-profile men are coming out the closet as members of the “hair loss at 25” club. In June of 2018, 40-year-old actor revealed he had started to lose his hair at 25 on Conan O’Brien’s talk show. At 25, he started taking an experimental medication that he discontinued because of uncertain side effects when he and his wife, Mila Kunis decided to have children.

Kutcher wasn’t alone…loads of Hollywood elite began losing their hair at an early age and were forced to take steps to hide the condition to protect their career. Sean Connery was just 21-years-old when he joined the King’s Theatre and start acting…around the same time he started losing his hair. When he was cast in 1962’s Dr. No, it was required that he wear a hair piece for the role…and he would forever after.

So…what’s the deal? A simple genetic lottery.

The most common form of hair loss is male pattern hair loss, or androgenic alopecia, aka “common” male pattern baldness that accounts for more than 95% of hair loss in men. It is sometimes mistakenly believed that dihydrotestosterone (DHT) causes hair loss, however that’s not the case. In fact, male pattern hair loss is caused by a sensitivity to DHT. In other words, lower the DHT and keep more hair.

A common old wives’ tale proven false is that is the odds of hair loss depend solely on the genes inherited from your mother’s father. Hair loss in adult men almost always originates in their genes, via an inherited hair follicle characteristic called DHT (dihydrotestosterone) sensitivity, which ultimately shrinks and shortens the life of the follicles. The gene causes a predisposition for that person’s testosterone to convert to DHT, which starts being produced in puberty to create body hair, then, in that male’s late teens, 20s and 30s, the majority of hair thinning has begun.

But all is not lost…there are also solutions to RENEW what has been taken.