08/10/2023
Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a disease of modern civilisation and involves central obesity, hypertension, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance and abnormal lipid levels.
But how can this affect your hair follicles..
The association of hair loss and metabolic syndrome have been investigated in several studies and in 2021 a meta analysis was conducted to determine the risk involved in those with MS and patterned hair loss.
2531 participants were involved.
The conclusion was that patterned hair loss was remarkably associated with MS.
Early pattered hair loss was greater in females - especially in those with African ethnicity.
It was also demonstrated that those with patterned hair loss had significantly poor metabolic profiles, such as BMI, waist circumference and triglycerides levels.
This highlights the need to have your metabolic health screened by your medical practitioner if you have patterned hair loss.
My personal view is MS syndrome comes first, then patterned hair loss occurs due to a cascade of malfunctions in the hair follicles, which includes chronic inflammation.
Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Association Between Metabolic Syndrome and Androgenetic Alopecia. Yueqi Qiu, Xingyu Zhou, Siqi Fu, Shuaihantian Luo and Yaping Li. Department of Dermatology, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Hunan, China
