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Baldness Gene Discovered — 1 In 7 Men "At Risk"
FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers conducted a genome-wide association study of 1,125 Caucasian men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness. They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness. They then confirmed these findings in an additional 1,650 Caucasian men. 'If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold. What's startling is that one in seven men have both of those risk variants.'" So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose.
Mom?
I hope I'm not the only one misreading the title as "Badness gene found".
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
This is un-American! This is going to kill jobs, because wig makers will go out of business! Damn commie scientists!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
We could use some of that gene therapy on the 21st chromosome as well. In fact, I'd rather see work there. Though it wouldn't likely be as profitable...
Says the haired guy. Down with haired people! Rise my brethren and let our bald heads shine under the sun...
With a bald pate, you'd have a better platform to mount a black silicon solar cap to power your wireless cranial Internet connection. C'mon, geeks, see the possibilites here! When life hands you shit, make shit sandwiches!
My understanding (and my observation, for that matter) is that roughly 50% of men end up going bald. So how is it news that 1 in 7 men have both of these traits?
BTW, here's a bonus hint to help you find those young guys that are already going bald - look for baseball caps being worn backward. Although a completely shaved head (on a white guy, anyway) is a dead giveaway as well, and gaining in popularity as an alternative to the baseball cap.
#DeleteChrome
About 20 years ago, I could see that I was going to go bald like my dad did, and I decided to just live with it. No drugs, plugs, or rugs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You are probably trolling, but I'll bite.
Of course baldness is a disease. A minor one at first sight, but it can lower people's self-esteem and cause severe psychological diseases, such as depression.
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
You are probably trolling, but I'll bite.
Of course baldness is a disease. A minor one at first sight, but it can lower people's self-esteem and cause severe psychological diseases, such as depression.
Depression is not caused by baldness.
Especially in this day and age in which baldness (embraced baldness, not spooge-combover) is becoming associated in popular culture with power.
As someone with depression, i'll tell you that minor physical imperfections do not cause or contribute to this problem.
Depression is an emotional reaction to sweeping, systemic problems in our society.
Andromeda had it right: depression is a signal to a person to abandon a futile task. If, however, society as a whole represents futility, there's no alternative course of action, and you have to get your SOMA to make it go away.
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Actually baldness is important. Yes most people see it from the shallow POV but being bald puts you at a higher risk of skin cancer. Sure you can always wear a hat but that's not always possible.
Also balding and testosterone levels are linked so this research could also effect that which has a greater impact on men's health so while it's very possible this came about out of shallowness in men the end result could mean much more.
Of course, I'd argue that you're never sure where science is going to go, so pursuing different avenues is important, even if it seems a little less useful or even vain. In this case, I could foresee a situation where finding a solution to a rather simple problem, baldness, could help develop methods that would eventually be useful for dealing with cancer and Alzheimer's, which I can only imagine would be more complex to deal with. Also, you can't forget that its not like the entire community focuses on one topic at a time. Parallel research in separate but related areas tend to feedback off of each other; having too many people working on the same thing can at times only slow it down, since so much time is wasted either reinventing the wheel multiple times, or trying to keep things organized.
First they find the monogomy gene and then they find the baldness gene. How much longer before women insist on genetic pre-screening before they put out?
we all know what will happen if we let our scientists focus on hair-loss
Because baldness research and treatment is a multi-million (if not billion) dollar industry. It's sort of like asking "who would market Viagra?" that flashes the big *DUH* factor.
Face it. Anything sex related and superficial is a huge money maker. Investors would be retarded not to tap into these markets.
Life is not for the lazy.
Sure, all research is good, but really - who as a kid thinks "I want to cure baldness"? Really, aren't there more pressing areas for research money?
God only made so many beautiful heads; the others he covered with hair.
It's not a defect, it's a feature!
Baldness is not a disease. It's a physical trait that distinguishes some males from others. You can find baldness in pretty much any ethnic group. The big question to ask is: Does being bald help you get some sex, or does it hurt your chances? If it hurt, you would expect it to die out as most women would turn down a bald guy *if* being bald was a turn off. If it helped excessively, then the (vast) majority of men would have the baldness gene. If it neither helped nor hindered a guy's chance to get sex then you would expect the percentage of baldness to be stable. Anyone got statistics on the percentage of men who were bald for say the past 2 centuries?
+1 Appropriate sig.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
and I say it is a waste of money. I d not care that I am bald. I do not care if others are bald. I used to have a lot of hair. Now I don't. Started pretty you to get a higher and higher implant. I would not care if I would loose the rest or if it stays like I have it now. It only becomes an issue if you make it an issue.
To me people who are doing comb overs, buy wigs, hairtonic, have implants and what not because they are bald are wasting their time and money. People doing studies on it should be trying to figure out not how to get hair back, but how to let people accept that they and others are bald. That would be like having a cure, instead of taking away the symptoms.
(Obviously if you have a bad scars and such, this might be somewhat different, but I am talking about standard baldness)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Of course baldness is a disease. A minor one at first sight, but it can lower people's self-esteem and cause severe psychological diseases, such as depression.
Not true. It does increase my self-esteem, knowing that my baldness is due to high testosterone. And I believe that bald people are more active in sex than others. Anyone losing their self-esteem due to baldness, just realize that you are more 'male' than non-bald others and cheer up.
As someone with depression, i'll tell you that minor physical imperfections do not cause or contribute to this problem.
Depression is an emotional reaction to sweeping, systemic problems in our society.
Have you also been diagnosed with egotism?
You've literally written off the entire spectrum of depressions in favor of your own limited definition.
Does losing a spouse/pet/job qualify as "an emotional reaction to sweeping, systemic problems in our society"? Because people get clinically depressed for those and millions of other much more trivial reasons. I could list another 50 examples, but I'm not sure it would change your self-centered world view.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
.... that's no moon!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
They need to find the genes that cause bald men to spend hundreds or even thousands on a toupee that looks like a dyed dead rat while insisting that it looks real and that people can't tell.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Since Captain Picard is bald in the 23rd century it appears this idea went nowhere.
Reminds me of a phrase on some cups in a tacky UK seaside resort - "It's not a bald-patch, it's a solar panel for a love machine"
As a man "cursed" with male pattern baldness, I'll say here that going bald had a significant effect on my social standing, but not in the way you'd expect. Before, I had a thick mop of hair that would never comb right. After I started balding, I started shaving my head every morning. The general consensus among my acquaintances is that I look better now than I did before I was balding. It helps tremendously, of course, that Smallville is as popular a TV show as it is these days.
Men, do not fear the razor. The Gillete Mach 3 is your friend.
Not many people change color with age.
Those that do are real weirdos - look at MJ.
For those who may not realize it I will point out that this is a Flame. Yes you are correct that people who are on the periphery of a bell curve could be classified as "real weirdos". It's unfortunate but the only real method that I'm aware of to treat Vitiligo is with shoe polish. And yes you are also correct in stating that "Not many people change color with age."; it's only about 1 to 2 percent of the population. In hindsight it's not too surprising that Michael Jackson often wore gloves because the symptoms of Vitiligo show up first in the extremities like a persons hands.
Let's take it to the extreme. Imagine if at 70 years of age around 40% of men lost their dick. It just falls off. Let us also imagine that by some miracle, there is no risk of infection and everything else still functions correctly. Something tells me this would bother me, and I'd want to stop it. We're talking about something a person has, going away. I don't see how your question is relevant.
Ummm, and how is a shit sandwich better than shit? Are you perhaps running for government (after all, they often seem to "resolve" shitty situations by creating different forms of shitty situations).
baldness does contribute to depression - ask any baldie, or old man. (as thinning hair is associated with disappearing youth and all that entails in today's society) but they usually get used to it, and then they're fine.
Patrick Stewart (famously) said that he went bald early on, and hated it, really had a hard time accepting it. He said that no-one should become depressed by it, just accept it and get on with life and he wishes he hadn't spent so much time worrying over it. I guess its easy to say that in hindsight, but if it happens to you (and remember everyone has thinning hair eventually, just wait until you're 40) hopefully you'll remember this.
Look if you are starting to go bald you had might as well
get used to it because no matter what you
eat or do your hair is as good as gone.
You will not mind being bald anyhow it makes
life much simpler. I have my head shaved to the
skin every month or two. No need for shampoo
conditioner and all that crap just rub a bar
of soap across like the rest of your body
an you are good to go.
I'm trying to figure out your poem. There doesn't appear to be any consistent rhythm, nor do the words for which you chose to end each line rhyme or even come close to rhyming. There's no significant use of metaphor, imagery, and so on. Can you help?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Wikipedia tells me that "hair is a keratinised protein filament". Thus, if you're significantly cutting back on protein due to eating a vegetarian diet and you're not making up the difference through non-animal protein sources then your hair will likely suffer. However, I would wager that you would need to be predisposed to baldness and the lack of protein exacerbates the symptoms rather than causes them.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It's nature's way of telling a man to hurry up and settle down with a woman instead of being a playboy all his life. If you're still acting the playboy while your hairline is receding, the pressure's on to find a mate that you want to raise kids with. Hence, the baldness gene remains in the gene pool. That's my theory anyway.
(No funny mods please, I'm being serious.)
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Yup. The key is to note that the extra gene is quite common, so is not disabling, and probably has advantages. At a guess, it will be linked to increased testosterone. It would possibly be just as valid to call it the "Road Rage Gene". Nor is that a bad thing. Stupid on a road, but a lot of people respond positively to having aggressive defenders around them. (Ok, call it the Pit Bull gene.)
So having isolated out an important gene, and hopefully setting up a test for it, the next bit of research can be into finding out what else it is associated with. Should all vice-presidents be expected to carry it?
On the other hand, the baldest guy I know (for his age) is mild mannered, intelligent, strong in opinions but polite, and great to work with. So all this testosterone theorizing may be so much crap. It may be associated with testosterone tolerance. Now that is worth researching.
Ah finally, we can use gene therapy to cure all those afflicted people. Now everyone can be bald!
Not linked to increased testosterone. Testosterone doesn't cause baldness, DHT does (which is a hormone with similar effects), the other side of the story being a gene that affects the hair follicle's susceptibility to be shrunk by DHT.
Similes are like metaphors
I don't think he was a troll; I thought it was a very interesting point. And I think that "lower self esteem" can unfortunately be correlated with skin color and sexuality as well, so your argument doesn't hold up. Just because society looks down on something doesn't make it a disease.
Really, why do you say baldness a disease? It's just a change in the body's self regulation over time. Balding does not apparently have a significant negative effect from an evolutionary standpoint or it wouldn't be so common. It's just another variation in the human animal. There are many non-disease changes that our bodies go through from birth to death. Do you think puberty is a disease? That also is a change in our makeup that can lead to self esteem issues and even severe psychological problems.
I think the original poster's point very much stands.
And yes, I'm balding :)
It's actually closer to 27% or so for "premature" baldness... that is, guys who aren't 60 years old with thinning hair. Not that it's definitive, but here's the Wiki page on the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness
First paragraph gives you the numbers.
Baldness is often cited in psych studies as one of those weird cultural perception items that people accept as very normal but which is actually more uncommon than you think.
Next time your in a public environment look around and do a count of the 20-50 men in the room who have hair loss (not a very slight receding of the hairline, but actual loss). You'll see that the majority of guys actually have their hair. It's weird when you realize just how much less common premature baldness is than you think it is.
rt
Can't they focus the research on something more important than baldness?
Because it's not a simple matter of reaching a certain quantity of "man-months" applied to (for example) cure cancer. Our level of technological advancement simply isn't to the point where a Mongol Hordes approach is going to be effective. In most cases, we don't even know what we need to learn before we figure out which way to look for a cure for (x). Who knows, perhaps a technique for combating baldness may hold the key to curing diabetes.
The classic answer to all this is, "it takes 9 months to make a baby no matter how many women you assign to the task"
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
How can it be shallow if (as most people would agree) a woman going bald is much more traumatic? Nobody tells her to "just get over it".
Either sexism is OK, or the things that people call "shallow" really aren't. You can't have it both ways.
I suggest you read Slashdot
here are some examples:
1. You are evaluated for jobs, credit, schools, etc based on arbitrary numbers and papers which don't reflect your full reality.
For instance, your transcript doesn't communicate the circumstances under which it was earned. The person next to you could have had an easy life, while you dealt with chronic illness, the death of your guardians or family, a 40 hour work week to support your housing alone, etc.
2.
The amazingly corrupted western consumer markets.
Anything good which touches the western hemisphere quickly contracts terminal mediocre-itis, and dies a slow, painful death.
If you want quality over quantity, good luck finding it here.
Durable goods have been dead and gone for a very long time.
If you're on the long tail and expect something more or different from your products, you're shit out of luck. Any company which attempts to offer it will be utterly destroyed by either unfair competition or lobbied alterations to make them illegal.
There is no real consumer choice.
3.
the punishment of effort and hard work.
I'm sure you've seen this many times. People who do their job well are manipulated by or covering for incompetents who are then promoted.
In my case I'm in my initial post-collegiate job search, and am noticing everyone wants the guy who partied and paid more attention to his internships than the intended purpose of his time in college: his academics.
Everyone from parents to popular media say you work hard in school and do well in life. I'm not sure when this disconnect happened but it's obviously not the case anymore. Slack off in school and do well in life.
They want canned people. Training your labor is passe'. I wonder what will happen once the current "ready-trained" pool retires or dies off.
4. Rabid anti-intellectualism.
Any experts on a given subject are openly derided.
People who avail themselves of the actual facts surrounding a subject and come to legitimate conclusions which conflict with common perceptions are looked upon as con-men, while the dogmatic and perfidious are lionized.
Why should anyone adjust their beliefs when an inconvenient truth rears its ugly head.
5. Human potential means nothing:
For example, We could be doing much more productive and interesting things for our survival than sitting on this rock fighting over extraneous conspicuous consumption, like colonizing other planets.
That would involve actual cooperation and *gasp*, surrendering your mcmansion and happy-meal toys for a greater cause.
==================
Mediocrity reigns, and any attempts to achieve something more is met with stiff resistance, social malignment, and potentially imprisonment.
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People who get worked up about going bald have issues. Go bald and don't worry about it.
Frag the combo over and squirrel wearing goat fragers.
Just because I doubt other people will be afraid/unwilling to present the "shallow" point of view: What's wrong with wanting to look attractive? It's easy to condemn people for being superficial when you're looking pretty good, but not everyone is so lucky.
Forgetting the health ramifications, just try getting a job when you've lost some of your front teeth. Try going on a date after losing an ear in an accident. There are people who have skin conditions, body odors, and various other problems that you could describe as "superficial" because they aren't "serious health issues". Part of the problem is that a lot of the rest of the world is superficial, and you will be judged by how you look. Beyond that, it's can be emotionally crushing just to look in the mirror.
Now, of course there are people who go too far. People develop eating disorders or have excessive plastic surgery in misguided attempts to look good. Also, losing your hair isn't exactly on the same level as losing an ear. But really, problems like hair loss or acne can cause a big hit to the ego, and being able to solve those problems can be a surpassing improvement in quality of life. I could change how people treat you and respond to you, and even improve how you see yourself. It may be shallow, but it's not trivial.
what's wrong with being able to have more control over it? A lot of people here have made the case that we should concentrate on accepting baldness instead of changing it. But is that so different than accepting beards instead of developing a shaver?
Whether it's a matter of personal taste, societal standards, or inherent genetic cues - where is the downside to people having more control over how they appear visually to themselves and others?
Yes, it's possible to go too far with this as it is with anything. Spending $300,000.00 on an outfit instead of just dressing nicely, devoting your life to the gym, or jumping into not-ready-for-prime-time plastic surgery techniques (ex: Micheal Jackson). But just because you *can* go overboard with something, doesn't mean that's your only choice.
Frankly, where technology sits right now I think we'd be better off having stayed with powdered wigs for the time being. You get any hair style you want, and everyone does it so there's no out-cast factor. But we should be working towards having the level of genetic control over our hair that people want. Both in terms on more on our heads, and less pretty much everywhere else. There's a reason that the classic Greek statues bore zero resemblance hair-wise to either Dr. Katz or that fat guy from the Borat movie.
There's nothing wrong with it but I can understand why people would be annoyed that things like Cancer and AIDS aren't cured yet money is being spent on things that don't matter for survival. All just that studying baldness has more benefits than people think.