It is no news that smoking can cause a whole array of illnesses like lung cancer, impotence and heart disease. Add a fourth to the list — baldness.A team of international researchers has carried out a study and found that puffing on fags makes men prematurely bald as it accelerates the process of hair loss, the British media reported on Monday.“Smoking may damage the genetic structure of the hair follicles, the tiny structures responsible for hair growth. We have found significant associations between moderate or severe alopecia and smoking,” lead researcher Dr Lin-hui Su said.In fact, Lin-hui of the Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in Taipei and his fellow researchers came to the conclusion after analysing the effects of smoking on a group of 700 Taiwanese men, all 40-plus.The men’s height and weight were measured, and blood samples analysed. Analysis of the results showed that the risk of hair loss increased with advancing age, but remained lower than the average risk for Caucasian men.It also revealed a clear link between smoking and hair loss, with the heaviest smokers being most likely to suffer from male pattern baldness, even when a family history was taken into account.The researchers found that those who smoked 20 fags a day were more than twice as likely to have moderate or severe hair loss than those who had never smoked. The risk remained elevated even among those who had quit the habit.
