Debunking Hair Loss Myths Video Transcript

Webcast Transcript

  It's not.  It has nothing to do with the hat.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  Or other people might always see people who are more likely to wear a hat, and then when they take off the hat they've lost their hair, and they think maybe the hat caused it?

MARC AVRAM, MD:  Exactly, exactly.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  What about this one?  Lack of sex causes hair to thin.  Either of you guys, is that true?

MARC AVRAM, MD:  No.  We have no evidence.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  A lot of people out there hope it's true

PETER HALPERIN, MD: There's probably no evidence to show that lack of sex causes hair to thin or that excessive sex causes hair or helps hair to grow.  It's unrelated.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  Is that something that is probably really outrageous, like an old tale, or somehow are there chemicals that are being produced during sex that somebody said is related to your hair, or is it just way off-base?

MARC AVRAM, MD:  I think it's -- I don't know.  I think there's no good clinical trials on that, but I think it's all myth.  Maybe you hear about the man who doesn't have hair who's very virile, and there's just things -- I think it's just something that's kind of passed down literally through the centuries.  You know, Samson with his hair, and cutting his hair and losing -- it probably goes back that far.  But I think it's a myth.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  Usually, if I keep thinking about those old stories about keeping kids in line in school, it's like too much of sex or whatever causes bad things, not the opposite.  Now, what about the direction you face when sleeping determines how much hair you lose?

PETER HALPERIN, MD:  I think that's fairly unfounded, David.  I really do.  It's truly a very complex problem.  A lot has to do with genetics, and people want to find something very simple in their lives they can change and then stop the hair loss problem.  It's just not that easy.  You can sleep on your head.  You'll still retain or lose the hair that genetically you're programmed to do.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  What about hair follicles being clogged somehow?  How does that affect the whole thing about hair loss, or not affect it?

MARC AVRAM, MD:  I hear that on late-night radio, television, things like that.  The problem is really not the follicles in the skin.  The problem is the root in the cells which are just about 4 or 5 millimeters below the skin, about an eighth of an inch.  That's where all the action is that grows or doesn't grow a hair follicle.  Anything on top of the skin in your hair follicles that you can see being plugged or not plugged has nothing to do with whether or not a follicle's going to grow.  So, again, there's no basis to that.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS:  That's all the time we have.  Dr. Halperin and Dr. Avram, I appreciate you debunking all these myths out there about hair loss.  I'm David Folk Thomas.  We'll see you next time.

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