Hair Loss

Thinning or diminishing hair is seldom welcome and can cause a great deal of distress. While the condition is more common in men (affecting around half of all men by the age of 50) it can also occur in women.

There are many different types of hair loss - some are permanent and some just temporary. There are also many treatments and remedies to make losing your hair more manageable.

Could my chest hair be transplanted onto my head?

As strange as this sounds - there is a technique for transplanting body hair onto the scalp. So yes this is feasible. However, it is currently, more common to transplant hair from the back and side of the scalp rather than using chest hair. To transplant either head or body hair, a method called FUHT (follicular unit hair transplant) is used.

This involves removing the hair from the donor area and transplanting the whole follicle (not just the visible hair) to its new site. Using body hair is a relatively new technique and it tends to be used in addition to using scalp hair rather than instead of this.

That said, a recent study from India, described body hair as a 'valuable alternative' hair source.

I have read baldness is associated with heart disease - is this true?

Newspapers recently published a report based on research from the University of Tokyo linking baldness with a higher risk of heart disease among younger men (under 55 years of age). Obviously this caused some alarm. So just what did the scientists find? Well, the good news is that they found no link between a receding hairline and heart disease. However, they did conclude that baldness on the crown of the head was associated with an increased risk although they couldn't explain why. It would seem more research is needed.

Unfortunately, you cannot protect yourself against balding but you can reduce your risk of heart disease by making lifestyle changes such as: giving up smoking, losing weight (if too heavy), exercising more and eating healthily.