American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on January 21, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwm365
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Original Contribution |
Baldness and Myocardial Infarction in Men
The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study
1 Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
2 Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
3 Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
Correspondence to Dr. Eyal Shahar, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, 1295 North Martin Avenue, Campus Mail P.O. Box 245211, Tucson, AZ 85724 (e-mail: shahar{at}email.arizona.edu).
Received for publication August 10, 2007. Accepted for publication November 14, 2007.
Because hair loss may be a surrogate measure of androgenic activity—possibly a determinant of coronary atherosclerosis—several studies have explored the presence and magnitude of an association between male pattern baldness and myocardial infarction (MI). In particular, vertex baldness, but not frontal baldness alone, was strongly associated with incident MI in a large, hospital-based, case-control study. The authors examined these associations in a cross-sectional sample of 5,056 men aged 52–75 years, of whom 767 had a history of MI. The sample was derived from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study (1987–1998). As compared with a baldness-free reference group, the estimated odds ratios for prevalent MI from a multivariable model were 1.28 (frontal baldness), 1.02 (mild vertex baldness), 1.40 (moderate vertex baldness), and 1.18 (severe vertex baldness). Other regression models have yielded similar results, including the absence of a monotonic "dose-response relation" between the extent of vertex baldness and prevalent MI. The authors also examined the relation of baldness pattern to carotid intimal-medial thickness, a measure of atherosclerosis, among those who were free of clinical cardiovascular disease. The estimated mean differences in carotid intimal-medial thickness between groups of men with various types of baldness and their baldness-free counterparts were all close to zero. The results of this study suggest that male pattern baldness is not a surrogate measure of an important risk factor for myocardial infarction or asymptomatic atherosclerosis.
alopecia; carotid artery diseases; myocardial infarction
Abbreviations: ARIC, Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities; IMT, intimal-medial thickness; MI, myocardial infarction