BALDNESS AND PROSTATE CANCER RISK

In this day and age, bald is beautiful. But is it also a health risk?
New research presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research shows men who started to bald in the back of their heads before age 30 are at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. More than 14 percent of those with prostate cancer reported having what’s called vertex baldness by age 30 compared to just over 5 percent of those who did not have cancer.

New research shows that men who started to bald in the back of their heads before age 30 are at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. Bald may be beautiful, but it could also be a health risk.

New research presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research shows more than 14 percent of those with prostate cancer reported having what’s called vertex baldness by age 30 compared to just over 5 percent of those who did not have cancer. Overall, there was a nearly threefold increase in the risk of prostate cancer in men who started balding early over those who did not.

Prostate cancer is a critical public health problem: more than 220,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States this year and almost 29,000 will die of the disease. The link between baldness and prostate cancer may be in an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase. This enzyme converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone.

Dihydrotestosterone causes both prostate enlargement and male pattern hair loss. Dr. Jed Kaminetsky, a urologist at New York Uiniversity Medical Center, says, “We have to be careful this is a very small study, this is preliminary data, so if a man is starting to lose his hair I wouldn’t run out and worry about his prostate.”

However, there may be a solution that can solve both problems if indeed there is truly a baldness-prostate cancer link. A study released last year found men who took the drug Proscar, used for prostate enlargement, reduced their chances of getting prostate cancer by nearly 25 percent compared to men who took a placebo.

Proscar’s active ingredient is finasteride, the same active ingredient in propecia, the hair regrowth pill. The benefits were seen with the 5 milligram proscar pill, not necessarily the one milligram propecia dose of finasteride.

There is an important warning…men in the study who developed prostate cancer while taking finasteride were more likely to have high-grade cancers, which, when found in the general population, may spread quickly even if the tumors are small. But, more than 97 percent of men who did develop prostate cancer during the proscar study had only early-stage cancers, which are most often curable.

Experts say they don’t know how significant the risk of prostate cancer is if proscar is taken, even if it is one of the more aggressive tumor types…it’s possible it might not be aggressive even thought it looks aggressive. Whether this is indicated long term is still a question mark. “The take home message is over the age of 40 these men should have a baseline PSA. All men over age 50 should have annual digital rectal exam and a PSA level and hopefully prevent problems later on,” says Dr. Kaminetsky.