Baldness and ischemic heart disease in a national sample of men

Abstract

A weak positive association between male pattern baldness and ischemic heart disease has been suggested previously. The authors examined this issue by using data from the Epidemiologic Follow-up Study of the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. As part of the baseline medical examination between 1971 and 1975, the presence and degree of male alopecia (none, minimal, moderate, and severe) were recorded for a subset of participants. Among 3,932 men aged 25-76 years who had complete data, 378 deaths and 939 incident events from ischemic heart disease occurred during an average follow-up period of 14 years. Among 2,019 men who were younger than age 55 years at baseline (61 deaths and 239 incident events of ischemic heart disease), severe baldness was positively associated with ischemic heart disease mortality (rate ratio = 2.51, 95% confidence interval 1.01-6.24) and somewhat less associated with ischemic heart disease incidence (rate ratio = 1.72, 95% confidence interval 0.96-3.08). No dose-response relation with degree of baldness was seen. Although these findings are tempered by the absence of information concerning the type of baldness (frontal or vertex), they provide support for earlier studies that indicate male pattern baldness that occurs before age 55 years may be by some mechanism related to ischemic heart disease.