Baldness Gene Discovered — 1 In 7 Men "At Risk" 297
FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers conducted a genome-wide association study of 1,125 Caucasian men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness. They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness. They then confirmed these findings in an additional 1,650 Caucasian men. 'If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold. What's startling is that one in seven men have both of those risk variants.'" So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose.
Lets not forget Chromosome 21 (Score:3, Insightful)
We could use some of that gene therapy on the 21st chromosome as well. In fact, I'd rather see work there. Though it wouldn't likely be as profitable...
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Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are probably trolling, but I'll bite.
Of course baldness is a disease. A minor one at first sight, but it can lower people's self-esteem and cause severe psychological diseases, such as depression.
Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are probably trolling, but I'll bite.
Of course baldness is a disease. A minor one at first sight, but it can lower people's self-esteem and cause severe psychological diseases, such as depression.
Depression is not caused by baldness.
Especially in this day and age in which baldness (embraced baldness, not spooge-combover) is becoming associated in popular culture with power.
As someone with depression, i'll tell you that minor physical imperfections do not cause or contribute to this problem.
Depression is an emotional reaction to sweeping, systemic problems in our society.
Andromeda had it right: depression is a signal to a person to abandon a futile task. If, however, society as a whole represents futility, there's no alternative course of action, and you have to get your SOMA to make it go away.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
About 20 years ago, I could see that I was going to go bald like my dad did, and I decided to just live with it. No drugs, plugs, or rugs.
-jcr
That really is the only dignified way to go. Nothing spells out the word pathetic as clearly as trying to conceal your baldness with a toupee or a comb over.
Re:Why on earth,,, (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I'd argue that you're never sure where science is going to go, so pursuing different avenues is important, even if it seems a little less useful or even vain. In this case, I could foresee a situation where finding a solution to a rather simple problem, baldness, could help develop methods that would eventually be useful for dealing with cancer and Alzheimer's, which I can only imagine would be more complex to deal with. Also, you can't forget that its not like the entire community focuses on one topic at a time. Parallel research in separate but related areas tend to feedback off of each other; having too many people working on the same thing can at times only slow it down, since so much time is wasted either reinventing the wheel multiple times, or trying to keep things organized.
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Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course baldness is a disease. A minor one at first sight, but it can lower people's self-esteem and cause severe psychological diseases, such as depression.
Not true. It does increase my self-esteem, knowing that my baldness is due to high testosterone. And I believe that bald people are more active in sex than others. Anyone losing their self-esteem due to baldness, just realize that you are more 'male' than non-bald others and cheer up.
Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone with depression, i'll tell you that minor physical imperfections do not cause or contribute to this problem.
Depression is an emotional reaction to sweeping, systemic problems in our society.
Have you also been diagnosed with egotism?
You've literally written off the entire spectrum of depressions in favor of your own limited definition.
Does losing a spouse/pet/job qualify as "an emotional reaction to sweeping, systemic problems in our society"? Because people get clinically depressed for those and millions of other much more trivial reasons. I could list another 50 examples, but I'm not sure it would change your self-centered world view.
Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:1 in 7 at risk? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although a completely shaved head (on a white guy, anyway) is a dead giveaway as well, and gaining in popularity as an alternative to the baseball cap.
I can't understand why you would pick on that? It's a perfectly reasonable choice, not the result of over-played vanity.
There's only two options for guys who are going bald: some hair or no hair. And since 'some hair' tends to result in a comedy hairstyle which is unattractive to look at, and no hair is both distinguished and masculine, who the fuck wouldn't choose to do the latter?
Re:Guys, sometimes its nutrition (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia tells me that "hair is a keratinised protein filament". Thus, if you're significantly cutting back on protein due to eating a vegetarian diet and you're not making up the difference through non-animal protein sources then your hair will likely suffer. However, I would wager that you would need to be predisposed to baldness and the lack of protein exacerbates the symptoms rather than causes them.
Re:Why on earth,,, (Score:5, Insightful)
So having isolated out an important gene, and hopefully setting up a test for it, the next bit of research can be into finding out what else it is associated with. Should all vice-presidents be expected to carry it?
On the other hand, the baldest guy I know (for his age) is mild mannered, intelligent, strong in opinions but polite, and great to work with. So all this testosterone theorizing may be so much crap. It may be associated with testosterone tolerance. Now that is worth researching.
Re:Lets not forget Chromosome 21 (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming you are talking about Down syndrome (since an Alzheimer's treatment would be stupendously profitable), that doesn't even make any sense: it's "trisomy 21", a duplication of the chromosome, and completely unrelated to gene therapy.
All in all, a bit of a stretch, just to get in knee-jerk dig at the pharmaceutical industry, wouldn't you say?
Re:1 in 7 at risk? (Score:2, Insightful)
There's even a company [miboycaps.com] that has popped up which sells brimless baseball caps.
To quote a French teacher of mine, "you can call it bathroom tissue all you'd like, but it's still toilet paper [wikipedia.org]."
Re:Why we go bald (Score:3, Insightful)
Modern advertising is what made baldness "bad". It didn't used to matter much. Thus, your "reminder" theory is suspect.
Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think he was a troll; I thought it was a very interesting point. And I think that "lower self esteem" can unfortunately be correlated with skin color and sexuality as well, so your argument doesn't hold up. Just because society looks down on something doesn't make it a disease.
Really, why do you say baldness a disease? It's just a change in the body's self regulation over time. Balding does not apparently have a significant negative effect from an evolutionary standpoint or it wouldn't be so common. It's just another variation in the human animal. There are many non-disease changes that our bodies go through from birth to death. Do you think puberty is a disease? That also is a change in our makeup that can lead to self esteem issues and even severe psychological problems.
I think the original poster's point very much stands.
And yes, I'm balding :)
Re:Why on earth,,, (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't they focus the research on something more important than baldness?
Because it's not a simple matter of reaching a certain quantity of "man-months" applied to (for example) cure cancer. Our level of technological advancement simply isn't to the point where a Mongol Hordes approach is going to be effective. In most cases, we don't even know what we need to learn before we figure out which way to look for a cure for (x). Who knows, perhaps a technique for combating baldness may hold the key to curing diabetes.
The classic answer to all this is, "it takes 9 months to make a baby no matter how many women you assign to the task"
Re:Why on earth,,, (Score:4, Insightful)
How can it be shallow if (as most people would agree) a woman going bald is much more traumatic? Nobody tells her to "just get over it".
Either sexism is OK, or the things that people call "shallow" really aren't. You can't have it both ways.
Re:Is baldness a disease? (Score:2, Insightful)
here are some examples:
1. You are evaluated for jobs, credit, schools, etc based on arbitrary numbers and papers which don't reflect your full reality.
For instance, your transcript doesn't communicate the circumstances under which it was earned. The person next to you could have had an easy life, while you dealt with chronic illness, the death of your guardians or family, a 40 hour work week to support your housing alone, etc.
2.
The amazingly corrupted western consumer markets.
Anything good which touches the western hemisphere quickly contracts terminal mediocre-itis, and dies a slow, painful death.
If you want quality over quantity, good luck finding it here.
Durable goods have been dead and gone for a very long time.
If you're on the long tail and expect something more or different from your products, you're shit out of luck. Any company which attempts to offer it will be utterly destroyed by either unfair competition or lobbied alterations to make them illegal.
There is no real consumer choice.
3.
the punishment of effort and hard work.
I'm sure you've seen this many times. People who do their job well are manipulated by or covering for incompetents who are then promoted.
In my case I'm in my initial post-collegiate job search, and am noticing everyone wants the guy who partied and paid more attention to his internships than the intended purpose of his time in college: his academics.
Everyone from parents to popular media say you work hard in school and do well in life. I'm not sure when this disconnect happened but it's obviously not the case anymore. Slack off in school and do well in life.
They want canned people. Training your labor is passe'. I wonder what will happen once the current "ready-trained" pool retires or dies off.
4. Rabid anti-intellectualism.
Any experts on a given subject are openly derided.
People who avail themselves of the actual facts surrounding a subject and come to legitimate conclusions which conflict with common perceptions are looked upon as con-men, while the dogmatic and perfidious are lionized.
Why should anyone adjust their beliefs when an inconvenient truth rears its ugly head.
5. Human potential means nothing:
For example, We could be doing much more productive and interesting things for our survival than sitting on this rock fighting over extraneous conspicuous consumption, like colonizing other planets.
That would involve actual cooperation and *gasp*, surrendering your mcmansion and happy-meal toys for a greater cause.
==================
Mediocrity reigns, and any attempts to achieve something more is met with stiff resistance, social malignment, and potentially imprisonment.
Re:Why on earth,,, (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because I doubt other people will be afraid/unwilling to present the "shallow" point of view: What's wrong with wanting to look attractive? It's easy to condemn people for being superficial when you're looking pretty good, but not everyone is so lucky.
Forgetting the health ramifications, just try getting a job when you've lost some of your front teeth. Try going on a date after losing an ear in an accident. There are people who have skin conditions, body odors, and various other problems that you could describe as "superficial" because they aren't "serious health issues". Part of the problem is that a lot of the rest of the world is superficial, and you will be judged by how you look. Beyond that, it's can be emotionally crushing just to look in the mirror.
Now, of course there are people who go too far. People develop eating disorders or have excessive plastic surgery in misguided attempts to look good. Also, losing your hair isn't exactly on the same level as losing an ear. But really, problems like hair loss or acne can cause a big hit to the ego, and being able to solve those problems can be a surpassing improvement in quality of life. I could change how people treat you and respond to you, and even improve how you see yourself. It may be shallow, but it's not trivial.
While it's great to accept how you look... (Score:4, Insightful)
what's wrong with being able to have more control over it? A lot of people here have made the case that we should concentrate on accepting baldness instead of changing it. But is that so different than accepting beards instead of developing a shaver?
Whether it's a matter of personal taste, societal standards, or inherent genetic cues - where is the downside to people having more control over how they appear visually to themselves and others?
Yes, it's possible to go too far with this as it is with anything. Spending $300,000.00 on an outfit instead of just dressing nicely, devoting your life to the gym, or jumping into not-ready-for-prime-time plastic surgery techniques (ex: Micheal Jackson). But just because you *can* go overboard with something, doesn't mean that's your only choice.
Frankly, where technology sits right now I think we'd be better off having stayed with powdered wigs for the time being. You get any hair style you want, and everyone does it so there's no out-cast factor. But we should be working towards having the level of genetic control over our hair that people want. Both in terms on more on our heads, and less pretty much everywhere else. There's a reason that the classic Greek statues bore zero resemblance hair-wise to either Dr. Katz or that fat guy from the Borat movie.
Re:I am almost bald (Score:3, Insightful)
Two things. Firstly, I'll work under the assumption that you are male. Secondly, while most people will agree with your second statement when the others are men, there is a question as to what they will think about bald women.
But you are indeed correct. Baldness for men, while it may be initially discomforting, is perfectly acceptable in our society. It is even perfectly acceptable for a man who discovers he is going bald to shave his head completely. In this sense, baldness studies on men are really not of much medical benefit to our society. There are worthier causes to spend research money on.
Case in point: Baldness in women. I can imagine that going bald would be an extremely stressful thing to happen to any women in our society, at practically any age. Our society still expects women to look a certain way. I've heard people pass (unkind) comment when a woman cuts her hair short! It tough for women who have to go through chemotherapy, and you will find that many cover up their head, indoors and outdoors, with headscarves, even though the hair loss is temporary. They will even keep their hair covered until it reaches almost three inches in length!
For this reason, I would ask the legitimate question; why is so much more time and money being put into male baldness research than female baldness research? The answer of course, is obvious. More men become bald, and therefore researching cures and snake oils for them will pay off more than researching cures for women who arguably need them more. The "market", i.e. greed, dictates where our society invests its scientific research.
Re:Why on earth,,, (Score:3, Insightful)