Does wearing a hat cause hair loss? Why you should avoid pressure on your head

Trinny Woodall speaks about her struggles with hair loss

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Hair loss often sees people obsess over their potential for baldness. In their bid to keep a full head of hair, many men and women may do everything they can to keep their follicles untouched or add bizarre remedies to their washing routine. But they don’t have to, as there are only a few ways to develop hair loss.

Does wearing a hat cause hair loss?

Hair loss, otherwise known as androgenic alopecia, can affect both men and women.

Balding is most common in men, who experience male pattern baldness, but some women may experience female pattern baldness in their lifetime.

In both cases, genetics plays the most significant role, but some activities may also contribute.

Regular hat wearers may receive warnings that their headpiece may cause baldness.

But the role of hats in hair loss is unproven, although it is understandable why people may think this.

Hats provide cover for people sensitive about hair loss, and regularly wearing one to disguise baldness may give the impression that their condition and habit are interconnected.

In reality, experts aren’t convinced hats are a credible contributor to androgenic alopecia.

Speaking to TIME Magazine, Dr Hayley Goldbach, a dermatologist at UCLA Health, said it isn’t a “real concern”.

What experts do agree on, however, is that consistent pressure on the head can pull hairs out.

Using tools such as hair bands, tying a tight ponytail or using braids over the years can speed up hair loss.

In that sense, wearing a tight hat that pulls the hair back may extract follicles from the scalp.

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Effects of a tight hat or braid will vary by person, as will eventual hair loss.

The prime indicator of a person’s likelihood of developing androgenic alopecia lies in their family.

Genetics is one of the only predictors of someone’s hairline, and hair loss genes pass in a set fashion.

Humans have two chromosomes, either two of the X variety or one X and one Y.

Pattern baldness is a gene that resides on the X chromosome and passes via the mother, who got one of her chromosomes from her father.

For women, it is recessive, and for men, dominant, meaning men who have an affected X chromosome will have an increased chance of baldness.

Men with one affected chromosome from their mother but not their father have a 66 percent chance of balding, but this increases to near certainty if they got one from their father too.

Women, on the other hand, must have two affected X chromosomes to develop the condition.

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