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Bald and Distinguished

Science is making incredible progress in finding the cause and cure for many life-threatening diseases. Still, some unwelcome age-related changes, such as baldness, remain poorly understood.

We lose about one hundred hairs every day in the comb or shower. This is nothing to worry about, since new hair is growing all the time. For bald people this new growth is either arrested as peach fuzz, or in extreme cases, doesn’t even start.

The premature loss of hair that occurs in some men on a grand scale is an inherited trait. Contrary to what is often claimed, baldness genes are passed down from both sides of the family, and often skip generations. Genes may cause one man to go bald, while his brother retains his hair.

Because of their genetic programming, certain men have hair follicles that are predisposed to shrinking under the influence of the male hormone, dihydro testosterone. This hormone begins to be produced in quantity in adulthood. Once this process of follicle shrinkage has started it continues through the years. Eventually it can cause hair to stop growing before it reaches normal length or cause it to thin out. The receding hair line, called male pattern baldness, occurs when the shrinking follicles stop producing hair at all, except for the sides and back of the head.

So next time you notice those hairs in your comb, don’t worry about it too much. And if they are not soon replaced, you can blame your genes.

Sometimes there are remarkably simple explanations for things which may upset us a great deal. Baldness is one of them. Natural physical changes bother us for two principal reasons.

One is simply that it involves change! We get used to seeing ourselves a certain way. We have to adjust our self-perception as our bodies change. That can be hard, especially after many years. Another reason that we are bothered by physical changes is that they are generally seen to be a deterioration. Wrinkles, pot-bellies, whitening hair, baldness, age-spots and the like all serve to remind us that we are in a state of decay.

Yet these are superficial things. There are many men and women who take the changes of aging philosophically. They are secure in their identity and are not overly concerned as they observe the changes reflected in their mirrors.

If we think long and hard enough about it, our bodies don’t count for as much as we think they do. It is our spiritual aspect which really deserves the lion’s share of our attention. Yet, for most of us, it barely gets the left overs. Our outer appearance, the “us” we project to the public, wears out remarkably quickly. 70, 80, 90 years and it’s all over. What’s more, our truest friends will continue to be friends regardless of the physical decline we experience. Those who only “love” us for our physical attributes do not really love us because we are not our bodies. We live in them, but the two are not synonymous.

Within the spiritual context it is also worth noting that God is not as concerned with the outer aspect of our being as He is with the inner. The Bible tells us that God looks at our heart. Specifically, He’s looking at the orientation of our heart. Does it look to Him for direction and meaning in life, or is it inclined away from Him?

David Humphreys and Ron Hughes
© August 2004