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(HealthDay News) – Male vertex baldness is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), with the association depending on the severity of baldness, according to a meta-analysis published online April 3 in BMJ Open.
Tomohide Yamada, of the University of Tokyo in Japan, and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of six observational studies (three cohort, three case-control studies) involving 36,690 participants to confirm the correlation between male pattern baldness and CHD.
In the cohort studies, the researchers found that there was a significant correlation between severe baldness in men and CHD, with an adjusted relative risk (RR) of 1.32 compared to males without baldness. Similar associations were observed for younger men (<55 years or aged ≤60 years; RR, 1.44). Vertex baldness correlated with CHD in the three studies that employed the modified Hamilton scale, with the correlation linked to the severity of baldness (severe vertex: RR, 1.48; moderate vertex: RR, 1.36; and mild vertex: RR, 1.18). There was no correlation between frontal baldness and CHD (RR 1.11; P=0.28).
“In the present meta-analysis, vertex baldness was significantly associated with an increased risk of CHD among younger men as well as among all participants, and the association was dependent on the severity of baldness,” the authors write. “Cardiovascular risk factors should be reviewed carefully in men with vertex baldness, especially younger men, and they probably should be encouraged to improve their cardiovascular risk profile.”
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