Hair Loss Due to Divorce and Death

A study finds that women lose hair when they lose their spouses

As may have been written before, many women have issues with their hair, especially at midlife. We may blame hormones or ageing. But in some cases, the problem could be marriage — or the loss of it. That is the conclusion of a study by a plastic surgeon.

In the study, nearly 200 male and female identical twins were recruited, and they were asked to fill out a questionnaire detailing their lives and health habits. Then the study team took pictures of their scalps to judge who had the most hair.

A big difference was found between men and women who had lost hair. For men, genetics was the most important factor. But a few other things helped men maintain hair: not smoking, wearing a hat when under the sun, exercising and avoiding heavy drinking.

These behaviours helped women keep hair as well, but even more important was the state of their marriages. Women in stables marriages were more likely to have a full head of hair than their twins who were widowed or divorced. Other factors that were associated with losing hair included having many children and higher blood pressure.

These results have not been reported in a peer-reviewed journal — which means that they haven’t been verified by an objective outside expert. But the results make sense. We all know that stress can have physiological effects such as hair loss, and smoking and heavy drinking damage the skin.

What’s interesting is the difference of the risk factors between men and women. That’s another example of why research needs to be more gender specific. We are just not the same and researchers need to consider gender differences when they are looking at how genes and environment interact.