Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Other Raw-Animal-Food Diets (eg:- Primal Diet/Raw Version of Weston-Price Diet etc.) => Raw Weston Price => Topic started by: wodgina on March 19, 2009, 12:49:23 am
-
I really enjoy looking at old photos of american indians/maori etc
I was checking out this site http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Pictures/old_photos_pg01.html (http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Pictures/old_photos_pg01.html) and couldn't get over the fact that there were no bald ones and their hair was so thick.
-
Perhaps, like Weston-Price, they simply chose the better-looking ones with luxurious hair etc. There must have been some bald people among them.
-
There really are no bald American Indians.
Travel story: I once spent part of a winter in San Cristobal de las Casas, SW Mexico. Almost all Mexicans are part Indian. There I met a fellow Canadian who always wore a cap, regardless of how warm the day.
He told me that he did it because the Mexicans would stare at him; never seen a bald man.
Lots of Indians in Canada, and I don't remember ever seeing a bald one here either.
-
I don't think they were all that good looking...more likely the more interesting looking ones were chosen and that would not of ruled out baldness.
-
Also all the people have amazing thick black hair and check out those cheek bones.
-
I believe goodsamaritan says on his site that he reversed his hairloss and graying with... and I could be wrong, it's been a bit since I read it so he'll have to correct me on it... but with coconut oil and RAF.
I'd like to hear more about that.
Maybe there's some kind of link between a lack of good fats and the activation of some kind of genetic factor? There's clearly a genetic factor for it, but I wonder if there's a diet factor also.
-
There is a genetic proponent but diet would play a part. I really think VCO is given way too much credit. I doubt it cures baldness.
Although...people say baldness and greying are linked to candida so VCO could help with that but raw beef fat is a far superior killer of candida compared to VCO.
I have a head full of grey hair. I went grey really early (mid 20's) might be candida might be thyroid. I can't tell if it's stopped going grey not to worried just want to keep my thick locks no matter what the colour.
-
Are there bald Chinese?
-
I believe goodsamaritan says on his site that he reversed his hairloss and graying with... and I could be wrong, it's been a bit since I read it so he'll have to correct me on it... but with coconut oil and RAF.
I'd like to hear more about that.
Maybe there's some kind of link between a lack of good fats and the activation of some kind of genetic factor? There's clearly a genetic factor for it, but I wonder if there's a diet factor also.
To clarify things:
My hairloss was stopped on the spot with the stoppage of the use of all shampoos. (my barber taught me this) I do not shampoo my hair. I only shampoo with a natural 1 herb shampoo when I get a haircut.
Same experience as my friend http://www.myhealthblog.org/2009/03/17/poldo-baral-swears-it-was-commercial-shampoo-that-made-his-hair-fall-off/
The graying and the whitening of my hair was reversed by eating high vitamin C fruit (guava or papaya) + raw fat (coconut meat, eggs) every morning continuously. Plus of course I do not shampoo, just water.
-
Are there bald Chinese?
Yes there are. I have some Chinese blood. My maternal grandfather was 1/2 Chinese. He was bald.
-
Given that Native Americans and Asians in general have a reduced chance of baldness, it seem safe to state that baldness is genetic.
-
Completely genetic? That's obviously not true if anyone ever on earth has reversed baldness. Everything is part genetic and part environmental, with no exceptions.
-
Baldness is just another disease. Genetics determines whether you will be susceptible or not, diet determines whether you ultimately end up going bald, and how severe. The thing is that baldness is one of the less severe illnesses that shows itself in people who aren't particularly unhealthy. Baldness is actually very similar to acne in it's cause and treatements.
-
I disagree. There are plenty of bald people out there who are very healthy, so I'm more inclined towards theories such as the one linking excess testosterone to baldness etc.
-
Excess testoterone is healthy? I believe the word "excess" implies that the article in excess is at an unhealthy level, or else it would be "acceptable" "normal" or "healthy" level, not excessive. Excess thyroid hormones are unhealthy, yes? Excess blood glucose?
-
Well, there are wide variations in hormone levels even in the case of healthy people.
-
I posit that a hormone variation to the point where your body cannot support the growth of it's own hair from it's follicles would fall under the category of "unhealthy."
I agree with the acne comment. Sure there are tons of athletes and otherwise healthy looking people with acne, but the bottom line is that there is something going on with their skin that is not right and that part of them isn't healthy. And the thing that is causing that problem may eventually cause another problem with a more serious system in their body.
Are you calling healthy simply "not sick?" That is not at all the definition I use these days.
-
I really enjoy looking at old photos of american indians/maori etc
I was checking out this site http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Pictures/old_photos_pg01.html (http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Pictures/old_photos_pg01.html) and couldn't get over the fact that there were no bald ones and their hair was so thick.
Do you know in what age group the old ones on page 1 are? Most of them are extremely wrinkly, can't even open their eyes because of it: http://www.firstpeople.us/photos/A_Blackfoot_woman.html
I understand if they are in their 90's... but my grandfather in his 80's and is not as wrinkly as the old American Indians in those pictures.
This guy is 94 and looks better than those American Indians IMO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne
-
Probably because Jack La Lane is a fitness expert?
Which of those American indians are fitness experts?
-
Do you know in what age group the old ones on page 1 are? Most of them are extremely wrinkly, can't even open their eyes because of it: http://www.firstpeople.us/photos/A_Blackfoot_woman.html
I understand if they are in their 90's... but my grandfather in his 80's and is not as wrinkly as the old American Indians in those pictures.
This guy is 94 and looks better than those American Indians IMO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne
They look weathered to me. If you spend a lot of time outdoors you get that look. That man could of had a 6 pack and lived to 100 and still be working to the end unlike most old people now.
Jack LaLanne has good genes, his mum lived to her 90's aswell. Weve had discussions on here many times that looking healthy doesnt mean your healthy.
-
Probably because Jack La Lane is a fitness expert?
Which of those American indians are fitness experts?
Yes.. Maybe that stresses the importance of exercise for living a long healthy life
But American Indians were not sedentary either.
They look weathered to me. If you spend a lot of time outdoors you get that look. That man could of had a 6 pack and lived to 100 and still be working to the end unlike most old people now.
Interesting... Might depend on the weather also?
Jack LaLanne has good genes, his mum lived to her 90's aswell. Weve had discussions on here many times that looking healthy doesnt mean your healthy.
Where did I mention that they are unhealthy?
I just said they look extremely wrinkly compared to other old people I've seen.
-
I thought you were continueing on with the discussion that RawKyle and Geoff were having on acne/baldness and looking healthy.
-
As regards baldness, there are so many variables. I mean, Europeans are more likely to experience baldness, yet they are not necessarily less healthy than asians, say. Native Americans, being Asians, do have a genetic advantage re warding off baldness, but this has nothing to do with health.
One other consideration:- it is generally viewed by anthropologists that neoteny(having childlike features when adult) is a sign of increasing evolution. Since neoteny involves less body hair(body hair is a sign of maturity/adulthood) one could even argue that baldness is an evolutionary advantage re increased neoteny.
-
Interesting take on evolution, but I don't think that neoteny is always considered an improvement. In my genetics classes there are examples of things developing further (more mature versions) as improvements, as well as immature versions being improvements. Like all evolution, there is no absolute forward or backwards, just what fits in the current environment best.
And as for baldness being neoteny, I don't buy it, since most bald men have hairy bodies. As a baby I had a full head of hair and no body hair, the exact opposite!
-
As regards baldness, there are so many variables. I mean, Europeans are more likely to experience baldness, yet they are not necessarily less healthy than asians, say. Native Americans, being Asians, do have a genetic advantage re warding off baldness, but this has nothing to do with health.
This is because hairloss is not a stand alone disease independent of the rest of the body. Hairloss is only a sympton (all diseases are merely symptons) of an underlying problem. People experience and are more susceptible to different symptons.
-
is it possible that europeans are more susceptible to baldness because they were in generally colder and less sunny climates? maybe there was just no advantage for having lots of hair to block out the sun. i dont know, just an idea
-
is it possible that europeans are more susceptible to baldness because they were in generally colder and less sunny climates? maybe there was just no advantage for having lots of hair to block out the sun. i dont know, just an idea
Disagree, since the evolutionary purpose of hair on the head is to attract women.
I see plenty of bald men of all racial stock as well. Adoption of a SAD diet invariably increases baldness.
-
Interesting take on evolution, but I don't think that neoteny is always considered an improvement. In my genetics classes there are examples of things developing further (more mature versions) as improvements, as well as immature versions being improvements. Like all evolution, there is no absolute forward or backwards, just what fits in the current environment best.
And as for baldness being neoteny, I don't buy it, since most bald men have hairy bodies. As a baby I had a full head of hair and no body hair, the exact opposite!
Evolution wouldn't necessarily involve losing hair all over the body, all in one go. There could be all sorts of reasons as to why, at first, most body hair was lost(our apemen ancestors were far hairier, in terms of body hair than us, for example), with baldness perhaps being the next evolutionary step that we're in the process of developing into.
As for neoteny, it's the most likely explanation so far, at least as regards the evolution of humans and the growth of the brain, in particular. Indeed, some claim that humans are simply a neotenous version of chimps, more or less:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#Compared_to_other_species
I agree that increased maturity can also lead to evolutionary advantages, but not necessarily of the kind that led to the increase in human brain-size or general human evolution.
-
The brain itself is the opposite of neoteny for humans, it is more developed than in other apes.
Also have you considered there is NO selective pressure for baldness? Without selective pressure there is NO evolution. Women do not like baldness, there is no increased reproductive rate in bald men, at best it's equal with men who do not go bald. It's probably a little lower. Therefore baldness does not fit the most important criteria for evolution, being something that builds up in the gene pool over time due to selective pressure.
-
The brain itself is the opposite of neoteny for humans, it is more developed than in other apes.
Also have you considered there is NO selective pressure for baldness? Without selective pressure there is NO evolution. Women do not like baldness, there is no increased reproductive rate in bald men, at best it's equal with men who do not go bald. It's probably a little lower. Therefore baldness does not fit the most important criteria for evolution, being something that builds up in the gene pool over time due to selective pressure.
Not true. First of all, neoteny applies to the womb and early infancy. It's a fact that human babies' brains are much larger in proportion to the rest of their anatomy, than should normally be the case with adults(that's why humans have more problems giving birth). Secondly, there may well be an overall evolutionary advantage re losing body hair from all over(otherwise why did we lose the fur-like hair our apemen ancestors had?). It's just that baldness hasn't fully evolved yet as a trait, only partially, perhaps as the end of a long run of evolution causing hair-loss in the rest of the body.
Also, women do not necessarily discriminate against baldness. Indeed, various studies re this have shown that women find bald men more intelligent. Another point is that while baldness(or less hair in general) may be a positive trait, the fact that baldness is also a characteristic of older people in particular, might put off women, so that the evolutionary bonuses and negatives of being bald cancel each other out.
Another point made by scientists is that evolution has stopped, for all intents and purposes, as we are no longer subject to natural selection, so that we can't strictly speaking, tell how much balder(or less bald) we would be in the future.
-
I shave my head 'a number 1' we call it here so there's a few millimeters of hair.
I have to be careful though going out in the sun I've gotten sun stroke a few times because of a shaved head and it's not fun. Also you feel cold really easily. There's not many advantages of no hair.
-
So why did we shed the bulk of our body hair? I mean, we were in an ice age right? Wouldn't more body hair have conferred a survival advantage? Now that I think about it, we are one of the only mammal species that does not have a full coat - I mean, yes we have hair all over, but not like most other mammals.
Does it have something to do with brain development? Kind of like how gut size and brain size are inversely related? Was it perhaps just a natural consequence of some other evolutionary development - in other words, would large amount of hair growth be a hindrance to some other sort of development that is particular to humans, or lightly haired mammals?
-
i've read that we are generally hairless because it allows us to sweat and regulate body temperature better. this allows us to run for longer distances like for endurance hunting. that means that we probably evolved away from a full coat of hair while in a hotter climate like the out of africa theory suggests.
-
Or maybe it's because we started wearing the fur of other animals so we didn't need our own. I think the aquatic ape theory says it's because we started hanging out in coastal regions and began swimming a lot. There's a definite advantage to less hair there.
But male pattern baldness is just head hair loss. Like Kyle said, they often have hairy bodies. I liked Yon Yonson's idea that baldness may have occurred to catch sun rays. But it fails because it only happens in men (usually). Plus the fact that the skin became lighter for that very fact. Oh, and some animals can synthesize vitamin d on their fur, right? Then they lick it off.
My husband looks much like Lex, only younger. He is a Scandinavian. And I find him very sexy, so this idea that women don't like bald men is bunk. Who knows, maybe they are better in bed? They certainly produce a lot of offspring.
-
i've read that we are generally hairless because it allows us to sweat and regulate body temperature better. this allows us to run for longer distances like for endurance hunting. that means that we probably evolved away from a full coat of hair while in a hotter climate like the out of africa theory suggests.
Doesn't the fact that we are bipedal factor into this as well? I forget.
-
Also have you considered there is NO selective pressure for baldness? Without selective pressure there is NO evolution. Women do not like baldness, there is no increased reproductive rate in bald men, at best it's equal with men who do not go bald. It's probably a little lower. Therefore baldness does not fit the most important criteria for evolution, being something that builds up in the gene pool over time due to selective pressure.
This I agree with, but baldness is not an evolutionary trait, and you can't really breed baldness out or in. Anyone can potentially go bald, just as anyone can potentially get cancer. A poor diet is the cause, but some get lucky and don't go bald or get cancer while eating crap their whole lives.
I believe hair on the head has the purpose to attract women, and people lose hair once their body percieves the time to reproduce has passed (hence body loses interest in preserving health and looking good) due to accelerated aging caused by toxins, sugars, excessive calories.
I started losing hair in my teens. Radically changing my diet made it stop and thicken a bit then remain steady. Unfortunately it didn't completely grow back (yet? hair cycles are qute long). I also had incredible severe acne, which RAF treated perfectly. Treatements that helped my skin also helped my hair (unless it was some horrible drug like Accutane, which doesn't help me but has others). Although the majority of diseases all share some common causes, acne, hairloss and diabetes are extremely closely tied.
-
This I agree with, but baldness is not an evolutionary trait, and you can't really breed baldness out or in. Anyone can potentially go bald, just as anyone can potentially get cancer. A poor diet is the cause, but some get lucky and don't go bald or get cancer while eating crap their whole lives.
I disagree with the notion that you can't breed for baldness. Any such characteristic can be bred, it just takes careful genetic selection over some generations, much like with dogs.
Arguing that poor diet or disease is the cause of baldness yet claiming that "some people get lucky" is a contradiction in terms. I've known bald people in much better health than the rest of the population and people with luxuriant hair who've been in very poor health. Come to think of it, even most of the bald men I've come across haven't been at all hairy as regards the rest of their body.
-
not really a contradiction at all I think. Many people follow a SAD and die old and relatively healthy. Genetics determine how susceptible to a disease you are, diet determines if you actually get it. So not everyone is as likely to go bald. Someone might go bald being only slightly below perfect health, while another person would only go bald if they really abused their body to its limits. The same could be said about any condition though. However it seems that some people are REALLY susceptible to going bald. It doesn't take much to trigger hairloss compared to other problems.
Breeding out baldness would be like breeding out diabetes, or heat disease. Pretty impossible I think. Its not something like the colour of ones eyes.
-
I was thinking, regarding balding and other differing traits; we question why did these traits evolve / how do they confer a survival advantage? Seems like there are probably a few reasons for male pattern baldness:
-Poor diet, demanding environment, a consequence of an unhealthy lifestyle
-Complete genetic predisposition, regardless of diet/environment
-Everything else in between
Life survives b/c of it's great diversity. Many different generations/lines of species develop many differing traits, some of which confer a survival advantage, some of which do not, but many of which are completely neutral. This can change obviously with envirnmental changes (like the small deer/elk being more prone to survive b/c hunters go after the largest ones).
So while hair loss is linked with poor health (real health, not just outside apparent wellness), this may always the case. Entirely possible baldness just developed as one of those neutral forms of diversity.
-
The point is that baldness is not a disease but a physical characteristic. So, just as it is possible to breed humans to have 6 fingers on each hand or foot, so it is possible to breed people who have no hair on top of their heads.
Besides, the clincher is that there are plenty of wild animals who have bald heads, but live on raw, healthy diets without any issues.
-
The point is that baldness is not a disease but a physical characteristic.
If that were true then there would be no connection between insulin, fat intake, hormonal imbalance and hair loss. Hair loss is treateable by improving things that are known to impact overall health, therefore its likely a disease.
Hairloss treatement drug propecia stops the conversion of DHT from excessive free testosterone. This excessive unused testosterone in the body is not healthy or simply a characteristic of the body.
-
Hormones affect almost everything in the body, so it's unsurprising that it would affect hair-growth or hair-loss(hair is after all detachable from the body, unlike arms/legs).
-
Hair on our heads helps keeps us cool and keeps us warm. How can losing it not be a bad thing?
-
Well, judging from my experience, hair on the head definitely does not keep me cool, it makes me hot(I always do a grade 1 or 2 haircut in the summer because of this).
-
Do you mean standing out in direct sunlight? I spend a lot of time surfing and in the outdoors and hair does keep you cool when in direct light. I have to be careful surfing with a shaved head because I get sunstroke. Yes in the shade short hair keeps you cool or maybe in Europe where the sun isn't so strong.
-
Do you mean standing out in direct sunlight? I spend a lot of time surfing and in the outdoors and hair does keep you cool when in direct light. I have to be careful surfing with a shaved head because I get sunstroke. Yes in the shade short hair keeps you cool or maybe in Europe where the sun isn't so strong.
The longer my hair is the hotter I feel, regardless of whether I'm in the shade or in the sun. And in some parts of Europe such as Italy, Spain and Greece, it can get extremely hot in the summer. The only time I get respite in the summer with anything more than a grade 2 is if I soak my hair in water, but that doesn't last, of course.
-
If full heads of hair didn't help being in hot weather I wonder why Aborigines always had them.
-
If full heads of hair didn't help being in hot weather I wonder why Aborigines always had them.
To diwht sunstroke susceptibility? Like I said because humans are neither all completely bald or completely hairy, there may well be competing evolutionary trends in whixh some involve baldness being a positive evolutionary trair and others involve baldness being a negative evolutionary trait.
-
If full heads of hair didn't help being in hot weather I wonder why Aborigines always had them.
No barbers, that's why. ;)
They don't have beards either ("barber" comes from the word for beard), and their females are different too, they have pubic hair more like beaver fur than anything else.
IMO hair does help in hot sunny weather; IIRC European climate is more often overcast and miserably wet than N. America.
This makes me think that the theory of polygenesis is credible, compared to the African origin hypothesis.
-
To diwht sunstroke susceptibility? Like I said because humans are neither all completely bald or completely hairy, there may well be competing evolutionary trends in whixh some involve baldness being a positive evolutionary trair and others involve baldness being a negative evolutionary trait.
My question of selective pressure still remains. In order for baldness to have gone into the gene pool as you claim as a possible evolutionary change, there must have been selective pressure for it. I think we can all agree that the average woman prefers their men to have a full head of hair over partially or fully bald, that alone points to no selective pressure. Unless you can show somehow that bald men have more reproductive success, or rather had more reproductive success in the preceding generations when baldness started (you would have to figure that out too) to get us where we are now of many men going bald later in life, then it's just not evolution.
Also why would it only happen to men as they age? If it's an advantage and a genetic change rather than a breakdown of hair follicles from faulty nutrition, I would imagine it would be present at birth and they wouldn't go through the normal cycle of growing full heads of hair in their adolescence and early adulthood.
Looking at all the factors I think it's unreasonable to say it's more likely for baldness to be an evolutionary trait rather than just the effect of faulty nutrition. Yes some gene pools tolerate this faulty nutrition for this trait better (Asians in particular) but that doesn't make it genetic, it just makes it like everything else in that your genes determine how faulty nutrition will affect you. That would be like saying because Asians have less colon cancer than Europeans that it's a genetic disease rather than a disease of nutrition. Every disease the modern SAD or grain heavy diet causes affects different gene populations differently, still nutrition is the cause not their faulty genes.
-
My question of selective pressure still remains. In order for baldness to have gone into the gene pool as you claim as a possible evolutionary change, there must have been selective pressure for it. I think we can all agree that the average woman prefers their men to have a full head of hair over partially or fully bald, that alone points to no selective pressure. Unless you can show somehow that bald men have more reproductive success, or rather had more reproductive success in the preceding generations when baldness started (you would have to figure that out too) to get us where we are now of many men going bald later in life, then it's just not evolution.
Also why would it only happen to men as they age? If it's an advantage and a genetic change rather than a breakdown of hair follicles from faulty nutrition, I would imagine it would be present at birth and they wouldn't go through the normal cycle of growing full heads of hair in their adolescence and early adulthood.
Looking at all the factors I think it's unreasonable to say it's more likely for baldness to be an evolutionary trait rather than just the effect of faulty nutrition. Yes some gene pools tolerate this faulty nutrition for this trait better (Asians in particular) but that doesn't make it genetic, it just makes it like everything else in that your genes determine how faulty nutrition will affect you. That would be like saying because Asians have less colon cancer than Europeans that it's a genetic disease rather than a disease of nutrition. Every disease the modern SAD or grain heavy diet causes affects different gene populations differently, still nutrition is the cause not their faulty genes.
No, we do NOT all agree that the average woman prefers their men to have a full or partial head of hair. As Satya pointed out, women have a wide difference in their views of what constitutes sex-appeal in a Man(much like men), and bald people are also seen as more intelligent, which would be a bonus for some women.
Plus, if all or most women really did view baldness as being so bad, why is it that as much as 1 in 4 men noticeably grow bald in their twenties(NOT in old age) with 3 in 4 growing bald, later on? The only plausible explanation for the 1 in 4 figure for young men is that there must be some reproductive bonus to being bald. And it's also been pointed out that the greater number of androgen receptors you have on the surface of your follicle cells, the more DHT activation is likely to be induced and the more likely it is that your hair will fall out and stay out. The distribution of androgen receptors is thought to be determined almost entirely by your genes.
Re why does it only happen to men as they age:- First of all, baldness is heavily influenced by testosterone, which only becomes a factor in men, around puberty, so that if one assumes fluctuating hormone-levels in the 20s that would explain baldness at that stage(20, not 14 or 18, is actually the age at which both males and females stop maturing, funnily enough). Secondly, a lot of animals go through initial stages such as cocoons or keep certain atavistic characteristics from earlier phases of that species' evolution(eg:- tadpoles becoming frogs), so it.
Here's a most interesting theory re baldness and sexual selection from the web:-
http://ask.metafilter.com/69507/How-does-natural-selection-account-for-male-pattern-balding
"One theory, advanced by Muscarella and Cunningham, suggests baldness evolved in males through sexual selection as an enhanced signal of aging and social maturity, whereby aggression and risk-taking decrease and nurturing behaviours increase.(1) This may have conveyed a male with enhanced social status but reduced physical threat, which could enhance ability to secure reproductive partners and raise offspring to adulthood.
In a study by Muscarella and Cunnhingham, males and females viewed 6 male models with different levels of facial hair (beard and moustache or clean) and cranial hair (full head of hair, receding and bald). Participants rated each combination on 32 adjectives related to social perceptions. Males with facial hair and those with bald or receding hair were rated as being older than those who were clean-shaven or had a full head of hair. Beards and a full head of hair were seen as being more aggressive and less socially mature, and baldness was associated with more social maturity.
Here's the abstract from that study:
Both male facial hair and male pattern baldness are genetically based, suggesting that they contributed to fitness. The multiple fitness model provides an evolutionary interpretation of the social perception of male pattern baldness and beardedness in terms of the multidimensional meaning of physical maturational stages. Male facial beardedness is associated with the sexual maturation stage and is hypothesized to signal aggressive dominance. Male pattern baldness, by contrast, is associated with the next stage of physical maturation, termed senescence. Pattern baldness may signal social maturity, a non-threatening form of dominance associated with wisdom and nurturance. We tested these hypotheses on social perceptions using manipulated male facial stimuli. We presented faces with three levels of cranial hair, including full, receding, and bald, and two levels of facial hair, beard with moustache and clean shaven. Consistent with the model, a decrease in the amount of cranial hair was associated with increased perceptions of social maturity, appeasement, and age, and decreased perceptions of attractiveness and aggressiveness. Targets with facial hair were perceived as more aggressive, less appeasing, less attractive, older, and lower on social maturity than clean shaven faces.
So maybe women tend to chase hairy, irresponsible and aggressive young guys, but settle down and raise kids with balding but stable and nurturing men, even though they find them less attractive than men with full heads of hair.
Or male baldness may be associated with another, yet identified trait that is being directly selected, and baldness survives as a tagalong."
Of course, the clincher re the testosterone-genetics theory is that if a man is castrated before or at the very start of puberty, he gets a full head of hair. Castration is the one sure defence against baldness. This blows the whole notion linking baldness and ill-health out of the water. Besides, if one takes the theory of baldness and ill-health too seriously, one would have to assume that Asians were healthier/had healthier diets etc. than other racial groups, which is very unlikely.
-
No, we do NOT all agree that the average woman prefers their men to have a full or partial head of hair. As Satya pointed out, women have a wide difference in their views of what constitues sex-appeal in a Man(much like men), and bald people are also seen as more intelligent, which would be a bonus for some women.
Damn straight. And that intelligence confers itself in a very practical way - ie. good provisions. I would say that even in less than modern times, physical attraction of women to men is less physical and more exhibited in terms of bringing home the bacon. A woman wants good food and shelter for the family. Good looks don't guarantee that. A good, smart tool user is better than a big brute in most cases.
Great study. And interestingly, my husband is younger than me, but he does look older (so it works, ya know?). That older look I think is a benefit for men, at least in terms of career advancement by age. No doubt about that.
-
These associations with baldness are simply cultural though. Different societies will associate different things will baldness (in this case its claimed intelligence). The only consistent thing between cultures is that having hair is physically more attractive than being bald.
-
These associations with baldness are simply cultural though. Different societies will associate different things will baldness (in this case its claimed intelligence). The only consistent thing between cultures is that having hair is physically more attractive than being bald.
I tend to think that this is a very modern idea, and we do see many products on the market to "cure" this baldness. How was it viewed 2000 ya though? Was it unattractive then? Or was it honored? Same with white teeth, it is very cultural and really has nothing to do with health. Dark teeth due to staining from fruit means nothing. It is modern society that says we must bleach the teeth and otherwise keep what we see as youthful.
Personally, I would rather be super strong and fast all my age than worry about superficial markers like hair and teeth. I can do the splits and spar teenagers, and if I can do that into my 60s, then I will have preserved my health, afaiac.
-
Plus, if all or most women really did view baldness as being so bad, why is it that as much as 1 in 4 men noticeably grow bald in their twenties(NOT in old age) with 3 in 4 growing bald, later on? The only plausible explanation for the 1 in 4 figure for young men is that there must be some reproductive bonus to being bald. And it's also been pointed out that the greater number of androgen receptors you have on the surface of your follicle cells, the more DHT activation is likely to be induced and the more likely it is that your hair will fall out and stay out. The distribution of androgen receptors is thought to be determined almost entirely by your genes.
All illness increases as people age. Diabetes is more common in older people than young. No reproductive advantage, simply bad diet affecting particular people worse/differently. Everything doctors don't understand is thought to be "genetic". I think very little is.
Of course, the clincher re the testosterone-genetics theory is that if a man is castrated before or at the very start of puberty, he gets a full head of hair. Castration is the one sure defence against baldness. This blows the whole notion linking baldness and ill-health out of the water. Besides, if one takes the theory of baldness and ill-health too seriously, one would have to assume that Asians were healthier/had healthier diets etc. than other racial groups, which is very unlikely.
Not true. Castrating a man might stop him going bald, since baldness is only a symptom of illness. He would not be able to produce the hormones needed to go bald, but he would likely develop another illness instread. Seems to be going back and fourth. Raw Kyle already said that you don't have to assume that Asians were healthier, since Asians are more likely to get other diseases than other people were - they suffer from the same underlying problem but the body shows it in different ways. It's not as if 100% of Asians had there hair or that baldness was scarce compared to Native Americans, Aboriginals. But after world war 2 Baldness in Japan increased dramatically with a change in dietary practices. Evolution can't take place within a few decades. The Australian Aboriginals also have lost any seemingly baldness immunity Weston Price talked about. Even if he exaggerated it, it's beyond doubt that baldness has increased consistent with other health problems in people adopting a SAD.
-
I tend to think that this is a very modern idea, and we do see many products on the market to "cure" this baldness. How was it viewed 2000 ya though? Was it unattractive then? Or was it honored? Same with white teeth, it is very cultural and really has nothing to do with health. Dark teeth due to staining from fruit means nothing. It is modern society that says we must bleach the teeth and otherwise keep what we see as youthful.
Personally, I would rather be super strong and fast all my age than worry about superficial markers like hair and teeth. I can do the splits and spar teenagers, and if I can do that into my 60s, then I will have preserved my health, afaiac.
I think it would be viewed much as it is today. Makes you less attractive, but it's not going to warrant killing yourself over. Possibly would have made you more unattractive than it does today since primitives show less baldness than moderns. It's common nowdays so not much of a problem. The less common it is the less likely a woman is to overlook it and the less likely a man is to accept it.
-
I think it would be viewed much as it is today. Makes you less attractive, but it's not going to warrant killing yourself over. Possibly would have made you more unattractive than it does today since primitives show less baldness than moderns. It's common nowdays so not much of a problem. The less common it is the less likely a woman is to overlook it and the less likely a man is to accept it.
I would love to see any evidence that baldness was less in primitive cultures. Please provide any reference to support this idea. I mean, fossils don't give any evidence about hair, do they?
For the selection of baldness:
http://newyork.broowaha.com/article.php?id=1512
"Looking back through prehistory to the hunter-gatherer mode of human existence, he notes that, in contrast to our society today, elders in the relatively small groups garnered great benefits in power, occupying a high position within the social hierarchy. Concomitant with this posturing of power and status by male elders within the tribe (life expectancy was remember closer to 30 than 80) was the implication of "well, he must being doing something right if he's lived this long," making them attractive mates for prospective females, with good genes and resources to pass on to progeny. In addition, some primeval societies upheld an ideology of patriarchy that promoted elder men within the group to mate with younger, fertile women, thereby increasing the chances of producing offspring (as opposed to elder men mating with elder women).
"In other words, the older men who ran the show got first dibs on the chicks. Consequently, men might conceivably gain reproductive fitness by appearing older than they really were (celebrating one's birthday hadn't quite come of age yet). Physical traits that would make one (male) appear older (such as baldness) would become more prevalent as the potential reproductive benefits the individual gained became more tangible. And hence, the scourge of premature baldness has become rampant."
Not exactly the best evidence, but how do you explain:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Baldness#Evolutionary_theories_of_male_pattern_baldness
"There is no consensus regarding the origin of male pattern baldness. Most evolutionary theories regard it as resulting from sexual selection. A number of other primate species also experience hair loss following puberty, and some primate species clearly use an enlarged forehead, created both anatomically and through strategies such as frontal balding, to convey a superior status and maturity. The assertion that MPB is intended to convey a social message is supported by the fact that the distribution of androgen receptors in the scalp differs between men and women, and older women or women with high androgen levels often exhibit diffuse thinning of hair as opposed to male pattern baldness."
???
If this directly above is true, then we can all sit back and smoke a pipe together, as the question of the evolutionary nature of male baldness is slam dunked with an affirmative answer.
-
But back to aesthetics. Natalie Portman shaved her head for a movie. Having fine facial features, she looked great. Same with anyone. Often, it's the long, flowing hair that makes people look good; but if you shaved their heads, they'd look like crap (I think Meg Ryan here). If you have a good face, hair is so optional - male or female.
-
a shaved head looks much better when u have a full head of hair because the hairline frames the face
-
All illness increases as people age. Diabetes is more common in older people than young. No reproductive advantage, simply bad diet affecting particular people worse/differently. Everything doctors don't understand is thought to be "genetic". I think very little is.
The flaw in your logic is the fact that these people I mentioned get bald in their 20s. If baldness was, in any way, a sign of ill-health, then it would be much more common for children to lose their hair(yet they don't, they start losing hair later). And, like I said, given the genetic characteristic(people inheriting baldness from parents is a classic example), the link between baldness and illness becomes highly suspect.
Not true. Castrating a man might stop him going bald, since baldness is only a symptom of illness. He would not be able to produce the hormones needed to go bald, but he would likely develop another illness instread. Seems to be going back and fourth. Raw Kyle already said that you don't have to assume that Asians were healthier, since Asians are more likely to get other diseases than other people were - they suffer from the same underlying problem but the body shows it in different ways. It's not as if 100% of Asians had there hair or that baldness was scarce compared to Native Americans, Aboriginals. But after world war 2 Baldness in Japan increased dramatically with a change in dietary practices. Evolution can't take place within a few decades. The Australian Aboriginals also have lost any seemingly baldness immunity Weston Price talked about. Even if he exaggerated it, it's beyond doubt that baldness has increased consistent with other health problems in people adopting a SAD.
Well, judging from the multiple photos I've seen of Australian Aborigines over the years(even those following crap diets) they all appear to have a full head of hair(and some magnificent beards). So, I have my doubts re this.
As regards Asians being relatively immune to baldness(as a supposed illness) but less resistant to other conditions, that seems highly unlikely. For one thing, the fact that Asians, worldwide do not all eat the same diet(there are Asian Americans who eat fast-food diets, after all), yet all have a greatly decreased likelihood of baldness by comparison to other groups, makes it clear that baldness is of a primarily hereditary nature.
As regards castration, the very fact that hormones are needed in order to produce baldness indicates that there is no illness in question. After all, it isn't so much the excess amounts of hormones but the number of androgen receptors on the follicles(re male pattern baldness).
Mind you, I agree that people can lose their hair due to shock, chemotherapy etc., but that is not the same thing as male pattern baldness.
-
The only plausible explanation for the 1 in 4 figure for young men is that there must be some reproductive bonus to being bald.
I see a system stressed by toxins and nutrient deprivation as a more plausible reason than reproductive bonus. Satya may have a man she likes that is bald, but all of my life experience has been that it's not considered attractive. The famous tennis player Andre Agassi was a sex symbol until he started balding, then the advertisers had no interest in using him anymore. Advertising may be a bunch of bs used to trick people to part with their money, but they sure know how to do it.
The androgen receptor thing could be genetic or it could be nutritive as well. Certain mental diseases are associated with too high hormones and receptors, and I'm guessing this isn't conferred genetic superiority. Breast cancer happens more in women with larger breasts, which is obviously a reproductive advantage, but cancer is not. And I'm assuming we agree that cancer is caused by toxins and not large breasts, yes?
-
Breast cancer happens more in women with larger breasts, which is obviously a reproductive advantage, but cancer is not. And I'm assuming we agree that cancer is caused by toxins and not large breasts, yes?
What reproductive advantage? If you are implying that larger breasts yield more milk, this is absolutely incorrect.
http://www.babies.sutterhealth.org/breastfeeding/bf_production.html
Breastfeeding success has nothing to do with the size of your breasts or nipples. Breast size is an inherited trait and determined by the number of fat cells you have. The breasts will enlarge with pregnancy and breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is a supply-and-demand process. Therefore, the more you nurse, the more milk you produce!
Larger breasts have more fat, and breast size will vary with overall weight per individual. However, many breasts today are augmented with toxic implants. Look at movies from the 50s where women body size was a bit on the plump size, and you have fuller breasts. Look at 70s movies and breast sizes generally are smaller. Look from about 1985 and beyond and you see aliens with cantelope shell shaped breasts - complete with ribs showing and abrupt angle changes not possible in nature. And now we have magazines changing women's arms and waists to impossible proportions as well.
And I find this whole idea of marketing and advertising worries somewhat funny on a health-oriented list. I stopped watching commercial television save for rare moments when I was 19 years old. Who cares about Agassi's commercial contracts? (If he gave a rat's ass about that, I am sure he would have a transplanted head of hair today.) He has a wife and kids, does he not? So, where's the reproductive disadvantage?
-
I guess the disadvantage would be that he would be more likely to have illegitimate kids with fans if he was a sex symbol, like a musician or actor is more likely to have that than average Joe.
And with the breasts I mean women with larger breasts get more male attention.
-
I guess I should say that I'm not arguing that baldness is a reproductive disadvantage, more so that it is not an advantage. At least not enough of an advantage to warrant a selective tool for genetic change.
Does anyone here really think that baldness is in the same league as height increases, intelligence and lack of disease susceptibility in selective demand? Because that's what you would be saying if you're saying that baldness is spreading through the population due to evolution rather than nutrition changes.
-
I guess the disadvantage would be that he would be more likely to have illegitimate kids with fans if he was a sex symbol, like a musician or actor is more likely to have that than average Joe.
And with the breasts I mean women with larger breasts get more male attention.
To a point. For those smart males interested in really good sex, a strong backside and some solid legs should attract just as much attention as breasts. :-*
Oh, and big breasts really get in the way of doing various tasks like running and working. I am pretty average in that department, but I have heard various friends complain over the years. The more active the girl in adolescence, the smaller her breasts, so we can only imagine how things might have been preagriculture
-
I'm not a breast guy but I can certainly appreciate them. I've actually never had a girlfriend with huge breasts so I don't even know what it's like. I like nice breasts, they don't have to be big. I'm more into thighs and ass myself.
At any rate though in hunter gatherer times I'm not sure women had to do much running, they didn't hunt right? From what I remember of tribal pictures of the closest thing I can think of to hunter gathered I remember seeing fairly large breasts on the women.
-
The way I see it, baldness must have some evolutionary advantage for it to appear in so many males, at this stage. At the same time, it does not provide an overwhelming evolutionary advantage or we would all be bald, so there could be an opposing evolutionary trend against baldness as well.
-
I think this is one of those topics it's possible to discuss in great lengths and never really reach a conclusion on.
I've read a lot of books on evolution and let me tell you there are so many completely opposing views when it comes to evolutionary topics.
Take the peacocks tail as an example... An evolutionary trait which still puzzles scientists today... What is its evolutionary advantage? Some scientists believe there are advantages for peacocks having a big tail, most scientists believe there are none and that females choose males with larger tails randomly.. Others argue that the larger tail of a peacock proves the ability of a peacock to survive with an additional burden (and that the generations before have been able to survive with this burden as well)...
And does natural selection still "go on" in humans today? You could draw different conclusions by looking at thousands of different factors. Yes we humans live in a controlled environment, i.e. diseased/dying people can be treated just enough to reproduce... But on the other hand, healthy females with good genes (and what are good genes exactly? yet another topic which can be discussed in great length) will choose a male based on things like social status, looks/health and personality (including intelligence). Which of these is the most important factor? Maybe personality, taking into consideration the majority of humans. Which personality traits are attractive to most human females? Gentle or rough/Dominating or submissive/humble or arrogant....
These things can be discussed for a long time and statistics are not very reliable IMO. Baldness is just one factor which works in combination with thousands others. It's impossible to isolate baldness from all the other variables, since there are so many.
What's fun about evolution is that it's possible to design theories to fit whatever paradigm you are looking for. Even a vegetarian can argue that the weather conditions and atmosphere were so different thousands of years ago that plants were extremely nutritious and it was possible to live mostly on plants. Even though a theory like this does not follow main stream beliefs today, it can be made into a scientifically valid theory by following the scientific model and finding the appropriate proof.
What really cracks me up is when I see people like Loren Cordain giving ratios of what people ate 10,000 years (x% protein, y% carbs, z% fat)... Was he there? Did he eat with the paleolithic people? lol
-
Guys, both sides are probably somewhat correct re baldness. Look at chemotherapy. Is it a genetic thing that it causes baldness? Well, yes, in that your body responds poorly to radiation like that. Have people slowed or stopped their balding since switching to RP? Seems to be the case. So yes, baldness must be in many instances, primarily the result of toxins/poor diet/environment.
Yet it's seems highly probable that even if every human followed RP from conception to death, and lived in a clean environment, we would see baldness, so in many instances it is complete genetics. Probably most cases fall somewhere in between the two extremes.
It seems kind of silly to me, the whole back and forth about whether baldness conferrs a higher or lower probability of reproduction. I am sure this varies with culture, time, location, environment. Most likely it's just one of those random, mostly neutral, forms of diversity that has sprung up in our species over time, and probably increased as a result of less than ideal food and environment. Key words being MOSTLY NEUTRAL.
Are we going to argue next about whether pointed chins vs square are better for attracting mates and passing on our genes? Or try to find some way that a large nose conferrs a survival advantage? Diversity arises among many species, and indeed is necessary for the continued survival and evolution of those species.
-
The way I see it, baldness must have some evolutionary advantage for it to appear in so many males, at this stage. At the same time, it does not provide an overwhelming evolutionary advantage or we would all be bald, so there could be an opposing evolutionary trend against baldness as well.
So you're saying it CANNOT be nutritional? I HAS to be evolution? Wouldn't that be like saying every change you see in modern humans is evolution and not nutritional?
-
So you're saying it CANNOT be nutritional? I HAS to be evolution? Wouldn't that be like saying every change you see in modern humans is evolution and not nutritional?
But how can male pattern baldness be nutritional? You eat a certain way and then bam, 20 years later you get the same balding pattern as your mother's father?
I hope this discussion continues, regardless of outcome. It's about time we had a good, honest debate on something here. Who cares if we end up circling around for awhile. Do you have any idea how long Kepler kept the same incorrect ideas about perfect geometric solid shapes ruling the spacing of the planets? Without questioning, we give up.
I am watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon right now. The guys all shave the frontal head. In these Eastern cultures, age is highly respected. I know this first hand as a long time student of traditional martial arts. Totally different culture than European influenced ways. You have to be a part of it somehow to understand. I am just saying, there is a major pecking order in most primitive groups. All members don't just share equally in the grub and gals and sing Kumbaya by the fire, ya know?
-
I'm considering it the same way as cancer, diabetes and heart disease are considered genetic. You eat a certain way and them bam, you have the same cancer, diabetic condition or heart disease as your mother or father.
Genetics determine HOW poor nutrition affects you, not that it WILL. I'm suggesting that pattern baldness, full baldness, or simply a receding hairline are different ways genetically you can be effected by the toxins present and nutrients not present in the modern diet, just like various diseases.
I wish we could find a group of test subjects to test this on. I'll make myself one, I'm probably going to continue on a diet like this, and my mother's father is bald.
-
So you're saying it CANNOT be nutritional? I HAS to be evolution? Wouldn't that be like saying every change you see in modern humans is evolution and not nutritional?
Every recent change in modern humans can't be totally due to evolution, but baldness is something we've had for hundreds of millenia(possibly even more if, as seems likely, our apemen ancestors also had bald people) so I view it no differently from other basic physical, mutational characteristics such as having 6 fingers on each hand etc. I don't see having 6 fingers as being a sign of illness so don't view baldness as being bad.
Re chemotherapy in other post:- I think perhaps that you assume that if hair-loss occurs as a result of radioactive chemotherapy, that all hair-loss must be due to illness. I guess what I'm saying is that suddenly losing hair due to shock, radiation or similiar event is quite different from people(of varying levels of health) developing baldness over time as they enter their 20s etc.
-
I think its in the shampoo. ;D
-
How do you know how far back in time baldness occurred?
-
How do you know how far back in time baldness occurred?
At the very least one can state that baldness started occurring once our apemen ancestors lost the fur all over their bodies.
-
At the very least one can state that baldness started occurring once our apemen ancestors lost the fur all over their bodies.
How can one state that? You can say that baldness on certain parts of the body started then, but I'm suggesting that baldness at the top of the head is not one of them. Unless you have some kind of information showing that when human ancestors started becoming less hairy than apes, that male pattern baldness was one of those changes, then I don't see what you have to state that with.
The only way to figure it out would be to do science with people on different diets. If it's truly genetic and diet plays no part, then I will go bald at some point.
-
It would certainly be difficult to determine whether paleolithic skulls were from bald men or men with a full head of hair. However, it seems logical to assume that if other parts of the body are experiencing hair-loss due to genetic mutations , there is no sufficient reason to assume that hair on the top of the head wasn't affected also. Unless you can prove beyond doubt that having a full head of hair is absolutely essential to humans.
The other problem is that baldness, in and of itself, isn't harmful to people in the way that genuine symptoms of ill-health are. I mean if baldness were indeed a symptom of illness, one would also expect bald men to have other symptoms as well as ill people don't usually suffer from just one symptom but a cluster of them. And there are no current studies indicating that bald men are more likely to be ill than men with a full head of hair.
-
I've noticed that a lot of weaker looking males with poor facial structure, bad posture, that lack muscle tend to age faster and go bald earlier.
Now this is diet related. Not just this generations diet but generations before.
I cut my hair short (number 1 and you can see my scalp) when I know I wont be down the beach for a few days or I can get sun stroke but with a 'number 2' I'm fine with a bit of zinc and a T shirt and I can surf for 3-4 hours. I go from a 'number 1' to a '2' in days as I have thick fast growing hair.
I think bald males which are sexy to women are just good looking guys who happen to be bald.
-
I think you're putting the burden of proof too much on my side. If you look at without the preconceived notion that baldness is 100% hereditary I think it would look more likely that it has a dietary component.
Also about the rest of body hair going during evolution, that isn't something that happens to men in their later years of life. Being hairless, or having fewer and finer lighter hairs all over the body, is something humans are born with. Then in some areas, pubic and in men the chest or forearms, during puberty develop thicker and darker hair which stays with them. Baldness, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Myself, I was born with a full head of hair. Not all babies are, but all babies have full heads of hair (normal babies) WELL before puberty (unlike pubic hair and other body hair) and then when they go bald they lose it well after puberty. It just doesn't fit the profile of comparing it to body hair changes from apes.
-
studies do exist, well correlation studies (but that's all that exist for anything really) between baldness and diseases
for example http://healthhubs.net/heartdisease/the-link-between-heart-disease-and-baldness/
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(02)00885-9/fulltext
https://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update1004a.shtml
There is also plenty of sound scientific theory behind baldness being caused by high insulin and blood sugar levels. DHT is thought of as one of the main culprits to hair loss. High blood sugar shuts down Sex Hormone Binding Gobulin, the body then increases hormone production regardless of the levels one actually has. This testosterone is largely unused testosterone just floating around the body and so is converted to DHT and results in hair loss.
By treating insulin resistance (through diet) you can stop such erratic hormone levels. Propecia artifically trys to do this by stopping the conversion of testosterone to DHT, but unfortunately doesn't actually create a healthy hormone balance. Body likely ups estrogen to balance out circulating testosterone causing gyno, loss of sexual function etc.
-
The trouble is that baldness is not so much influenced by the levels of hormones but by the number of androgen receptors in the hair-follicles receiving those hormones, and those receptors are purely genetically determined.
Secondly, the correlation studies could easily be explained by the fact that baldness is more associated with old age than youngsters, and that older people are more susceptible to heart-trouble etc.due to old age, as opposed to being bald.
The argument re babies usually being born with a full head of hair is very unlikely, as the first lot of hair generally falls out after birth, with it only regrowing later on.
But, overall, my own personal reason for viewing baldness as being primarily genetic(male pattern baldness, at any rate), other than the ones I've cited, is that I've seen so many people with a full head of hair who've had awful health-problems such as diabetes type 2/heart-disease etc. etc, whereas I've known a number of bald people who have lasted for ages without suffering significant issues.
-
Why doesn't any other hair fall out at age then? The top of the head is the only genetic change to hit that way? All other hair changes follow a different, and similar to themselves, pattern?
I guess you have something about unhealthy people with hair, but do you now also see diabetics without cancer? Or cancer patients without diabetes? Must one have all diseases to have any?
-
Why doesn't any other hair fall out at age then? The top of the head is the only genetic change to hit that way? All other hair changes follow a different, and similar to themselves, pattern?
I guess you have something about unhealthy people with hair, but do you now also see diabetics without cancer? Or cancer patients without diabetes? Must one have all diseases to have any?
The trouble is that baldness in and of itself is not life-threatening or harmful in any way. People can have symptoms such as a hot forehead or pains in the joints and they then feel discomfort. People who are just bald do not experience such pain or discomfort, so it really can't be a sign of ill-health per se.
As for hair not falling out of the rest of the body, it seems that hair-loss re pubic hair can also happen due to normal aging:-
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/symptoms/pubic_hair_loss/causes.htm
Also, hair-loss from the rest of the body can occur suddenly due to stress , much like sudden loss of head-hair, but it's not like the gradual decrease featured in male pattern baldness.
And if the genetic component is low or nonexistent, then why is it that women are more immune to baldness than men?
I do agree that baldness can occur as a result of malnutrition or air pollution etc., but the genetic component seems to be predominant.
-
Now you're saying only a painful symptom can be a disease symptom?
-
Now you're saying only a painful symptom can be a disease symptom?
I'm saying the odds are against a condition that causes neither pain or discomfort is highly unlikely to be a symptom. Most symptoms cause some form of discomfort, however small.
You didn't address my point re pubic hair also disappearing with age. As regards hair not on the head or genitals, that is already so sparse that it's understandable that it would generally only experience baldness/hair-loss only once the 3 hairiest sites on the human body lost most of their hair.
-
I consider losing any hair that is present at your maturation a symptom of ill health somewhere in the body, including pubic hair. I was listening to an interview with someone famous on NPR who had chemo or radiation therapy for cancer and he was talking about getting a hair piece and at the place the guy showed him some fake hair for his pubes as well, as that had also fallen out.
Andrew here has been talking quite a bit of discomfort from baldness actually. I'm not into outside sports (surfing) as much as him so I would defer to him as the expert on his sun stroke episodes that only happen when his head is clean shaven.
-
Therefore baldness would not be a problem in the colder latitudes where sunstroke was less of a possibility. As regards lack of pubic hair, there are plenty of people who prefer hairless genitalia for sexual purposes.
As regards pubic hair and head-hair, I reckon they're sufficiently different from each other, that the issue of baldness is more likely to be genetic if it affects both. Plus, if hair-loss is generally supposed to be a symptom of ill-health, one would expect hair to also fall out from all over the body whether from the nose or head or genitalia or arm or whatever - which doesn't seem to be the case.
-
I'm not saying it's not genetic, I'm saying everything is genetic and environmental. Clearly two different people on the same diet can be bald or not as is evidenced all the time. I'm suggesting that if someone who is genetically destined to be bald (like myself) gets and stays on a raw paleo diet, it will not happen. Thus, like all other diseases which have both a genetic component and environmental component, it would fit in that category. Nothing is 100% genetic, not eye color or height or anything else, all genes need an environment to express themselves.
-
Well, given the likes of bald men like Lex who've recovered in health but (seemingly) not recovered from baldness(apologies, Lex, if you're actually quite hairy but shave your head!), I would disagree. Another point is that some things(such as baldness?) may well be irreversible so that someone starting at 35, say, on a healthy, raw diet may never gain the kind of full head of hair that he/she would have got from eating a raw, healthy diet since birth, even if he or she has recovered , healthwise, in general terms.
Another concern is the detox issue. A number of rawpalaeos have experienced occasional periods where they every now and then experience some hair-loss but have it grow back within a month or two.
-
I'm open to the idea of baldness not being reversible with diet, just like a lot of other things (skeletal formation in particular I think of). Still though I'm confident most baldness would be avoided with proper diet, as most skeletal malfunctions and degenerative diseases would be as well.
-
My dad was thin by the time he was my age but my hair is still thick and from what I have read it's not just your mothers father that you take after but a mixture.
My younger brother seems to have gotten a higher hairline over the last few years but mine seems to be hanging in there. I started raw animal foods at 28 years so that may of helped a bit.
-
Something else I forgot to mention regarding hairloss and poor health is that stress and toxicity, which are also causes of ill health are known to cause hairloss and not just shedding but MPB. Example; a course of accutane beyond doubt initiated male pattern baldness while I was still a teenager. It still angers me that I took that stuff and lost so much hair.
-
native american ate cooked meat.. Maybe it was the cooked meat that gave them there hair? How do you know though? I can easily say there cooked meat was the reason for the hair then saying it was raw meat..
to say a raw meat diet will bring a long healthy life and you'll never lose your hair sounds like a snakes oil saleman.
diet is powerful but its not everything, its only fuel. Paleo man got sick and ill too....
-
I've stories of baldness reversed - one was a farmer who bent over to fix a fence, a cow licked his bald head and hair then grew back. The other is of a man who was struck by lightning.
I've never heard of anyone brave enough to try either way. ;)
Native Americans ate cooked meat after contact with pot-selling Europeans. Many ate at least some raw before. IMHO
Paleo man never was ill, so say his bones, otherwise we would be nuts to eat paleofood.
-
You have it backwards. The pot smoking Indians were sold fire-water and made to eat cooked meat by the drunken Eurpoeans.
-
Well, given the likes of bald men like Lex who've recovered in health but (seemingly) not recovered from baldness(apologies, Lex, if you're actually quite hairy but shave your head!), I would disagree. Another point is that some things(such as baldness?) may well be irreversible so that someone starting at 35, say, on a healthy, raw diet may never gain the kind of full head of hair that he/she would have got from eating a raw, healthy diet since birth, even if he or she has recovered , healthwise, in general terms.
Does the fact that Lex recently reported that his hairloss has stopped and that the remaining thin follicles on top of his head have possibly thickened change your mind? Del Fuego has mentioned that the hair from his temples that had receded grew back and his grey hair went back to his natural colors. A slew of others on the zc board have reported the similar things as well. Even some of the women have reported a decrease in hair loss.
Also to add, I just remembered reading a very long thread a while ago on pre-world war II baldness rates in Japan and so did a quick a search and found this which would imply that diet could potentially be a huge piece of this. Amount of nutrition could be another as they might not have eaten as much. Obviously, they think its the fat that causes the baldness but Im sure you get the point.
http://www.mangoboss.com/FattyDietsLinkedtoMaleBaldness.html
Although not all of the research has been conclusive, there does appear
to be link between baldness and diet. Societies that consumed
relatively low-fat diets ---such as pre-World War II Japan ---
experienced almost no pattern baldness. But post-World War II
Japanese men have started to experience higher and higher levels of
pattern baldness as their society consumes more Western-style fatty
diets.
In fact, one study by a leading manufacturer of men's wigs in Japan,
the Anderans Co. Ltd, found that baldness and thinning hair has
skyrocketed with the increasing popularity of Western fatty foods like
hamburgers and fries. Aderans found that the percentage of balding
men increased almost 200% in less than 20 years, from 6.2 million
men in 1987 (8.1%) to 11.4 million men just 17 years later.
They go on to say native americans dont go bald either.
Edit 2: Did a little more searching and there isn't actually reliable data for the Japanese just anecdotal evidence
http://www.hairloss.com/home/hair-loss-and-baldness-in-japan.html
-
Does the fact that Lex recently reported that his hairloss has stopped and that the remaining thin follicles on top of his head have possibly thickened change your mind? Del Fuego has mentioned that the hair from his temples that had receded grew back and his grey hair went back to his natural colors. A slew of others on the zc board have reported the similar things as well. Even some of the women have reported a decrease in hair loss.
In raw diet circles, it's quite common for people to lose hair and regain it, a common detox symptom, and raw dieters, such as on the Primal Diet, have also noticed hair returning to a non-grey state or getting back a few hair-follicles. But, generally speaking, getting back a full head of hair after going bald is so unlikely that anyone claiming such is highly likely to be telling lies.
As for mentions of Japanese etc., this is very highly misleading. For one thing, different ethnic groups have different rates of baldness(East Asians and Native Americans who are, of course, descended from East Asian areas) are well known to resist baldness, regardless of what diet they are on.
-
You have it backwards. The pot smoking Indians were sold fire-water and made to eat cooked meat by the drunken Eurpoeans.
LOL,
I am siding with Raw Kyle. ;D
My dad was just about bald in his 20s. I am 57 and my GF says my hair is starting to grow back lately. I have much more hair than him. I am a 23 year veteran of vege diet. Only thing that has changed is RPD and Aajonus Vonderplanitz suggestion of raspberries/cream/honey/coconut before bed which also stops my snoring.
My hair started falling out when I left home and went from drinking pasteurized skim milk at home (yuk) to drinking lots of pasteurized whole milk. Other issues started then but that's another story. Raw milk is fine. I am not suggesting raw milk is the answer BTW, it just works for me.
BTW my exes dad used to rub his fingernails together and he claimed it made his hair grow back. He went from shiny to hair regrowth. Go figure that one out.
The aboriginal North Americans were well known to be very healthy, tall, strong, have beautiful features and beautiful hair and no beards. This is based on the reports of the early explorers. The fact that most of them were wiped out by European diseases skews the subsequent study of them. Initial estimates of the population of NA was around 1/2 million at the time of European contact, but subsequent study shows the # at 75 million and climbing.
So the people in any photos of ANA would be the survivors of the onslaught of white man's diseases and therefore their appearances would not be reflective of the majority of their ancestors.
Ayurveda says that salt consumption will cause gray hair. Long explanation.
I have a theory on baldness which I will save for another post, but as I said I am with Kyle in the diet as causal root. (no pun intended)
-
My hair is still thick which I'm happy about but started going grey very young. I've got salt and pepper hair and people keep telling me I'm getting greyer but I don't think it's got worse since starting RPD they're probably just stirring.
-
My hair is still thick which I'm happy about but started going grey very young. I've got salt and pepper hair and people keep telling me I'm getting greyer but I don't think it's got worse since starting RPD they're probably just stirring.
yeah, it seems some go gray quick, and some go bald quick, and all of the inbetween
my dad went bald young, his cousin went gray young,
-
yeah, it seems some go gray quick, and some go bald quick, and all of the inbetween
my dad went bald young, his cousin went gray young,
There's grey young/bald young in my family, even immediate, too. So far I'm lucky keeping young hair that way, as long as no SAD and enough good real food. I think I'm the only one in my biological family who isn't gray or bald of everyone my age, older and up to maybe twenty years younger. Some dye, so it might be hard to tell.
Definitely Native Americans can tend to have different hair patterns, even on the whole body, than say .. Europeans.
-
Does anyone if there is an evolutionary purpose for hair on top of our heads?
-
Does anyone if there is an evolutionary purpose for hair on top of our heads?
It's been suggested that it's to attract members of the opposite sex.
-
Maybe it's because we were aquatic apes(aquatic ape theory).
-
Anyone who's shaved their will tell you that hair keeps you warm and when I shave my head in summer I've got sun stroke after surfing.
Girls with long hair look more attractive. Only healthy people can grow their hair long so long hair is s sign of good genes/health.
-
Only healthy people can grow their hair long so long hair is s sign of good genes/health.
I'm not sure, as a time I was sick I had long hair, longest it's been. The hair on my head was so long, I could sit on it.
I read that in Bible times most people kept long hair. If they got sick, then they cut it.
How long hair grows may be due to genetic anomalies or race too. http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/bearded-lady-vivian-wheeler-finds-her-son-after-33-years/19631453 (http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/bearded-lady-vivian-wheeler-finds-her-son-after-33-years/19631453)
Vivian Wheeler keeps her beard trimmed at 11 inches, though it has been longer in the past. Maybe it's a hoax, I don't know, but I bet some of you can't grow your beard 11 inches, and she's not even healthy. I think hair grows long sometimes, when the body doesn't use the protein and other nutrients and puts it into hair growth instead. Maybe this is never the way it happened in paleo time.
-
Does anyone if there is an evolutionary purpose for hair on top of our heads?
It keeps the head cool.
-
It keeps the head cool.
And warm. I think oil in the hair is like a beaver hair. Keeps water from soaking in. In turn keeping your head dry and warm.
Different kinds of hair, for different purposes.
-
And warm. I think oil in the hair is like a beaver hair. Keeps water from soaking in. In turn keeping your head dry and warm.
Different kinds of hair, for different purposes.
Ya, I should have specified cool from the sun. Otherwise it would be warming.
-
I noticed my younger bro is going thin on top, he was fine when he was on a RPD diet. He's gone back to a a low carb cooked diet.
My hair is still thick and he's younger than me. He pushes himself way too hard and excels in everything, this might have something to do with it.
-
If the whole upright apes evolved in the savannas and river valleys under direct sunlight is correct then it makes evolutonary logic for us to have hair on the top of the head to protect the part of the body most exposed to the intense rays of the sun. Long hair keeps me from getting a red neck. My father cant go out into the sun without SPF40 on his shiny bald crown. He has age spots from sun damage on top of his head, he would cook his brain out on the savana without a hat. So far I have a little thinning, but no signs of balding.
-
It's been 3 years now how are you guys/girls going with baldness?
I think I'm the same as three years ago. Hard to tell...
-
The same. That is, like a number of RPDers, my hair thinned a bit a year or two after I went rawpalaeo, but that was all. It's stayed the same since.
-
It's getting close to 2 years doing high raw Paleo for me. I've lost some more hair, but the rate of hair loss is much less than it was before I went LC cooked Paleo years ago. The rate of hairloss seems to have remained pretty stable over the past four years or so, with slow continued hair loss. During the past couple years, Matt Stone documented with photos much more dramatic hairloss than I have experienced during the same time period. The irony of this is that he claims his diet advice prevents hairloss and attacks cooked and raw Paleo as promoting hairloss, whereas I have only reported my experience re: hair and other factors and haven't made any claims about it for others.
What has improved greatly in recent months while on raw Paleo is my dandruff and hair quality. I have found that raw fermented honey and artisinal mead dramatically reduce my dandruff and eyebrow/forehead skin flakes and if I stop consuming them, then the flakes return. Also, when I eat fermented honey foods, my hair feels a bit thicker, softer and less greasy so that it's more pleasant to run my fingers through it and it needs less washing. I'm hoping to be able to make home-made mead so I can make a raw version of it, which is apparently possible per multiple sources.
-
To clarify things:
My hairloss was stopped on the spot with the stoppage of the use of all shampoos. (my barber taught me this) I do not shampoo my hair. I only shampoo with a natural 1 herb shampoo when I get a haircut.
Same experience as my friend http://www.myhealthblog.org/2009/03/17/poldo-baral-swears-it-was-commercial-shampoo-that-made-his-hair-fall-off/ (http://www.myhealthblog.org/2009/03/17/poldo-baral-swears-it-was-commercial-shampoo-that-made-his-hair-fall-off/)
The graying and the whitening of my hair was reversed by eating high vitamin C fruit (guava or papaya) + raw fat (coconut meat, eggs) every morning continuously. Plus of course I do not shampoo, just water.
Are there any links I can read up on that (cutting off shampoo)?
-
My hair line hasnt receded any since going raw paleo. Which is real good considering I have baldness on both sides of my family. My father went extremely bald by the time he was my age. The men on my mothers side who have more native american blood will get a receding hair line that doesn't thin out much past the upper forehead.
I have had a few small patches of hair torn out by toddlers, but so far no naturally occuring hair thining yet.
-
Are there any links I can read up on that (cutting off shampoo)?
I quit using shampoo over 4 years ago. I clean my hair with water and use a little homemade vinegar or homemade oil mixture. I have curly, "ethnic" hair. I live in a city and work in a "professional" job where appearance counts, and my hair look and smells clean. I recall that, at first, there was about a month where my scalp had to normalize from the abuse of constantly being stripped of its oil. Since then, all has been well. There are good links if you google "shampoo free." Be aware that there are lots of commercial "no-'poo" formulas out there - they just use a substitute for sodium lauryl sulfate detergent. You CAN go 'poo-free without all that hype.
-
I was looking at my natural shampoos a few weeks ago and thinking how I've started to be so self-sufficient in so many ways but I'm still buying this stuff so I'm very glad for this conversation.
Just googled and found this sight that suggests baking soda and then apple cider vinegar. When I start my bee-hive then I can replace the baking soda with honey she says.
http://simplemom.net/how-to-clean-your-hair-without-shampoo/ (http://simplemom.net/how-to-clean-your-hair-without-shampoo/)
I'm going to start this right away.
Thanks!
-
Just googled and found this sight that suggests baking soda and then apple cider vinegar.
The basis of the 'poo-free concept is that hair doesn't get incredibly dirty - maybe a little sweaty, but water washes out the sweat. Oily hair often happens because of the scalp' rebound effect to being shampooed. Why do you need a heavy-duty cleaner like baking soda? That sounds too harsh to me. You want to get the dirt out without stripping the scalp oils.
-
The basis of the 'poo-free concept is that hair doesn't get incredibly dirty - maybe a little sweaty, but water washes out the sweat. Oily hair often happens because of the scalp' rebound effect to being shampooed. Why do you need a heavy-duty cleaner like baking soda? That sounds too harsh to me. You want to get the dirt out without stripping the scalp oils.
What do you use and/or suggest Eve if anything?
-
I don't pay close attention but my hairline looks the same to me. I never really paid much attention but I think I developed a widows peak during my vegetarian and raw vegan experimental time, but that could have just been a coincidence.
-
I been doing prob the same. I haven't noticed any dramatic hairless. But a lot of fruit/carbs makes my hair very oily in days. My skin too. My dad is completely bald on top, so I am def going to notice something prob by I'm 30. But we'll see if diet can stop or heal any hair issues. Also, about no shampoo, when lower carb I don't need to use shampoo. But when I eat too much carbs, my hair gets way too oily, so I need something to clean it if I eat too much carbs. Carbs in the right amounts is good for me, but as far as skin/acne/hair, lots a sweet fruit is my worst nightmare. But of course, its domesticated fruit. Im not saying wild sweet fruit would have the same affect though (seasonal too).
-
To clarify things:
My hairloss was stopped on the spot with the stoppage of the use of all shampoos. (my barber taught me this) I do not shampoo my hair. I only shampoo with a natural 1 herb shampoo when I get a haircut.
Same experience as my friend http://www.myhealthblog.org/2009/03/17/poldo-baral-swears-it-was-commercial-shampoo-that-made-his-hair-fall-off/
The graying and the whitening of my hair was reversed by eating high vitamin C fruit (guava or papaya) + raw fat (coconut meat, eggs) every morning continuously. Plus of course I do not shampoo, just water.
Don't bell peppers contain MUCH MUCH more Vitamin C than papaya/guava?
-
To clarify things:
My hairloss was stopped on the spot with the stoppage of the use of all shampoos. (my barber taught me this) I do not shampoo my hair. I only shampoo with a natural 1 herb shampoo when I get a haircut.
Same experience as my friend http://www.myhealthblog.org/2009/03/17/poldo-baral-swears-it-was-commercial-shampoo-that-made-his-hair-fall-off/
The graying and the whitening of my hair was reversed by eating high vitamin C fruit (guava or papaya) + raw fat (coconut meat, eggs) every morning continuously. Plus of course I do not shampoo, just water.
Do you first eat the on empty stomach and then the eggs, raw fatty meat, or you can literally combine them in one meal? wont combining cause gas?
-
Things that I could observe that went in tandem with hair loss was dandruff and diminished sensitivity in the zones where the hair is waning. I first noticed this in my early 20ies, accelerated by lots of stress, and never really payed much attention to it since I have been shaving from the age of 16 onward due to it fitting my face better than other hairstyles.
These things had evaded my mind until I came across a post(on 4chan a few months ago) that pointed out these symptoms stating that hair-loss may be (despite other contributing factors) a side effect of the underlying tissue becoming "tense" and thus preventing circulation.
I thought this sounded quite strange but after checking on myself I could, again, feel that the regions with hair were warm and sensitive while the bald sections appeared way colder and were practically numb. Since I had neck issues I also started to train my neck which after some time made sensitivity slowly return on my upper head. I also started to massage the head in the morning and the evening... not thinking much of it.
After around 150-170 days some hair has returned even on parts that where blank. The hair seems to slowly grow back but it's still not that much to make a "fuzz" about it. I'll see what has aspired in another 200 days. Nonetheless this has been a very interesting experiment so far.
Regarding looks - it's always better to have hair. Having hair doesn't mean that you have to let it grow... if it fits shave it off and wear a nice "shadow" which complements your skull. To me having less hair on your head, no matter the length, is a bit of a visual cue for diminished vitality.
-
As regards baldness, there are so many variables. I mean, Europeans are more likely to experience baldness, yet they are not necessarily less healthy than asians, say. Native Americans, being Asians, do have a genetic advantage re warding off baldness, but this has nothing to do with health.
One other consideration:- it is generally viewed by anthropologists that neoteny(having childlike features when adult) is a sign of increasing evolution. Since neoteny involves less body hair(body hair is a sign of maturity/adulthood) one could even argue that baldness is an evolutionary advantage re increased neoteny.
I disagree. My point of view is that based on your health/nutrition status different bodies/genetics prioritize different body parts to maintain/nourish. I mostly agree with Weston Prices research because of my own observations too for example I think he was right about gracilization and lengthening of the body. I had that point of view before reading the book.