The DJ Chris Evans has spoken about his battle with hair loss and how he is addressing the condition with medication.
In his younger days, the 53-year-old was famed for his fine head of ginger hair.
He was so well known for his hair that he called his production company Ginger.
All that has changed in the last two decades as the ginger hair turned white and Chris started suffering from male pattern baldness.
Like a lot of men in the public eye who are uncomfortable about the damage to their attractiveness and public appeal by going bald, Chris decided to take action.
Evans has been using what he calls hair loss ‘drops’ to help regrow his thinning hair.
He told listeners to his Virgin Radio show: “I thought next week we should do a whole Bald Week special for blokes who are balding.
“I’ve been on drops of these medications for years now, about five or six years. I was nearly bald and I’m not at all now. I don’t have the thickest head of hair in the world but I do have hair now, more than I did.”
So what are these magical ‘drops’?
Evans is almost certainly taking high strength Minoxidil – one of only two clinically proven treatments for hair loss patients and available at Crown Clinic.
Minoxidil is a unisex hair loss treatment for male and female pattern baldness that comes in a topical form. The MHRA-licensed (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) and FDA-approved (Food and Durg Administration) hair loss solution is used locally to promote accelerated hair growth.
The other clinically proven hair loss treatment is called Propecia, also known as Finasteride.
Propecia is sometimes prescribed by Crown Clinic’s consultant hair transplant surgeon Asim Shahmalak for patients battling hair loss.
Dr Shahmalak will sometimes take a dual approach – using both medicinal curers and surgery to restore lost hair.
What you have to remember is that hair loss is a continual process and so while a hair transplant – either an FUE (follicular unit extraction) or FUT (follicular unit transplantation) procedure – can cover up a patient’s bald patch, it cannot stop him from losing any more of his natural hair.
What Propecia and Minoxidil can do is slow down or halt natural hair loss and also reactivate dormant hair in some cases.
This appears to be what has happened to Chris Evans – some of his hair has come back to life through this treatment and his natural hair loss has stopped. A win-win situation.
Evans also talked about the reasons for his hair loss – believing his use of motorcycle helmets might be factor.
The star claimed in support of this theory the example of golfers, who often wear caps when they play and frequently suffer from male pattern baldness (think Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth).
There is little evidence in science to support Evans’ theory.
The type of hair loss he would be referring to his Traction Alopecia – a condition whereby hair loss occurs due to frequent excessive tension being placed on the follicles, causing them to become weak and the hair to fall out.
There are no studies to suggest that crash helmets cause baldness. However, it is likely that no scientists have looked into the issue in details=.
And there is strong evidence that people who repeatedly wear tight hairstyles, such as high ponytails, braids or deadlocks, CAN suffer from Traction Alopecia.
So there may be a crumb of truth in Evans’ theory.