The Stress of Divorce, Writ on Women's Heads

In men, baldness is due mostly to an unlucky roll of the genetic dice. But in women, hair loss appears to be linked much more strongly to lifestyle factors like stress — from divorce or the death of a spouse, for example — according to preliminary findings from two studies.

For the studies, Dr. Bahman Guyuron, a plastic surgeon at Case Western Reserve University, and colleagues looked at 66 male and 84 female identical twin pairs. Since twins are genetically identical — and programmed to have identical hairlines — the researchers knew that any differences could be attributed to environmental factors.

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