Hairloss, is becoming a big phenomenon in South Korea. Don't understand...

As you guys might already think koreans are fuller in hair due to our diet, but that is not the case in this country anymore. Hairloss market is becoming one of the fastest growing industry and propecia, minox and types of shampoos are going off the shelf like crazy.

It's not only evident in elders but its also common with young people. What's more shocking is that there has been a sudden increase in women hairloss. I, myself, have seen many women in their 50s to 60s who are almost bald (women baldness). Now if it only diet to blame, then it does not make sense since these women do not eat western food such as mcdonalds, other types. Younger generation can be synonymous w. western diet since they all chug down pizzas, etcs. But what is going on in this country.

Situation here can become a great test-bed for some of your theories since massive hairloss has been a recent phenomenon. My hairdresser tells me with a bit of exaggeration that 8-9 out of 10 of her customers have some form of hairloss. This is shocking... She says this all can't be from genes. It does not add up.

I am very suspicious of this situation. It has to be something very common to many here or even where you guys are at. Is it the water system, pollution, i don't know.

wow, this is interesting. If we can find the causing factor then we could help everyone

sort of throws the genetic theory right out the window (unless of course there's interracial marriages or something lol)

Does anybody here remember that Salesmen guy who "didn't write but knew the guy who did" that MPB book? Barefoot? His one tangible contribution was a lot of pictures and data pointing out how many risk factors for disease and hair loss weren't present in many pristine civilizations even though there was sickness and MPB ... there's obviously something going on that can affect those who aren't "susceptible" to balding that changes the game for them. So far metals, and due to their climate, infection come to mind as sources of inflammation.

Yeah I sort of remember that guy.

Maybe this stemmed from massive fast food chains setting up shop over there? They could just be becoming more westernized because it's a newish "craze" over there.

One word: Westernization.

So much for Asians having good hair genes. lol

Perhaps we say "good hair genes" because we see the ones who aren't very westernized lol. Seriously.

yes niddhoge, exactly.

There are no data in this observation... so stop making conclusions from it.

I usually host poker games every week and get about 15 to 20 people per night. From the ages of 21 to 46. And no most of the older fellas have a good head of hair. A few of the younger guys are losing their hair....me included and about 6-7 of my friends have some sort of hair loss me being the worst lol. One of the older guys is losing his hair, but mostly on the crown. Man its crazy and when I go to bars and clubs half of the place is filled with men that have some kind of MPB

we must re-wild ourselfs!:-)

nidhogge wrote:One word: Westernization.

But what is 'westernization'? Sedentary lifestyle alone? I doubt it. Methinks it could be the huge spurt in GM food and crops; and pesticides. How many have gone organic here? Did that affect your hair health positively?

-9r5-

No data, but my opinion is the heavy use of plastics in modern society.

empty wrote:There are no data in this observation... so stop making conclusions from it.

Agree it's just pure speculation

9rugrats5 wrote:

nidhogge wrote:One word: Westernization.

But what is 'westernization'? Sedentary lifestyle alone? I doubt it. Methinks it could be the huge spurt in GM food and crops; and pesticides. How many have gone organic here? Did that affect your hair health positively?

-9r5-

Ive been organic for over a year and a half; no help.

Hi finemrespice,

Thank you for posting that. I really appreciated your comments.

A friend of mine, who is also from Korea, told me the same thing but I wasn't sure whether to believe her. I've also heard the hair loss phenomenon is happening in Hong Kong too.

finemrespice, since you are on this forum, I'm going to assume you have hair loss? If so, what do you eat? Or better yet, what did you eat for the past 5 years? Was it the traditional rice, kim chi, broth, noodles, etc? Or were you into pizza, hamburgers, bread, McDonalds, Coke, etc?

I too believe it must be something common otherwise so many men would not be affected. It's either something in our diet or environment.

finemrespice wrote:As you guys might already think koreans are fuller in hair due to our diet, but that is not the case in this country anymore. Hairloss market is becoming one of the fastest growing industry and propecia, minox and types of shampoos are going off the shelf like crazy.

It's not only evident in elders but its also common with young people. What's more shocking is that there has been a sudden increase in women hairloss. I, myself, have seen many women in their 50s to 60s who are almost bald (women baldness). Now if it only diet to blame, then it does not make sense since these women do not eat western food such as mcdonalds, other types. Younger generation can be synonymous w. western diet since they all chug down pizzas, etcs. But what is going on in this country.

Situation here can become a great test-bed for some of your theories since massive hairloss has been a recent phenomenon. My hairdresser tells me with a bit of exaggeration that 8-9 out of 10 of her customers have some form of hairloss. This is shocking... She says this all can't be from genes. It does not add up.

I am very suspicious of this situation. It has to be something very common to many here or even where you guys are at. Is it the water system, pollution, i don't know.

ok, my father is bald so we might think my hairloss which really just started last november could be from genes. and i'm 36. i felt like i was thinning a tiny bit in the crown area before last november but it was very very minor. but i've thought about this alot... i have no frontal hairloss, it's all in the crown area but sort of in a diffused pattern. so it is not that noticeable and can cover up. i do not look that bad cosmetically but i can definitely see thinning in this area. there was no sudden massive hairloss of like 100 a day ever or massive inflammation. it was like i did not know when this happened. at this moment, my hairloss seem to be at halt, at least in my perspective. I basically cut out all forms of unhealthy food and am taking only the necessary vitamins a,b,c,d,e,k. the most hairloss that occurred to me was actually between january and feb of this year when i switched to dr.bronner's shampoo. funny really. but now i've stopped using this shampoo and it has helped but then i do not know if it is the vitamins or bad food reduction or shampoo.

the funny thing is i've chugged down leagues of fast food, fried food and processed foods the last 2 years or so, because my appetite suddenly surged and i wanted to gain weight... i was a heavy coke drinker all my life also. and i don't ever exercise but i don't drink or smoke either.

the interesting part is, it was a very sudden out of nowhere type of loss, in the crown area. now i've stopped bad foods completely, even tho for the first time i've cheated today eating some Oreos!!!

so i am in just an experiemental mode right now and going to try some more stuff soon. i'm not losing much anymore but trying to regain... i will update.

Thanks for posting that. I haven't eaten any of the junk food you listed for a long time (many years) but unfortunately it hasn't helped. Also I have a few friends who eat tons of fried foods and whatnot and yet their hair is great.

I'm not sure those foods have anything to do with it. To prove this, I'm interested in knowing if there are many guys in Korea who eat a traditional diet and yet are still losing hair. Have you looked into the eating habits of your friends and co-workers whom have full heads of hair?

finemrespice wrote:ok, my father is bald so we might think my hairloss which really just started last november could be from genes. and i'm 36. i felt like i was thinning a tiny bit in the crown area before last november but it was very very minor. but i've thought about this alot... i have no frontal hairloss, it's all in the crown area but sort of in a diffused pattern. so it is not that noticeable and can cover up. i do not look that bad cosmetically but i can definitely see thinning in this area. there was no sudden massive hairloss of like 100 a day ever or massive inflammation. it was like i did not know when this happened. at this moment, my hairloss seem to be at halt, at least in my perspective. I basically cut out all forms of unhealthy food and am taking only the necessary vitamins a,b,c,d,e,k. the most hairloss that occurred to me was actually between january and feb of this year when i switched to dr.bronner's shampoo. funny really. but now i've stopped using this shampoo and it has helped but then i do not know if it is the vitamins or bad food reduction or shampoo.

the funny thing is i've chugged down leagues of fast food, fried food and processed foods the last 2 years or so, because my appetite suddenly surged and i wanted to gain weight... i was a heavy coke drinker all my life also. and i don't ever exercise but i don't drink or smoke either.

the interesting part is, it was a very sudden out of nowhere type of loss, in the crown area. now i've stopped bad foods completely, even tho for the first time i've cheated today eating some Oreos!!!

so i am in just an experiemental mode right now and going to try some more stuff soon. i'm not losing much anymore but trying to regain... i will update.

Right, everyone needs to hold their horses though. So, one guy, possibly korean i guess, comes on to tell us that all of a sudden korean people are going bald pretty fast. Ok fair enough, proof? evidence? You can't just take one annoymous guy's word from the internet lmao...

Go take a walk around seoul... there will be plenty of young guys my age with age appropriate hair. ie, awesome for a 21 year old, unlike mine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21453986

CausticSymmetry wrote:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21453986

"In the absence of a family history, statistical analysis showed a higher frequency for early-onset AGA than late-onset AGA " so i guess mine is due to my father's baldness? CS am i right? kekeke

since you guys wanted data i shall provide some... if you go to this link, yes the article is in korea but translate thru google chrome. http://kdpress.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=21350&sc_section_code=S1N8&sc_sub_section_code=S2N45

there is a graph with numbers. data between 2005-2009

it says in the last 5 years there has been a 25% increase in hairloss patients for the age group between 20-30. and this is quite accurate as the data has been collected through the national health insurance system. We have a public health insurance system that is quite robust compared to you guys over there. it covers basically 99% or little less of the population. other info: it says 20-30 age there are little more male patients but for age group 40 and above there are more women patients (interesting, similar to my observation), out of total patients between 05-09 48.4% were between 20 and 30, 28.4% in the 20 age group which also quite high, androgen type hair loss has increased 70.2% (male 79.7%, female 40.5%)from 05 to 09 (crazy stuff.)

Those numbers are crazy. Definitely something screwy going on, westernized or not. The idea that bad genes come about that quickly or under mere conditions that we've seen there is not realistic, gene's are up or down-regulated for reasons, looking at some studies on Asian patients with upregulations of Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Gene, it has associations with metabolic syndrome, and metabolic syndrome is becoming more clearly defined as an immune disorder, where does that leave us?

We all have bad hair genes, and the capability to have them expressed. What tips the scales beyond diet and lifestyle?

finemrespice wrote:since you guys wanted data i shall provide some... if you go to this link, yes the article is in korea but translate thru google chrome. http://kdpress.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=21350&sc_section_code=S1N8&sc_sub_section_code=S2N45

there is a graph with numbers. data between 2005-2009

it says in the last 5 years there has been a 25% increase in hairloss patients for the age group between 20-30. and this is quite accurate as the data has been collected through the national health insurance system. We have a public health insurance system that is quite robust compared to you guys over there. it covers basically 99% or little less of the population. other info: it says 20-30 age there are little more male patients but for age group 40 and above there are more women patients (interesting, similar to my observation), out of total patients between 05-09 48.4% were between 20 and 30, 28.4% in the 20 age group which also quite high, androgen type hair loss has increased 70.2% (male 79.7%, female 40.5%)from 05 to 09 (crazy stuff.)

i am not pushing for some conspiracy theory or whateva. it's just too funny that there has been a serious increase in hairloss here. now i don't care if it is the diet or genes, i just want to see if i can solve this. knowing people like CS, Natural, others we can try at least. also want to mention that the younger generation are more keen on cosmetics than earlier generations, thus they are more likely to seek medicine to tweek even minor hair loss and problems which can explain some for the dramatic increase but still it is still funny.

and for someone above making comments about not having facts, it is very easy to see hairloss as ever increasing phenemenon here bc everywhere on the internet there are korean hairloss forums, hair loss focused hospitals emerging everywhere, ridiculous number of new herbal shampoos everywhere, the market is huge. yes my case might be androgenetic due to my father but thats does not explain all the others here in korea.

can this all be just androgenetic? if yes, that is fine...