Do hairpieces reduce vitamin D?
THE feature in New Scientist on glorious middle age (10 March, p 48) prompted reader Roger Brook to speculate that baldness in middle-aged men might be an evolved characteristic to increase vitamin D production, since the vitamin forms in skin exposed to sunlight.
The idea might seem far-fetched, but a little searching throws up a PubMed abstract of a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia entitled “Does degree of baldness influence vitamin D status?” (vol 189, p 674).
The paper concludes: “The degree of baldness does not appear to influence serum 24-OHD [vitamin…
