There are several urban legends regarding masturbation, starting from beliefs that masturbation may result in you going blind to myths regarding masturbation inflicting hair to grow on the palms of your hands. One of the legends is that masturbation can cause you to lose scalp hair, either in the form of a receding hairline or total baldness. Like the other masturbation myths, the idea that masturbation will cause your hair to fall out isn’t true. There’s absolutely no scientific evidence linking masturbation to hair loss, nor is there any relationship between the amount of sex you have and the thickness and health of your hair.

Interestingly, some of the websites that claim masturbation causes baldness back up their hair loss claims with evidence that sounds quite reasonable. There are heaps of scientific terms used and mentions of hormones, protein deficiencies and minerals in semen. Below, we’ll look at some of the common reasons masturbation is claimed to cause hair loss and debunk some of the nonsense “science” used to back up these claims.

Masturbation and Hair Loss: Can Masturbation Cause Hair Loss?

Myth 1: Masturbation Causes Your Body To Produce DHT

Dihydrotestosterone, more commonly known as dht, is a male sex hormone that’s the primary cause of male pattern baldness. Dht binds to receptors in your scalp and miniaturizes the hair follicles around your hairline and crown, leading to hair loss for men with a genetic sensitivity to dht. One of the foremost common reasons used to back up the claim that masturbation causes hair loss is that masturbating leads to a unharnessed of hormones, together with dht. Like most urban legends, real scientific knowledge all contradicts the claim that masturbation has any impact on dht and different male hormones. Since dht is a metabolite of testosterone, it’s extremely unlikely that sexual activity (whether it’s masturbation or sexual intercourse) has any effect, positive or negative, on dht levels.

Myth 2: Masturbation Lowers Protein Levels, Causing Hair Loss

While it’s true that semen does contain protein, masturbating or having sex doesn’t have any significant effect on the amount of protein available for your hair follicles. On average there’s about 5040 mg of protein in every 100ml of semen. Since the common quantity of ejaculate discharged throughout every ejaculation is 3.7ml, this means you need to either have sex or masturbate 27 times to release just over five grams of protein. To put this in perspective, you consume about six grams of protein every time you eat an egg and 30 to 60 grams every time you eat a chicken breast.

The amount of protein you lose when you orgasm is insignificant compared to the average person’s dietary protein intake. Even if you spend all day masturbating, you’ll still consume about 10 to 50 times as much protein in your diet, provided you eat relatively healthily. Just like the supposed link between masturbation and dht, there’s no correlation between masturbation and protein deficiency.

Myth 3: Ejaculation Management Is Very Important For “Hormone Balance”

This story could be a variation on the “masturbation affects dht” claim we tend to debunked higher than, albeit with the added claim of masturbation moving the entire balance of hormones in your body. While it’s true that sex does have some effect on the levels of certain hormones in your body, it’s a temporary effect that isn’t linked to hair loss. The most vital internal secretion discharged throughout sex is hormone, which is a peptide hormone that affects pleasure centers in your brain. This is one of the reasons why sex and masturbation feel good, but it’s not linked to the health or thickness of your hair. Since your body will release oxytocin when you do things like hold hands with your partner or gaze into their eyes, there’s no reason to specifically worry about oxytocin released during sex or masturbation affecting your hairline.

Then What Is The Real Cause Of Loss Of Hair?

Baldness is secretion and genetic, not a side effect of masturbation. Male pattern baldness is caused by DHT, which is made when your body converts testosterone into DHT through the 5α-reeducates enzyme. At no purpose will masturbation play any real role within the method of inflicting hair follicles to miniaturize and stop growing. If you’ve noticed your hair falling out or your hairline starting to recede, it’s far more likely to be a side effect of sensitivity to DHT, stress, nutrition or lifestyle problems than the results of an excessive amount of masturbation. You can treat these by taking action to lower your DHT levels using medication or changing your diet and lifestyle to eliminate the factors that contribute to hair loss.

To conclude, you can rest easy. Masturbation won’t affect your hairline, hair thickness or any aspect of your hair health. Neither will sex. If either did, the vast majority of the world’s population would have serious hair loss problems and the medical community would be very much aware of it.

References

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/135817