Balding men at higher risk of heart disease

If you're under the age of 70 and you're already starting to go thin on top then you're more likely to get heart disease later in life, according to researchers in Japan.

As if going bald couldn’t get any worse, researchers in Japan now say that balding blokes are 32 per cent more likely to have coronary heart disease than their full-headed counterparts.

Now, while the news doesn’t look great at first glance, the researchers did say that the risks were less for blading blokes than smokers or obese people, so there’s a silver lining as they say.

According to the BBC, researchers at the University of Tokyo sifted through years of previous research into links between hair loss and heart problems and found that hair that went thin on the crown was associated with coronary heart disease.

Dr Tomohide Yamada, of the University of Tokyo, told the BBC: "We found a significant, though modest, link between baldness, at least on the top of the head, and risk for coronary heart disease.

"We thought this is a link, but not as strong as many other known links such as smoking, obesity, cholesterol levels and blood pressure."

But don’t start worrying if you’re young and balding, as Doireann Maddock, a cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation, said, “it's more important to pay attention to your waistline than your hairline.

"Hereditary hair loss may be out of your control, but many of the risk factors for coronary heart disease are not. Stopping smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and being as active as possible are all things that you can do to help protect your heart."

So there you have. If you’re worried that you’re balding head might give you heart disease, then just start hitting the gym a bit more. As for going bald, there’s always stuff like Regaine.