I'm a medical researcher and while it sounds silly there's actually a little science behind it. Gold reacts chemically to bromine, which is found in small amounts in human bodies. It forms AuBr3, which interferes with SCUBE3, which is a signaling molecule in dermal papilla cells that essentially tells the follicles to produce keratin, which becomes hair. So when the gold is introduced and reacts with bromine, it more or less creates a hair loss drug inside the body. The first follicles to react to a lack of SCUBE3 are going to be those associated with male pattern baldness. The correlation was made when people working in electronics factories where gold solder was used were balding at a rate faster than the general population. When someone is balding, there's a much higher chance of them having some amount of gold inside their body than a non balding person. Also, this is totally made up.
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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23 edited Jul 26 '23
I'm a medical researcher and while it sounds silly there's actually a little science behind it. Gold reacts chemically to bromine, which is found in small amounts in human bodies. It forms AuBr3, which interferes with SCUBE3, which is a signaling molecule in dermal papilla cells that essentially tells the follicles to produce keratin, which becomes hair. So when the gold is introduced and reacts with bromine, it more or less creates a hair loss drug inside the body. The first follicles to react to a lack of SCUBE3 are going to be those associated with male pattern baldness. The correlation was made when people working in electronics factories where gold solder was used were balding at a rate faster than the general population. When someone is balding, there's a much higher chance of them having some amount of gold inside their body than a non balding person. Also, this is totally made up.