Does Injected Testosterone Cause Baldness?
We at Leonard Hair Transplant Associates are often asked whether anabolic steroids such as testosterone cause baldness. Injected testosterone has been used for many decades to increase muscle mass as well as for other medical reasons like hypogonadism, where the body manufactures too little of this hormone.
It is commonly known the DHT (dihydrotestosterone) is the biochemical culprit of androgenetic alopecia or male pattern baldness. If a person has the genetic predisposition to having DHT turn off the hair growth cycle at some predetermined time, then hair will undergo miniaturization and the balding process will become evident with thinner and thinner hair.
Our experience is that if one injects testosterone to restore normal testosterone levels, then there is little concern for it to cause baldness. However, if one injects testosterone that leads to much higher testosterone levels in the blood stream, then we have seen it to accelerate the natural process of male pattern hair loss leading to thinner hair sooner than nature would have had it happen. This increase, we have often observed, can be significant and rather rapid, depending on how much and how often it is injected.