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[현대건강신문] Recently in Japan, reports of a 3-year-old boy suffering from severe hair loss who suffered from Corona have become an issue. In fact, a study showing that infection with COVID-19 increases the risk of hair loss four times is attracting attention.
This was revealed as a result of analyzing the health records of 2.4 million British people from January 2020 to April 2021 by a team led by Professor Shamil Haroon of the Institute of Applied Health at the University of Birmingham, UK. The results of this study were published in the latest issue of ‘Nature Medicine’ and were introduced by the Korea Food Communication Forum on the 25th.
The research team compared the symptoms of 488,149 people who were infected with COVID-19 and 1.9 million who were not.
Patients infected with COVID-19 had a four times greater risk of hair loss than uninfected people. The risk of smell disorders was 6.5 times, the risk of sneezing was 2.8 times, the risk of difficulty ejaculation was 2.6 times, the risk of decreased libido was 2.4 times, and the risk of shortness of breath was 2.2 times.
According to the British scientific journal ‘The Lancet’, 22% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 experienced hair loss that occurs following stress, shock or traumatic events.
Hair loss following infection with COVID-19 is highly likely to be telogen hair loss. It is said that the cause is likely to be the early transition of many growing hairs to the resting state due to the stress caused by the COVID-19 infection.
Increased inflammation due to COVID-19 infection is also being considered as a cause of hair loss. In general, following being infected with COVID-19, hair begins to fall out following 2-3 months, and it is known that it lasts up to 6 months.