According to a study conducted in South Korea (where it is commonplace for employees to put in more than 40 hours of work per week) by researchers at the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, which analysed 13,000 men aged between 20 and 59 over the course of four years, stress caused by working excessive hours can cause a hormonal change in the scalp and decrease the growth of hair follicles.
To test the link between baldness and long work hours, then participants were grouped according to the amount of hours they worked and found that those who worked more suffered from baldness.
“Long working hours was significantly related to the development of alopecia,” wrote lead researcher Kyung-Hun Son. “Our findings suggest that unintentional development of alopecia is another potential health consequence of long working hours among Korean male workers. Preventive interventions to promote appropriate and reasonable working hours are required in our society.”
An excellent reason to clock out of work on time, if we do say so ourselves.
