Science & Technology

Can your beard cause your brain to overheat ?

By T.K. Randall
March 13, 2016 ·  13 comments

Beards come in all different shapes and sizes. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Ayleen Gaspar A staple form of facial insulation, the humble beard has long helped protect the male of the species from the biting cold and recent studies have shown that facial hair can even have other benefits too such as protecting the skin from sun damage and keeping pollen away from the mouth and nose.

Back in 2012 a study in China even concluded that the area of the face covered by a beard is on average one degree warmer than the cheeks and other exposed areas of the face.

Having a beard therefore might sound ideal, but could there be an unforeseen drawback ?According to physiologist Michel Cabanac, there exists a genuine danger ( albeit a small one ) that the beard's insulating properties can actually cause the brain to overheat.

To combat this, he argues, the body has developed the phenomenon of male pattern baldness to help maintain thermal equilibrium between the insulating properties of the hair and beard.

He calls the idea "thermoregula­tory compensation" and while his studies over the last ten years have indicated that men with full beards are more likely to have receding hairlines, this rather unorthodox hypothesis is not exactly conclusive.

One thing is certain however - those who do sport a full beard needn't worry about it causing their brain to overheat as the chances of that actually happening are likely to be infinitesimally small.

Source: Popular Science | Comments (13)

Tags: Beard, Hair