The news is not good. According to a report from The Archives of Internal Medicine on Jan. 24, men with severe crown balding who also have high blood pressure or cholesterol have a markedly higher risk for a coronary event than full-headed men.
First off, toss out this "coronary event" terminology – they make it sound like day three of Mardi Gras. Second, how can they throw this new thing at me with all the other earmarks of heart disease I’m carrying around?
They slam me with warnings about cracks in my fingernails, creases in my earlobes, blurred vision, diabetes, yellowish skin near my armpits, and now my bald spot which is moving toward Antarctica mass and size.
I always assumed I had more testosterone than normal guys. Every time I leave a phone booth, puddles of it accumulate where I sat. I was even willing to bottle some and donate it to storage centers. Now I discover it not only swiped my follicles, but also may be killing me. I didn’t ask to be this macho.
Twenty two thousand seventy one men, all physicians, were the sampling they used over 11 years, ages 40 to 84, as you would expect. When was the last time these guys released something positive, like swallowing watermelon pits prevents receding gums?
It gets worse. On the same day, in the same paper, I found a more frightening report from Science. Dallas researchers found, using mice still in the womb, if they eliminate all transmitting chemicals called neurotransmitters, after a point, brain cells engage "in a mass suicide so severe that the developing brain shrinks, the developing spinal cord actually disappears and the mice die at birth." For now, none of this information will contribute to treatments for any brain disease, but hopefully, in the future … Stop there. Why fire off this stuff at people who are already under lots of stress?
Two days after reading this, I’m planted in front of the TV when I hear this tiny voice coming from, guess where? Inside me. It was so garbled and excited it took me a while to figure out what was being said which was, "Are you trying to kill us??" To which by now I’m angry since I’m trying to listen to Rosie explain the latest escapade of her kid so I said, "What the hell are you screaming about in there?"
"You’ve been watching this crap all morning," they yelled. "First, 10 minutes wondering if Regis lost some weight, then musing on the cast whereabouts of "What’s Happening?" which is having a reunion on Rosie in a few minutes. Then you’ll spend God knows how long taking part in Star’s arguments for capital punishment for men who don’t toss their toenail clippings. You do this every time you’re off work, not to imply your thoughts are more interesting during work. You’re killing us, man.
Brain cells die of boredom. Our neurotransmitters are malfunctioning, our chemicals are fleeing to the other body parts like the thyroid. You could be reading Russian authors, Scandinavian philosophers, learning the twelve-tone system, doing %#$^&*# crossword puzzles for heaven’s sake, anything to keep us alive and interested. But instead, you’re fixated on celebrity trivia. Yesterday you spent 15 minutes trying to remember the name of the young woman who was fired from The View. Over and over, ‘It’s Deb something, some Greek name,’ this is what we had to hear. Thousands of us are committing suicide as we speak. Do you want your brain to shrink? Think interesting thoughts, eggplant-head!"
So now I’ve got that pressure to deal with. My only solace is the possibility that if my brain shrinks, so will my bald spot. – Joe Del Priore