Suffering from hair loss? New study reveals root cause of men losing hair 

​

Every year, Hair Loss Awareness Month is observed across the world in August to raise awareness about the loss of hair and the need to accept it, while also talking about hair loss honestly. 

While it is mostly attributed to genetics and the father’s hairline, there are other reasons that also come to the fore including water and helmets, but there is more.

Hair loss gets discussed as fate, something to accept, rarely something to diagnose. There is also a deeply rooted belief that hair loss is something that cannot be managed, and acceptance is the only option left.

Between June and August 2026, hair loss treatment brand Traya assessed 166,460 Indian men and mapped their primary root causes state by state. 

This study captures the primary root cause identified per person which often goes unexamined; men treat the hair, not the reason. 

Dandruff the root cause in more than half of all cases

More than half the men assessed had dandruff as their primary root cause of hair loss. Qualitative research done shows that many men don’t realise they have dandruff for long periods of time, and fewer still connect it to their hair loss.

Here is what is happening. A fungus called Malassezia overgrows on the scalp and creates constant inflammation. That inflammation pushes hair out of its growth phase too early. Hair sheds faster, comes back thinner every time, and eventually stops coming back at all.

Dandruff often outlasts every shampoo: a wash clears the flakes, not the overgrowth driving them. And the overgrowth itself rarely acts alone; internal health issues like a struggling gut, nutritional gaps, and disturbed sleep can aggravate dandruff, feeding the very inflammation that pushes hair out. It is this combination, the scalp condition and the internal imbalances fuelling it, that actually drives the hair loss. When the underlying inflammation and what feeds it are properly addressed, the cycle stabilises, the shedding slows, and hair starts coming back stronger. Dandruff is a treatable scalp condition, which makes the most common cause of male hair loss also a solvable one.

Genetics is real, but not a life sentence

Over 35,000 men had genetics identified as their primary root cause. The most common assumption around genetic hair loss is that nothing can be done. That assumption is wrong.

The body naturally produces a hormone called DHT from testosterone. In some men, hair follicles on the front and crown are sensitive to it. DHT slowly shrinks those follicles over years; each cycle, hair comes back thinner. But DHT sensitivity is not the whole story. Overall health, gut function, metabolism, and nutrition affect how aggressively DHT impacts the follicles. Two men with the same genetic sensitivity can have very different outcomes depending on what is happening inside their body. Addressing those imbalances does not change the gene. But it can significantly change how it progresses. DHT can be blocked. Health can be corrected. The earlier both are addressed, the more can be preserved.

Genetic hair loss is not new. What has changed is when it shows up. Where earlier generations associated it with their 40s and 50s, dermatologists today increasingly see it surface in men in their 20s and lifestyle is widely believed to play a role. Because if the gene loads the gun, it is often the body that pulls the trigger: poor sleep, a struggling gut, nutritional gaps and daily habits can accelerate how early and how aggressively DHT sensitivity plays out. The gene hasn’t changed in a generation. The conditions around it have.

Nutrition: the signal that goes unread

Nearly 17,000 men had nutritional deficiency identified as their primary root cause. Hair follicles need a constant supply of protein, iron, zinc, and vitamin D to keep producing hair. When these drop, the body makes a simple call: send available resources to vital organs first. Hair follicles get cut from the supply.

The result does not look like genetic hair loss. No receding hairline. No pattern. Just an overall, even thinning across the scalp. The body is not failing; it is running low on what it needs, and the hair is the first place it shows. When the specific deficiencies are identified and corrected, the body reprioritises hair growth, and the thinning begins to reverse. Nutrition-linked cases peaked in Jammu & Kashmir, at 13%, the highest of any state compared.

When hair speaks first – sleep, gut, and metabolism

23,648 men in this study had their hair loss traced to how their body was running: metabolism (10,439 men), sleep (7,884), and digestion (5,325). Sleep-linked hair loss peaked in New Delhi at 6 per cent, the highest of any state compared.

Sleep debt, a struggling gut, a slowed metabolism typically run silently for years, and hair is often the first place they become visible, because hair is the first thing a stretched body stops investing in.

The regional picture

The study mapped male hair loss across the country. The expectation was regional variation: different states, different climates, different causes. The data revealed something more precise: the cause never changes. Only its intensity does, and the intensity follows the climate.

Nationally, dandruff stands as the primary root cause in 54 per cent of cases. Move across the map, and that number rises and falls with the weather.

In India’s humid, coastal, high-rainfall states, dandruff runs well above the national average of 54 per cent; Kerala leads at 65.3 per cent, more than eleven points over, with West Bengal (59.7 per cent), Odisha (59.5 per cent) and Assam (58.5 per cent) close behind. Travel northwest into the dry belt, and the share slips below the average in Punjab at 47.4 per cent and Rajasthan at 47.8 per cent, six to seven points under. From India’s driest states to its most humid, the swing is nearly eighteen percentage points.

The gradient is scientifically coherent. Malassezia, the fungus behind dandruff, thrives in humidity. The wetter the climate, the harder it pushes.

But here is the finding that matters more than the gradient: even at its lowest in India’s driest states, six points under the national average, dandruff still ranks first. In not one state, humid or arid, coastal or landlocked, did any other root cause take the top spot. Climate turns the dial up or down. It never changes the diagnosis.

Nutrition tells the mirror story. Against a national average of 10.1 per cent, nutrition-linked hair loss runs highest in the northern belt, Jammu & Kashmir, at 13 per cent, with Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana at 12.2 per cent each and lowest along the southern coast, with Kerala at 5 per cent, half the national average. In the study’s reading, this points to regional differences in diet patterns and lifestyle, a signal worth deeper study.

The top three root causes are shown; the table shows the states with the most assessments along with the states referenced above. Full state-wise tables are available on request.

For men, the silence usually sounds like acceptance of the belief that hair loss is inherited, inevitable, and already decided. Traya has never accepted that belief, and now the data doesn’t either. Every case in this study, all 166,460, traced to an identifiable primary root cause. For more than half the men, that root cause was a treatable scalp condition. For most of the rest, it was a findable and actionable deficiency, a lifestyle factor, or a genetic sensitivity whose progression can be managed.

Saloni Anand, co-founder, Traya Health, shares, “Hair Loss Awareness month usually asks men to accept hair loss. Our study of 1.66 lakh Indian men asks them to find their root cause instead because every root cause we identified can be acted on. Awareness shouldn’t stop at ‘It’s happening. It should reach ‘Here’s why’ and then ‘Here’s what to do’.”