What Can Hair Tell Us About COVID-19?

The article discusses the potential relationship between hair characteristics and COVID-19 severity. It references a study by Müller Ramos et al. that used a questionnaire-based survey in Brazil to analyze demographics, comorbidities, hair color, and amount of hair in relation to COVID-19 status and severity outcomes. The study found that grey hair and baldness correlated with age and that disease severity was associated with age and comorbidities. However, the authors did not provide a multivariate regression analysis to support their claim that grey hair may be an independent risk factor for disease severity, beyond androgenetic alopecia. The article also mentions that post-infectious hair loss, traditionally categorized as telogen effluvium, can present with different pathomechanisms and clinical patterns, such as dystrophic anagen effluvium or telogen effluvium, depending on the type and intensity of the insult. The authors observed ten patients with COVID-19 and noted that postinfectious hair shedding was associated with the clinical severity of the disease and fever, with complete hair recovery usually within 3-6 months. They did not find any risk pattern for severity relating to pre-existing hair conditions, such as grey hair. All patients had pre-existing androgenetic alopecia and recovered from COVID-19 within 1 day to 3 weeks.