While hair loss is completely normal, it can be incredibly frustrating. Wondering if you're headed for balding? Well, there are 3 main ways to tell if you might be going bald: 1) your parents or grandparents are bald, 2) your hairline is receding at your temples and 3) your hair is thinning at the top of your head.
One of the best ways to tell if you are going to go bald is to look around at your family, it could be heredity. Almost everyone with male pattern baldness will start to lose their hair in the same manner. For most, the hairline will start to form into an 'M' shape as the hair recedes from the forehead.
Most men will experience hair loss during their lifetime. In fact, by the age of fifty, more than 85% of men will have significantly thinning hair. If you've noticed a receding hairline at the temples and crown of the head, then you likely have male pattern baldness.
One popular myth is that hair loss in men is passed down from the mother's side of the family while hair loss in women is passed down from the father's side; however, the truth is that the genes for hair loss and hair loss itself are actually passed down from both sides of the family.
By the time you turn 30, you have a 25% chance of displaying some balding. By age 50, 50% of men have at least some noticeable hair loss. By age 60, about two-thirds are either bald or have a balding pattern. While hair loss is more common as you get older, it doesn't necessarily make it any easier to accept.
About 70% of men will lose hair as they get older. And 25% of bald men see first signs of hair loss before age 21. “Recent advances offer a lot of hope in both treating and preventing different types of baldness,” says dermatologist Amy Kassouf, MD. For example, researchers can now grow hair follicles in a lab.
The X or female chromosome carries the primary baldness gene, and men inherit this X chromosome from their mothers. This makes the hereditary factor around baldness most dominant on your mother's side.
There are several other causes of hair lossincluding medical illnesses like thyroid, or diabetes; stress, certain medications can cause it too like anti-coagulants, blood thinners, etc, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalance, crash dieting, and oral contraceptives.
Is Hair Color Inherited from Mother or Father? Hair color comes from both parents through the chromosomes passed onto their child. The 46 chromosomes (23 from each parent) have genes made up of DNA with instructions of what traits a child will inherit.
So try not to stress out about a few individual strands of lost hair on your hair tie. If you're concerned that you're shedding more hair than this, or you've noticed substantial hair loss when you wash or brush your hair, you're probably not paranoid. This may be the first sign of sustained hair loss.
Baldness is hereditary
So while you may well share some of your father's DNA as well as your grandfathers' on both sides - as well as DNA from the female sides of your family - it doesn't necessarily mean that you will inherit the gene - or set of genes - involved in genetic hair loss.
You have a chance of going bald even if your mom doesn't have baldness in her family. Many of these other baldness genes are involved in making hair. Your hair grows out of tiny holes called “follicles”. And the cells that make the hair are called “hair follicle cells”.
Finding some hair strands on your bathroom floor or your workout clothes does not mean you are experiencing permanent hair loss. In fact, it's totally normal to lose some hair – the average person loses 100 hairs daily.
Baldness can of course skip generations! If you have bald relatives on both sides of your family tree the chances are high you will be too. However, if the baldness shows up only on one side, it's highly possible the MPB gene will skip not only you but also your siblings.
Genetics play a huge role in determining whether someone will have androgenic alopecia or not. There is evidence suggesting that people who have a genetic disposition for baldness are more likely to start losing their hair from an early age.
Male androgenetic alopecia (MAA) is the most common form of hair loss in men, affecting 30-50% of men by age 50. MAA occurs in a highly reproducible pattern, preferentially affecting the temples, vertex and mid frontal scalp.
Testosterone itself doesn't directly cause hair loss. However, increasing your testosterone levels can also increase your levels of DHT, causing damage to your hair follicles and speeding up the effects of male pattern baldness.
The stages of progression of hair loss may or may not travel through each of all the stages and the development may stop at any time. Also, as previously stated, after the age of 30-35, hair loss slows down and gradually stabilizes.
Most bald men shave their heads about once a week. The best time to exfoliate your scalp is before shaving. This will soften the skin and hair to allow for a closer, more even shaving experience.
The Czech Republic is the country with the highest percentage of men losing their hair. In the Czech Republic, approximately 43 percent of men have either lost their hair or are losing their hair.
Seeing a visible scalp is often a sign of fine hair, and genetics can be the primary cause for this type of hair loss. However, other common causes of thinning hair include stress, hormone imbalances, certain medications, illness or infections and malnutrition.