Does baldness run in your family? Which side?

[moxsom]

I see far too many posts of people asking if they have male pattern baldness, posting a picture with no or minimal loss and then everyone going "Get on the Big 3". I know finasteride and dutasteride are super popular if you're worried about hairloss but these are pretty nasty drugs if you don't need to take them. How do you guys decide if your follicles are sensitive? Already losing some ground with hair? Dad was bald at 25? It sucks that there's no sure-fire way to know.

My family is especially weird. My dad has a full head of hair but 2 out of 3 of his brothers are bald. My moms side - no hairloss anywhere, but she did have pretty bad acne (kind of related). Me and my 2 brothers were all losing our hair at a very young age.

I work in the genetics field so I find hereditary traits super interesting. Also, I read a ton about male pattern baldness so feel free to AMA on hairloss genetics specifically

Also, if you could fill out this survey I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to see if there's a need for early hairloss detection because we all know the earlier you find out, the better treatments will be.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PSNYRW5

 

[Folliman]

Father side: All uncles perfect NW1 until they hit 40 and then start losing it slowly. Grandpa is NW6

Mother side: Two uncles lost it slowly overtime and are NW3 and NW4; Both above 50. One uncle was Slick NW7 by 35. Grandpa is NW2.5

My uncle that is NW7 started losing his hair around my age and my mom says my hair reminds her of his back then. FML

 

[IA2015]

Nope.

I mean it must somewhere but my father hasn't lost hair, nor has my uncles, neither did my grandfather's or great grandfathers - both sides might I add.

The paternal side has always suffered pretty bad acne however, maybe related, maybe say's something about T and sebum? I have no clue.

Most are NW2 mature hairline. I have NW2 but my temples have thinned out. Who knows where I'l end up.

Its a bummer is hairloss. So random.

 

[moxsom]

Nope.

I mean it must somewhere but my father hasn't lost hair, nor has my uncles, neither did my grandfather's or great grandfathers - both sides might I add.

The paternal side has always suffered pretty bad acne however, maybe related, maybe say's something about T and sebum? I have no clue.

Most are NW2 mature hairline. I have NW2 but my temples have thinned out. Who knows where I'l end up.

Its a bummer is hairloss. So random.

Yeah I think there is some relation between sever acne and early androgenic alopecia. They are both androgen-sensitive disorders that deal with sensitive receptors, a higher amount of said receptors and down-stream inflammatory events. I mean just because you have sensitive receptors on your skin doesn't mean you'll also get them in the hairloss pattern but it seems interesting. There needs to be more studies that link parental traits with that of their children.

 

[Agustin Araujo]

Baldness runs in both sides of my family, so I'm not surprised that I'm so prone to going bald.

 

[TD500]

nobody on my mothers side
every male on my fathers side

 

[shookwun]

Infamous euro male pattern baldness genes checking in

Both sides. Father's side 100% all cue balls.

 

[g.i joey]

Father side full bald and mothers side nw4 by 30... im getting hit from every single fkn angle.

 

[nyjrb]

Most of the men on my dad's side are NW6s. My mom's side varies; some only have a mild recession, others are slick bald. All my male cousins have hairloss, and my half-brother is diffusing into a nw5/6.

 

[moxsom]

All bald on my mothers side
All fullheads on my dads side.

Hmmmm, 50/50 chance, pretty sure you already know which side I ended up on

hah a little more complicated then 50/50 but sounds like you got the short end of the stick. ****ty.

 

[moxsom]

Hey Jsmith,

Good question. This type of question can get tricky really quickly so I'll try and keep it in laymans terms. Hair morphology/colour is also a polygenic trait meaning that many genes are responsible and/or are interacting with each other to give you your hair. The diameter, shape, colour, curliness etc is all determined by these genes.

Here's some studies on European populations for hair colour:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0048294

And here's another one that deals with european populations for hair morphology:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775823/

The hair organ itself is very complicated. It has bulge stem cells, matrix stem cells, dermal papilla, inner root sheath and etc to all come together to make the hair. A lot of genes at work here. Also, a quick correction - there is no "balding gene". Like hair structure, hairloss is also very polygenic.

Now to the real question - is there correlation between hair morphology inheritance and hair loss inheritance? Some of the genes are implicated in both, like EDAR, but no single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are seen to be correlated with both morphology/colour and hairloss. You can get more expressed SNPs or genes from your dads side for morphology but still get a bunch of risk SNPs for hairloss from either side. No way to tell without looking at your DNA.

 

[GoldenMane]

Mothers side -
Only one uncle, he's NW2
Grandfather is NW5 or 6, horseshoe, very high sides. He went bald in his 20s

Fathers side-
My dad was NW2 until about 40, now he's almost 50 and NW3, no vertex thinning, but his forelock is quite narrow now.

Me and by brother unfortunately took after our maternal grandfather and started balding in our 20s. Maybe he started a year or two earlier than me.

 

[DPAMan]

Just gonna copy and paste this from another thread:

My maternal grandfather had a full head of white hair by the time he died in his late 70s. However, my maternal grandmother had baldness on both sides — bald father (though I can't say what kind or to what degree since he died when my mother was a child), and her mother's sister had no hair on her scalp when she died at 90-something — though interestingly enough, my grandmother herself maintained a reasonably thick head of hair all her life. My mother's brother has been shaving his head since he was in my age range (late 20s early 30s, he's in his 50s now), and he's disclosed that his hair still grows on top, but very thin, probably like mine will end up. My father is almost 60 with minimal loss and wears his hair roughly shoulder-length.

 

[rvahair1]

My mother's father had baldness after 40. He smoked a ton! No other relatives on mom's side have it. Dad's side had no baldness either. My dad is 81 with some diffuse thinning, but no male pattern baldness. He has a full hairline.

 

[cocojambo]

No baldness on either of my family sides.
What did I do wrong?

 

[EvilLocks]

Baldness runs in both sides of my family, but no women have gone bald except me (sucks to be the one). All the males except one uncle though is bald.

 

[greg711711]

Paternal grandfather was nw7 by mid/late 20s, uncle was nw6 by 30. No one else in my family really has notable hairloss. Of course I am the only one of my cousins that got my grandfather's aggressive gene.

 

[Ventures]

Hello, in past I started a thread regarding same topic http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/showthread.php/77623-How-is-baldness-inherited

1. The amount of 5-alpha-reductase ( which is required for conversion of T to more potent DHT ) in the scalp and other tissues – This is usually inherited from father, or other relatives
2. AR sensitivity of hair follicles to DHT and other androgens – This is always inherited from your maternal side of family.

Baldness is a result of how much DHT is produced in your organism and in the same time how your hair follicles are sensitive. First you inherit mostly from your father and second from your maternal grandfather because the gene which is responsible for encoding the AR is located on the X chromosome (Wiki: In humans, the androgen receptor is encoded by the AR gene located on the X chromosome at Xq11-12.) . Both contribute to baldness.

It seems that if your maternal grandfather, maternal uncle started to loose hair very early in life, then you will also very likely. And if you have an african or non-Caucasian maternal side of family then you will probably have very thick hair all your life, since male pattern baldness is not spread in this populations and phenotypes.

 

[Dench57]

Runs in both sides of my family to varying and seemingly random degrees.

My dad is around NW4 with purely frontal recession
My dad's dad is NW3 at the age of 75.
My dad's brother is NW1 with no traces of male pattern baldness.

My mum's dad is NW6 at 82.
My mum's brothers are NW3-4.

My dad can barely grow facial hair, and I can't either. Whereas all my uncles on both sides can grow thick stubble/beards. I would assume that would be a good indicator that I'll have the same male pattern baldness as my Dad? No idea really.

 

[Rudolphus]

Hair loss is very dominant on both sides of my family. The only male blood relative that I'm aware of who has no male pattern baldness is my father's maternal uncle. All the other males on both sides of my family have ended up between a NW3 and NW7. My dad began thinning in his late 20s, and was about NW4 by his mid 30s. Now at 61, he's a NW6 (and has been for over a decade). His dad had similar hair loss. My dad's two brothers have slightly more hair, but are still about NW4. My two maternal uncles are also about NW4-5. My maternal grandad gradually receded in his 40s-50s, but never went past NW3 (he died in his 70s). If I had let my hair loss go untreated, I predict that my hair loss would have progressed more or less identically to how my dad's did, and I'd probably have ended up as a NW4 at 35 and a NW6 at 50. Thankfully, I've been treating my hair loss by using Dutasteride, and I'm now a NW1.5 at age 28.

Hello, in past I started a thread regarding same topic http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/showthread.php/77623-How-is-baldness-inherited

1. The amount of 5-alpha-reductase ( which is required for conversion of T to more potent DHT ) in the scalp and other tissues – This is usually inherited from father, or other relatives
2. AR sensitivity of hair follicles to DHT and other androgens – This is always inherited from your maternal side of family.

Baldness is a result of how much DHT is produced in your organism and in the same time how your hair follicles are sensitive. First you inherit mostly from your father and second from your maternal grandfather because the gene which is responsible for encoding the AR is located on the X chromosome (Wiki: In humans, the androgen receptor is encoded by the AR gene located on the X chromosome at Xq11-12.) . Both contribute to baldness.

It seems that if your maternal grandfather, maternal uncle started to loose hair very early in life, then you will also very likely. And if you have an african or non-Caucasian maternal side of family then you will probably have very thick hair all your life, since male pattern baldness is not spread in this populations and phenotypes.

I don't think it is quite as simple as that. The amount of 5-alpha reductase type 2 that we have is something that is inherited from both parents, because we each have two copies (alleles) of the gene coding for this enzyme, one from each of our parents. These two alleles operate side by side (neither masks out the activity of the other). I'm guessing that natural testosterone levels are most likely also determined by genes inherited from both parents (most likely multiple different genes), although I could be wrong about this.

You are right that the AR gene comes from the mother. However, the allele of this gene that she passes on to you can originally come from either her mother or her father (it is 50/50).

I'm not sure if the level of sensitivity of our hair follicles to DHT is entirely determined by the AR gene. Perhaps other genes may also play a role in determining how DHT interacts with our follicles? Hopefully the OP might give his thoughts on this with his better knowledge of male pattern baldness genetics than what most of the rest of us have.