What exactly causes hairloss to switch on?

[hair_nag]

How can a guy have zero hairloss until a certain age (say 26) then suddenly start losing hair? The guy was producing DHT in his body before 26, so why does the DHT cause hairloss then and not before?

 

[GoldenMane]

As we age, certain ailments just appear. Like wrinkles due to reduced collagen production. It could be loss of genes, every time DNA transcription takes place, a piece of DNA is lost. Initially it's just nonsense DNA, telomeres, but eventually we start losing genes, going gray, bald, losing skin collagen... Just a theory, but there may be a gene that protects our follicles from DHT, that at a certain point in life is just lost. There's a huge number of alternative, more plausible explanations, I'm sure...

 

[kir]

Cells constantly divide. When this division occurs, a copy of their DNA is created. DNA is tightly packed into structures called chromosomes. Something called telomeres reside on the end of these chromosomes. These telomeres are there to protect DNA information from being lost. The problem is, during cell division these telomeres become shorter and shorter until there's none left. At this point the cells no longer divides and gradually starts to lose function and die, causing age-related characteristics. The length of your telomere comes from your parents.

 

[abcdefg]

I think receptors in hair just become more sensitive to androgens as you age or once androgens show up it triggers the process to start and most men are susceptible. I would say male pattern baldness is not part of aging simply because some men dont have it clearly proves its not part of aging itself there is some process to it. Why does any disease or condition pop up? They just do some unknown fault or problem somewhere that no one knows enough about to explain. I mean no one can explain male pattern baldness to you because its not understood what causes yet.
We lower androgens because we know androgens are responsible but its like the top layer to an onion. There could be 100 deeper layers to the problem but we just try to superficially treat it the best we currently know how