Hair loss decided by mother or fathers side?

the deftone

Hey guys, I have a bit of a receding hair line, it looks ok but defo isnt as strong as it used to be. Would like to stop this if possible. Im 28. My father has lost almost all his hair at this stage. Am I screwed? My mothers side of the family has no history of hair loss, My granddad has a full head of hair at 89. Is it known to come from mother or fathers side or is it a toss of the coin?

If its possible to stop this what products are best? Thanks for any info.

TwoGuysDublin

I've always heard it said that it comes from the mother's side but when I look at my mam's side it's the opposite. My mother's father has the Zidane/monk look going on and his two son's have the same identical bald on top, hair around the side look.
My Dad is gray all over as was his father and they have the same identical hair/colour. I'm 31 and have visible gray around the sides when I let it grow but have a full head of hair exactly like my dad and his father.

So..........for me, it's all coming from my dad's side. If you're receding a bit and your dad has lost his hair, it's looking like it could be from your dad's side too.

Sorry if the above reads like an "all about me" post, but was just to illustrate my example.

Pat Mustard

A lot of people say that this comes from the mother's side. I've never heard of concrete evidence to that effect. If people believe that and if they have evidence to that effect, let them put that evidence up here.

My cousin on my mother's side and I both went bald in early 20s, one receding one thinning. None of the uncles or other cousins on that side had it. On my dad's side all the uncles kept their hair for a stupidly long time. Seems to be some basic luck to it.

Wibbs

Genetics is pretty much a lottery. On the baldness front, I know a family where both the mother and father's side are not afflicted by it, yet out of their three sons two were billiard balls by the time they were 25. Hell, on another issue, in my family no one and I mean no one was shortsighted and they had eyes that were poster boys for 20/20 vision and age didn't make much of a diff. My own dad didn't need reading glasses until he was in his mid 70's. Yet I am Mr Magoo in the shortsighted dept. Though it has remained remarkably stable and I have the same prescription today in my late 40's that I got at 18(with near annual eye tests in between). So I was a throwback in one way and in another my genetics seemed to have helped. Like I said a lottery.

Aye, while some people seem to think from Leaving Cert Biology that everything is just one gene it's a bit different to that. :P There'll be some environmental factors that will play a small role but I highly doubt the someone who's shiny-headed by 25 could've prevented it by cutting down on the drink for a few years. :P

Wibbs

Funny enough B, I do recall reading of some research that seemed to show lifestyle and environment had some part to play in male pattern baldness. IIRC receding hairlines were purely genetic, but balding at the crown and general thinning had a larger environmental influence. Maybe that's why regaine type stuff is supposed to work on the crown far better than on the forehead area? IIRC in twins if one smoked he went balder(and grayer) much faster than the non smoking twin. Environmental toxins in food and food wrappings were mooted as other factors. I must have a dig around for that research.

the evasion_kid

Wibbs wrote: »

Funny enough B, I do recall reading of some research that seemed to show lifestyle and environment had some part to play in male pattern baldness. IIRC receding hairlines were purely genetic, but balding at the crown and general thinning had a larger environmental influence. Maybe that's why regaine type stuff is supposed to work on the crown far better than on the forehead area? IIRC in twins if one smoked he went balder(and grayer) much faster than the non smoking twin. Environmental toxins in food and food wrappings were mooted as other factors. I must have a dig around for that research.

Isn't there supposed to be a link between baldness and masturbation too?

Pat Mustard

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Isn't there supposed to be a link between baldness and masturbation too?

:pac:

the evasion_kid

The Mustard wrote: »

:pac:

There does seem to be conflicting stuff on the net about it:

http://www.herballove.com/guide/severe-hair-loss-caused-excessive-chronic-masturbation-exhaustion

Day Lewin

Well that explains a lot. A LOT. Deary me, who'd a thought?

"" 'Ands off cox and on wif Locks!""

Wibbs

And it makes one go blind I hear. I'm very near sighted and not bald. Clearly I funneled the onanism into my eyesight. If I ever figure out how, A) I'm going to be very wealthy and there'll be a lot of lads out there with luxuriant locks and bottle end glasses and white sticks.

D'Agger

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Isn't there supposed to be a link between baldness and masturbation too?

SHíT! :eek: :pac:

Galwayguy35

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Isn't there supposed to be a link between baldness and masturbation too?

Sure wouldn't every man born since the beginning of time be bald then!

Joking aside though I'm going bald, my brother has a full head of hair and the old man never went bald either.

My uncles were bald though so it definately runs in the family.

I'm 40 now so although I don't like it it's not as bad as when it happens to lads in their early 20s, it's a lot harder to cope with when someone is losing their hair that young.

Wurzelbert

in my case clearly from my dad’s side...yet afaik it can come from any side of the family if nature is out to screw you over...and for all i know there is still nothing to truly prevent it...

Wurzelbert

Deleted User wrote: »

Aye, while some people seem to think from Leaving Cert Biology that everything is just one gene it's a bit different to that. :P There'll be some environmental factors that will play a small role but I highly doubt the someone who's shiny-headed by 25 could've prevented it by cutting down on the drink for a few years. :P

yes, you would have to distinguish between hereditary hair loss and other reasons such as diseases or environmental factors here...completely different things...

Yiikes

the evasion_kid wrote: »

There does seem to be conflicting stuff on the net about it:

herballove.com/guide/severe-hair-loss-caused-excessive-chronic-masturbation-exhaustion

Wouldnt take a site that advocates herbal remedies as fact!

Lovely Bloke

My two grandad's were bald (MPB). My dad is also bald (MPB)

I'm bald, my brother is not. I've had thin hair my whole life, and had an enlarging forehead since I was about 22. Never bothered me. I'm 35.

My mam has 2 brothers, one is bald, one is not.

My dad has six brothers. (all over 55), two still have pretty decent heads of hair, one lost his hair in his 40s and two are just like me and my dad. One of the full-head smokes two packs a day, and has been grey ever since I remember.

Interestingly enough, on my mam's side, I've three male cousins. Only one of whom is exhibiting signs of MPB, is the same age as me, the other two are early 30s.

I've way too many male cousins on my dad's side to even contemplate thinking about, some immediately spring to mind as bald, others not.

It's genetic, but there's no correlation to mother or father's side that I can tell, from my own extended family at least.

Hunchback

2 smoking brothers in my family - bald
2 non-smoking - flowing silky locks

Coincidence???

Prolly

Wibbs

Smokers go grey earlier, that much appears to be on solid ground. Environmental factors might also be things like hormone like chemicals in our modern environment from plastics(even the pill) that might effect hairloss, or increase the likelihood(though they mostly mimic oestrogens which you would imagine would reduce the likelihood). I'd suspect, though it's a completely unscientific hunch on my part, that there would be roughly three types of male pattern baldness. Guys with a strong genetic component that means their hair is very sensitive to testosterone from puberty onwards, guys with a strong genetic component that means their hair is hardly affected at all and guys who have a genetic propensity to hairloss, but environmental factors are as much of a causal agent. Thats before we look at different human populations of course. EG Northern European populations are far more susceptible to MPB than Amazonian Indian folks who almost never go bald(or grey for that matter). Again I suspect there may be slightly different mechanisms at play on top of the genetic components.

What's odder is how or why it evolved in the first place, particularly in young men, some of whom are rapidly balding at the tail end of their teens. It must have had some positive selection pressure back in the day.

Pat Mustard

Wibbs wrote: »

What's odder is how or why it evolved in the first place, particularly in young men, some of whom are rapidly balding at the tail end of their teens. It must have had some positive selection pressure back in the day.

Perhaps it evolved as a useless feature when life expectancies were so low that it wouldn't have mattered, in that a man would have reproduced and died before he had a chance to go bald. I have no evidence to back that up btw!

Or maybe they covered up with wigs and nobody noticed:

Wibbs

The Mustard wrote: »

Perhaps it evolved as a useless feature when life expectancies were so low that it wouldn't have mattered, in that a man would have reproduced and died before he had a chance to go bald. I have no evidence to back that up btw!

that would make the most sense, though in quite the number of surviving tribal societies men didn't start reproducing until after twenty, sometimes well into the twenties where baldness if a strong genetic thing would already be showing. I knew a couple of lads in my year at school who were visibly balding by 18(one guy had been since 16) and by 25 that number had gone up a lot. Maybe it was selected for as a sign of maturity? In the sense that the majority of men would be at least thinning by 60, so maybe that was the draw and it went from there.

Might be a European thing too, like blonde and red hair and the myriad eye colours compared to other populations. One idea goes that because of the climate for long periods of time the population density was lower and these traits arose because being seen as different was more attractive, because you'd want to avoid too much inbreeding and because of that random mutations in things like hair and eye colour transmitted fast. Maybe that's it? If it is and they find the specific genes and date their genetic clock then I'd bet it first shows up between 35-20,000 years ago.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

Genetics is pretty much a lottery.

This is where we need Nozz - but unless I have mistaken his teachings entirely is it not true that if a trait is connected to sex than it is more often the male gene it would be attached to? Given that the female genome is Y duplicate - so there are traits only carried on the X or some such?

This is an area where I am less informed than both of you alas But I always had the impression that any characteristic that is related to sex will normally be carried by the male diploid gene?

Pat Mustard

Wibbs wrote: »

Might be a European thing too, like blonde and red hair and the myriad eye colours compared to other populations. One idea goes that because of the climate for long periods of time the population density was lower and these traits arose because being seen as different was more attractive, because you'd want to avoid too much inbreeding and because of that random mutations in things like hair and eye colour transmitted fast. Maybe that's it? If it is and they find the specific genes and date their genetic clock then I'd bet it first shows up between 35-20,000 years ago.

The other thing is that baldness is a relatively harmless feature which has not been bred out of existence. One would think that shortsightedness should be a considerably more problematic trait. However, myopes have not been bred out of existence either. Although, seeing as myopes may be more intelligent than the general population, maybe somebody will come up with an argument that many of the less intelligent myopes have been bred out of existence? I could be talking complete nonsense here.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19127804

Dozen Wicked Words

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Isn't there supposed to be a link between baldness and masturbation too?

Its to do with the zinc in sperm. Copious copulation or masturbation would cause drop in zinc which had been associated with hair loss. I think you'd need to be a very lucky man or have a wrist like a shot putter for it really to make a significant difference though.

Wibbs

Dozen Wicked Words wrote: »

Its to do with the zinc in sperm. Copious copulation or masturbation would cause drop in zinc which had been associated with hair loss. I think you'd need to be a very lucky man or have a wrist like a shot putter for it really to make a significant difference though.

As one researcher on the matter once said; "I want to meet the man who has a zinc deficiency because of too much sex. And shake his hand"

The Mustard wrote: »

The other thing is that baldness is a relatively harmless feature which has not been bred out of existence. One would think that shortsightedness should be a considerably more problematic trait. However, myopes have not been bred out of existence either. Although, seeing as myopes may be more intelligent than the general population, maybe somebody will come up with an argument that many of the less intelligent myopes have been bred out of existence? I could be talking complete nonsense here.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19127804

Could well be. I'd posit another possible angle. Myopics have larger eyeballs and that might be due to a selection for better night vision. Being Senor Myopic Magoo myself I have very good night vision, far better than 20/20 visioned mates of mine. So that might be yet another selective pressure?