Losing your hair is distressing and frustrating, whether it is the hairlines or thinning crowns. But what causes our hair to vanish? In many cases, DNA plays a significant role.
This article explores how inherited factors impact baldness risk and hair transplant success. It clarifies genetic hair loss patterns, examines how DNA influences transplants, and provides science-backed strategies for overcoming genetic odds to restore your hair.
While genetics pose challenges, understanding the genetics behind hair loss will empower you to assess targeted treatment options like transplants that will offer hope for your hair recovery.
Understanding Genetic Hair Loss
If you’re experiencing premature hair loss, genetics are the culprit. Research shows hair loss conditions like male and female pattern baldness stem largely from inherited DNA, not simply age.
Specific genes you acquire regulate hair growth cycles and sensitivity to hormones like DHT that miniaturize follicles. While nutritional deficiencies, stress, and medications can accelerate genetic hair loss, inherited susceptibilities usually drive the process.
If your parents or grandparents experienced pattern baldness, you’re considerably more likely to as well. Having both parents with thinning hair heightens your predisposition further.
Still, the wide variation in age and rate of genetic hair loss shows other modifiers are at play, too. Lifestyle, diet, environmental factors, and non-genetic health issues nudge inherited tendencies along.
Overall, a complex interplay between DNA, hormones, age, and external stressors contributes to hair thinning and baldness. However, knowing your family history will provide clues about your genetic odds so you can be proactive against progressive hair loss.
Here are two possible patterns of genetic hair loss.
Male Pattern Baldness
Male pattern baldness (MPB), also called androgenetic alopecia, accounts for over 95% of hair loss in men. It’s triggered when inherited sensitivity to DHT, a byproduct of testosterone, causes follicles to shrink over time.
MPB typically begins with a receding hairline before progressing to thinning hair at the crown. Hair becomes finer and shorter in affected areas as follicles miniaturize. Around 30-50% of men experience noticeable MPB by age 50.
For those genetically predisposed, DHT sensitivity quickens the natural hair growth cycle, prematurely pushing follicles into a resting state. MPB tends to run strongly along maternal grandfather lines. The gene response to DHT determines balding age and rate.
Female Pattern Hair Loss
You can suffer genetic hair loss as a woman, although your presentation will differ from that of a man. Female-pattern hair loss features diffuse thinning across the top of the scalp instead of a receding front hairline.
The gradual thinning is primarily triggered by hormonal shifts around menopause, combined with a genetic predisposition. Although less understood, DHT sensitivity likely contributes along with additional hormonal factors absent in men.
On average, 40% of women experience visible female pattern hair loss by age 50 as follicles across the scalp miniaturize. Your inherited tendencies drive the condition more than hormonal changes alone.
How to Tell Your Hair Loss Is Genetic
While nutrient deficiencies, medical conditions, or hormonal changes can provoke your hair thinning, specific symptoms will help you identify genetic hair loss.
- The most significant indicator of genetic hair loss is a family history of thinning hair or baldness.
- Gradual onset, often beginning in the late teens to early twenties for men and later for women.
- If you’re a man, you’ll experience a receding hairline and bald spots.
- For a female, you experience a pattern causing thinning hair along the crown of the scalp.
- Hair miniaturization, where strands become progressively thinner over time
- No obvious triggers like childbirth, iron deficiency, or medication side effect
- Negative pull test where hairs resist extraction versus positive test signaling detachment
- Increased shedding of thin, short hairs indicating a high telogen rate
- Your hair becomes resistant to your hair product, realizing they no longer work as effectively as they once did
These indicators aren’t definitive but can suggest an inherited genetic origin. You’ll need to seek professional evaluation to help confirm a diagnosis. Targeted treatment can help slow down hair loss progression.
Hair Transplants and Genetic Compatibility
Your genetic makeup does influence potential success and limitations with hair transplants. Hence, you need to evaluate inherited hair characteristics that will provide you with valuable insight.
See our article about hair transplants for women.
Some key genetic factors hair transplant surgeons assess include;
Hair Caliber
Hair caliber refers to the thickness of each strand. Your follicles produce hair shafts of varying widths, similar to thread thickness. Thicker strands with higher caliber tend to be associated with more resilient hair that better withstands transplant procedures.
Conversely, delicate, wispy hairs with low caliber are more vulnerable to damage during transplantation. Their slender shafts don’t readily establish blood supply again after being moved. Low caliber hair also faces challenges growing through the recipient’s scalp after transplant.
Overall, high caliber donor hairs have higher survival and longevity rates once transplanted. Thin, brittle hair will likely yield lower transplant success and require more delicate handling.
Hair Density
Hair density indicates the number of follicles present per square centimeter of the scalp. We all have varying follicle densities ranging from low to medium to high.
Higher donor density means more total grafts can be harvested for transplantation since more hairs populate a given area. Lower density restricts the maximum grafts available for transplanting.
It’s ideal for a transplant candidate to have both high caliber and high density hair. This combination provides thick, robust strands in abundant numbers for transplanting. Lower density limits a surgeon’s graft supply despite caliber.
Growth Rate
Do you have fast-growing hair? Your donor area recovers lickety-split for the next transplant session. Slow growers make the surgeon wait longer between sessions so the area refills.
Quick-growing hair allows more sessions closer together to get all the transplants done faster. There is no rush for slowpokes – spacing it out avoids overharvesting mid-growth.
Speedy hair growth totally optimizes the timeline. The surgeon can stretch more sessions across less total time.
Growth Phase
The hair growth cycle has four phases. Growing (Anagen Phase), transition(Catagen Phase), resting (Telogen Phase), and shedding (Exogen Phase) phases. Hairs spend different amounts of time in action versus taking a break. Long growing equals more hair hanging around.
When the growth phase is maxed out, transplanted strands stick around the longest before shedding. Short phrases mean new grafts shed quicker since the hairs rapidly go off duty.
Of course, transplanted hair sheds a bit eventually – it’s normal. But if the growing phase is nice and long, you get to enjoy each graft for the maximum time.
DHT Sensitivity
If DHT doesn’t bug your transplanted hair, they’ll thrive forever. But if you’re sensitive, the new hairs slowly thin out, too, over time.
Getting tested shows if you’re DHT-resistant. Low sensitivity means transplants will retain well. High sensitivity indicates gradual thinning of transplanted hairs, too.
Understand your genetics to set expectations. Meds like finasteride can reduce DHT where needed.
Regaining Control From Genetic Hair Loss
So you’re losing your hair, and it runs in the family. I get it. Bad hair genes stink. But having a bald spot in your DNA doesn’t mean you’re powerless. There are things you can do to fight back against what your genetics are trying to do to your hair.
Let me break it down nicely and easily.
Understanding Your Genetic Profile
Talk to your parents, grandparents, or any family relatives and find out who went bald and when. You know what can help you even more: Looking at old photos. Go on and ask them about possible age and rate of onset. This will help you and your doctor understand how your hair loss might progress based on your family background. You can even get tests done to learn your hair’s sensitivities.
Besides your hair loss history, ensure you know hair characteristics, growth patterns, and DHT sensitivity. This way, you can come up with a game plan to tackle the possibility of genetic hair loss.
Seeking Professional Guidance
You can regain control of genetic hair loss by seeking professional guidance.
Consult A Dermatologist
See a skin doctor to diagnose what’s causing your hair to thin out. Blood tests can check if you lack nutrients that keep hair healthy. Some genes make your follicles extra sensitive to DHT hormones that shrink hair. Your doctor can discuss medicines that may slow down what your DNA is trying to do.
Get a Genetic Hair Testing
You can also get a genetic test to uncover the specifics of your hair loss profile. Some genetics scan your DNA for over 200 genetic markers linked to hair loss to predict progressive loss patterns years before onset. The test results provide insights into factors like;
- Sensitivity to DHT hormones that shrink hair follicles
- Characteristics like hair caliber and growth cycle dynamics
- Rate of miniaturization and progression of loss over time
- Expected degree or severity of balding with age
- Likelihood of success with medications like finasteride and how you may respond to certain treatments
- Projected timeline and degree of future loss
These genetic insights allow you to create customized, proactive treatment plans to help counteract your genetic predispositions.
Personalized Treatment Plans
When you understand your genetic profile and hair loss pattern, it’s time to decide on a personalized treatment plant. Will a transplant work for you? Go for it. Your doctor will consider your family history, hair characteristics, DHT sensitivity, and other genetic factors.
These custom insights will help your doctor design a treatment approach aligned with your unique needs. They’ll set realistic goals based on your tendencies. This way, you can maximize your genetic odds against hair loss.
Medical Interventions
Medications like finasteride can help block DHT production to curb genetic hair loss, especially if started early. Your doctor may also suggest supplements like biotin or laser light therapy to stimulate follicles.
And, of course, transplants remain an excellent option to permanently restore areas of permanent loss with your own resistant hair. Understand all the medical options that work with your genetics to recover your hair.
Lifestyle and Nutritional Support
While genes primarily drive hair loss, lifestyle habits also support hair health. Eating a balanced diet with sufficient protein, iron, vitamins, and minerals provides important building blocks for growth. Ask your doctor if any deficiencies might be accelerating your genetic loss. Adding more hair-healthy foods can give your genetics a nutritional boost.
Additionally, reducing stress through techniques like meditation, exercise, or counseling helps avoid excess shedding. Taking good care of yourself gives your hair its best shot against genetic odds.
Embracing Self-Confidence
Regardless of your genetic odds, self-acceptance is so important. At the end of the day, you must work with the hair DNA you were born with.
Instead of getting bummed, focus on self-care and owning your look with confidence. Hair loss is just a natural part of life, not your worth. Focus your energy on rocking your authentic self with pride. Define your confidence by your character, values, and relationships – not simply hair.
Get Your Hair Back with Transplants
So you want more hair up top? There are a couple of types of transplants that can make that happen by moving hair from parts of your scalp that are still hairy to the balding spots. The fancy names are FUE and FUT.
FUE Transplants
With FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction), the doctor takes single hair follicles from the back and sides of your head one by one using a special tool. Taking each follicle individually like this is more gentle. Once the follicles are removed, the doctor carefully plants each of them in the balding area you want covered with more hair. With FUE hair transplants, new hair grows because those transplanted follicles are programmed in your genes to keep producing hair for life.
FUT Transplants
FUT (Follicular Unit Transplantation) is similar but starts by removing a strip of skin from the hairy part of your head. That skin has many hair follicles, which are then separated and implanted into the thinning spots. A FUT hair transplant takes out a bigger area at once, which is faster. But it leaves a scar where the strip was removed.
Either way, as long as the transplanted hair is genetically resistant to the balding process, it will keep growing hair permanently in the new location. That’s because transplants move the lifelong hair-producing parts of your skin to parts pre-programmed by your genes to lose hair. The key is knowing which option works best for your head.
Conclusion
Inherited genetics play a defining role in pattern hair loss risk and treatment options. But a growth mindset, early intervention, and smart lifestyle adjustments allow us to influence outcomes for the better.
While our DNA seems fixed, our power to minimize its impact remains flexible. Know your tendencies and understand limitations, but don’t resign yourself to fate. You can rewrite the story. Contact us at Philadelphia Hair Restoration to learn more about our treatments.
