When it comes to hair loss in men, Male Pattern Baldness is unquestionably public enemy number one. By retirement age, men will be extremely lucky to enter their twilight years with a full head of hair.
Genetic or Male Pattern Hair Loss can strike susceptible men at any time from their teens, and will likely be running rampant through any “seniors” football team of men in their 40s and 50s. So it’s little wonder that the guessing game of who is likely to be affected by MPB is so enduring.
One of the most puzzling questions concerns whether it can skip generations. The general consensus is that if you want to know if you’re going to lose hair to hereditary hair loss, just look at your dad. If dad went bald at 25, many men think they will, too. But that really isn’t necessarily the case, as was recently explored in some detail in an article in the Huffington Post.
The writer wanted to know once and for all if Male Pattern Hair Loss could skip generations: could a father with a full head of hair in his 60s have a son in his 30s who had lost all his hair to Male Pattern Baldness? They asked Dr Alan J. Bauman, a hair restoration physician from Florida, for his verdict.
“There are over 200 genes that we’re aware of now that regulate hair and hair growth,” said Bauman. “Colour quality, texture, length of growth cycles, balding patterns, the speed of balding all of those put together will determine how quickly you see loss occur, how quickly it progresses and how long it will occur later in life.”
He went on to state quite categorically that pattern baldness could indeed skip generations, and also skip siblings. He said you should look at your whole family tree to create a more accurate picture of how likely you are to lose hair to MPB: “Siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles,” he says.
Having seen thousands of men who have lost hair to Male Pattern Baldness here at Belgravia, we would concur with Bauman. When speaking to clients about thinning hair in their family, we find that the picture is slightly different each time.
Although recent research discovered our fathers are more likely to carry, and therefore pass on, the genes responsible for androgenetic alopecia, they themselves may not show any signs of hair loss. However, when clients think back, genetic hair loss is always in the family history somewhere, even if it is not present in their parents or even grandparents.
Once they make the connection, it is not uncommon for men to feel a certain animosity towards this distant relative. But instead of feeling aggrieved at your family tree's cruel trick, a more sensible course of action would be to fight genetics with proven medical science and beat it at its own game.
Advances in medicine over the past decade mean that baldness due to Male Pattern Hair Loss is no longer inevitable to people with a propensity for it. A hair loss specialist has a whole range of treatment solutions which can help to stop hair falling out, and also to help new hair to regrow.
There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of documented cases of men whose hair loss, if left unchecked, would have left them almost completely bald by now, but who were able to stabilise their shedding and regrow hair with expert help and clinically-proven male hair loss treatments.
A number of examples of Belgravia clients who have done just that are documented in our Male Pattern Hair Loss Treatment Success Stories gallery.
To stay one step ahead of what your genes have in store, what’s probably better than playing Sherlock Holmes and rounding up pictures of your entire extended family is simply to keep an eye on your comb. MPB can be very gradual, and it’s possible for a man to lose half of his hair before he even notices that it appears thinner. The best clue to whether you are experiencing excessive shedding is the number of hairs you see on the comb or on the floor of the shower.
Belgravia offers a free consultation which can let you know if you are indeed losing hair to Male Pattern Baldness, or if there’s nothing to worry about. If it's the former, a personal treatment plan can be devised. If it's the latter, you can stop casting a nervous eye at the family photo of your shiny-headed great-grandfather and get on with your life.
The Belgravia Centre is a world-renowned group of a hair loss clinic in Central London, UK. If you are worried about hair loss you can arrange a free consultation with a hair loss expert or complete our Online Consultation from anywhere in the world for home-use treatment.
View our Hair Loss Success Stories, which includes the world's largest gallery of hair growth photos and demonstrates the level of success that so many of Belgravia's patients achieve.