Video Transcript
What causes hair loss in men? Well, if you want to boil it down to two main factors, it’s genetics and testosterone. Of course, other things can play into this such as stress and malnutrition. However, you want to consider over 90% of men is genetics and testosterone.
Starting with testosterone, how does this work? Remember that testosterone can bind to your hair follicles, and when it does so it causes your hair follicles to decrease in size over time, leading to the appearance of thinning hair. How does genetics play into this? Well, on your head, you have two different types of skin and hair that come from different parts of the embryo. The skin down the middle, from your forehead to your crown, comes from one part of the embryo and the skin in back and your sides comes from different parts of the embryo.
Now, this is important because some of those hairs have testosterone receptors and some don’t. The ones down the middle do have testosterone receptors. That means that testosterone can bind to them, causing them to decrease in size over time, giving the appearance of thinning. However, the hairs on the back and side of the head do not have these receptors and tend not to exhibit hair loss.
Your genetics play into this because it tells us which of those hairs are going to have receptors, which ones aren’t and what the density of receptors are going to be. If you have receptors only in the temporal area but they’re high density, someone with temporal recession that comes relative early in life. However, if you have someone with low density of testosterone receptors throughout the top, you might see that they have a full pattern in male pattern baldness, but it could take a longer period of time.
There you have it. It’s testosterone and genetics. Genetics makes you susceptible to hair loss because it provides a receptor for testosterone to bind to causing the degradation process of your hair follicles.
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