How big of a role are Genetics in Hair Loss?

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i believe genetics determines the shape u will go bald in, but i believe environment /diet etc determines the rate it will occurr.

theres also legitimite scientific proof that genetic mutations can be handed down generation to generation, so u could be perfectly healthy, but have genetic mutations or epigenetic traits such as incorrect methylation patterns and micro RNA caused by things ur parents or grandparents ate, or were exposed to.

if u dont believe me, look up a utube video called 'a tale of two mice', which deals with the agouti mouse which is a obese mouse with yellow fur caused by PBA exposure generations ago. Exposure not only changed the mice but changed the offspring and their offspring.

so i beileve genetics plays a major part, but that doesnt mean u cant change back the mutations by correcting lifestyle diet and environmental exposures , but it may not benefit u, just future generations.

Genetics will determine the number and distribution of androgen receptors in the scalp, which play a role as mediators of inflammation. They can both incite it and be upregulated by inflammation. Genetics and exposure in infancy have a close relationship in determining your innate immune system which plays a big role in the inflammation of hair loss. The way your body metabolizes sugars and fats plays a massive role in how your diet affects your gut and liver, subsequently effecting fat/cholesterol metabolism. Hampering this pathway leads to inflammation and immune reactivity that cause hairloss. CS just put up a very interesting article on this process in a specific condition a couple days ago.

I think genetics plays a very, very large role. But there are obviously things that can be done to help mitigate this. Eat a diet that helps to raise SHBG, optimize the thyroid whose hormone is needed for proper conversion of the sex hormones through the proper pathways, eat a proper diet that doesn't inflame the gut and preserves the barrier while allowing the right flora to flourish, balance your blood sugar, get plenty of sleep and exercise to minimize stress and optimize body composition, detox, use supplements to battle chronic inflammation. There's a lot that can be done because the gene isn't the be all, end all.

We know that communications between DNA and the environment are not simply one way. Genes help to create a vehicle that better responds to the environment, and that environment sends chemical signals to those genes, either causing them to be expressed or not. So becoming conscious of our ability to control our environment, to some extent we become controllers of our own genetic code, at least to the extent that we are able to provide it the optimum environment and guide the expression of genes that increase our survivability. Ancestral man was not able to so closely control his environment, he was most responsive, where we can take action. I mean, its kind of mind boggling that we can control our environment on a molecular level. Ancestral man ate what was available, we can take specific supplements with specific effects on specific receptors and genes. The possibilities are huge. But unfortunately, looking at our society, it would appear we are de-evolving instead of using this to our benefit.

My question is, is the top of our head the only place where these androgen receptors exist? I mean, aren't there receptors, say, in our armpits? 
I'm not an expert by any means, and I am here to learn, but it seems to me like your armpit papilla should have androgen receptors, since they react to androgens when we hit puberty... Why don't we bald in our armpits?

Very good point Slowmoe, I would love to hear what cs or jpd thinks about this...

Although a seemingly obvious point, it is true that nobody has discussed the fact that people rarely bald in the pubic regions, certainly not in the same way MPB affects the scalp, and that these regions ONLY grow hair with the arrival or androgens/hormonal reaction of puberty.
The only explanation i can see is that the armpits and genital are position in areas that are much more likely to get strong blood flow....

Obviously, like i say in my other posts, if i'm wrong go easy on me, i'm just trying to figure this out

Slemoe, look at where we bald and where we don't, its the underlying depth of fat and other tissues that's the difference, the Yale study also alludes to it being protective. The balding parts of the scalp are closest to the bone and thus will be the Canaries in the coalmine, the first to go. This is all talked about in the thread I started a couple weeks back, pathology is never just as simple as a one variable equation.

So can stimulating blood flow to the scalp increase the amount of fat and other tissues needed that prevent other areas from going bald?

It has always puzzled me as to why indigenous tribes rarely suffer from balding, yet pay very little attention to their hair; i'm sure they can't nip down to their local store to get boar bristle brushes... now i'm sure that some of them must convert T into DHT and that this can't be a phenomenon reserved for the western world, so what gives?

Could it be that their circulatory system is far superior to sedentary populations? They are always moving, pumping blood around their bodies, and live in an environment where organic food is the only option, thus making the blood a much higher quality.

schpiloch123 wrote:So can stimulating blood flow to the scalp increase the amount of fat and other tissues needed that prevent other areas from going bald?

It has always puzzled me as to why indigenous tribes rarely suffer from balding, yet pay very little attention to their hair; i'm sure they can't nip down to their local store to get boar bristle brushes... now i'm sure that some of them must convert T into DHT and that this can't be a phenomenon reserved for the western world, so what gives?

Could it be that their circulatory system is far superior to sedentary populations? They are always moving, pumping blood around their bodies, and live in an environment where organic food is the only option, thus making the blood a much higher quality.

Good points. Also, their stress level is far lower, I'm sure, so their scalps may not get near as tight, in general, as westerners. I mean, my scalp can get really, really tight when I get stressed out. I have also noticed that the tighter the skin on my scalp, the worse the hairloss. I mean EXACTLY where my hair becomes full, the skin is loose. I also noticed that there does not seem to be a fatty layer beneath the skin where hair loss is occurring. Also, virtually every bald scalp I see is extremely tight and shiny. No where else on the body do you find tight shiny skin, and no where else on the body do you have bald spots. Hell of a coincidence.

So if the hair on our head contains the SAME androgen receptors and is exposed to the SAME DHT as out armpit hairs, then it seems reasonable to assume that restoring circulation/ fatty tissue to the scalp is the key to reversing hairloss, since balding skin has a little to no fatty tissue, and only 40% of the blood supply as scalps where there is no MPB. Are there any other ways that scalp hair may differ from other androgen sensitive hair?

Also, women have shitty diets, just as much as men do, but they take care of their hair way more than men, and their scalps are loose as f&^k.

Its rare to find a woman brushing her scalp, but their long hair is constantly being pulled if its up in a pony tail. For example the other night my gf who had been at work all day with her hair tied up (not ridiculously tight or anything) immediately removed it when she got home and was complaining about how much it hurt, and how relaxed letting her hair down made her, and her scalp, feel... maybe those little things are the difference between men and women and hairloss.

Its no coincidence that men who take care of their hair like women do, keep their hair.

schpiloch123 wrote:Also, women have shitty diets, just as much as men do, but they take care of their hair way more than men, and their scalps are loose as f&^k.

Its rare to find a woman brushing her scalp, but their long hair is constantly being pulled if its up in a pony tail. For example the other night my gf who had been at work all day with her hair tied up (not ridiculously tight or anything) immediately removed it when she got home and was complaining about how much it hurt, and how relaxed letting her hair down made her, and her scalp, feel... maybe those little things are the difference between men and women and hairloss.

Its no coincidence that men who take care of their hair like women do, keep their hair.

Yeah, that's a good point.

JDP has posted on this in the past and quite thoroughly. Although our parents may have a certain disease, health condition or baldness etc, this does not mean we will get it IF and a BIG IF we keep our bodies running at a high level. Maybe Jdp will chime in but that's the layman version of it.

http://xenopus.rockefeller.edu/publications/125.pdf