It's complicated otherwise

we would have fixed it by now because it's basically the holy grail of beauty.

But lots of different factors affect whether or not you end up with a shiny bald head

But mainly it has to do with two things.

Hormones and genetics. Hormones are involved because they affect how your hair grows more specifically, you can blame

Testosterone because balding happens when hair follicles turn it into Dihydrotestosterone, or DHT.

Scientists don't know exactly why, but

DHT makes certain hair follicles start to shrink as they get smaller, the hair gets thinner and

Eventually the follicle stops producing hair entirely

Males typically have plenty of testosterone which explains why balding affects biosex males more than females.

In what's known as male pattern baldness.

Hair loss starts at the temples in the top of the forehead and at the top of the scalp.

Eventually the receding hairline meets the growing bald patch but biosex females produce testosterone, too.

Just a lot less of it, and they make enough estrogen to mask its effects.

After menopause, Estrogen production slows,

but they're still producing about the same amount of testosterone, so that's when the hair starts to get thinner.

With female pattern baldness it's more of an evenly distributed thinning of the hair across the scalp without much of a receding hairline.

So how do you figure out whether hair loss is in your future?

Well, that is more complicated,

and there's a lot that we still don't know.

Mainly it seems to be tied to genetics and researchers have pinpointed a few different genes

that might be involved.

Some of these genes are on the x chromosome which explains

why males are so much more likely to go bald than females.

Males get only one x

chromosome so whatever version of the gene they inherit on that chromosome is going to be expressed.

Females on the other hand have two x chromosome

So there's more of a chance that they'll inherit a non balding version of a gene from one of their parents.

Studies have shown that there are other genes on non x chromosomes involved too, like one genetic variant on Chromosome 20 which made males

7x more likely to go bald but for some reason doesn't seem to influence whether females experience hair loss.

So there are a lot of different pieces to this balding puzzle,

which is why we haven't figured it out yet.

But if you don't like the new look, there are some drugs that can help .Finasteride for instance works by blocking production of DHT and

Minoxidil increases blood flow to hair follicles and widens them, helping hair grow.

Of course you could also just embrace your newfound

resemblance to Jon Luc Picard it did pretty well for himself.

Thanks for Patreon Patron Dafur for asking us this question.

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