Why do men have receding hairlines and pattern baldness, while women do not?
In: 58
Gender-pattern baldness / GPB is affected by many factors, including several different genes that are located nowhere near each other on our DNA.
It just so happens that one of the more significant genetic markers for this happens to be carried on the X-chromosome, specifically. This means that, since men tend to have only one X-chromosome while women tend to have two, women can have one X-chromosome “for” GPB, and their other X-chromosome “against” it. Men, with XY-genetics, only have the single X-chromosome (inherited specifically from their mother, incidentally — which leads to a lot of mother-to-son inheritance traits, including but not limited to GPB) so a man only has the single version of the gene whichever they got.
Men have a greater concentration of androgen that is toxic to hair follicle – at a certain dose. Since its evident not all men suffer from this, the question is what causes that higher dose?
We may have found that answer recently. Women do also suffer from forms of alopecia later in life. One such lady went in for some botox treatment on her scalp and then noticed some immediate regrown. So now the guess is since that botox is able to paralyze the nerves for muscles, it relaxed the strain of the skin being pulled over the skull.
This in turn increased the amount of bloodflow to the area. The concentration of androgen to blood would have lowered.
Women do, it just used to be a lot less common.
A middle-aged woman friend of ours has pretty severe pattern baldness.
Make pattern baldness is caused largely by the active form of testosterone, DHT. In women, androgens mainly turn into estrogens rather than DHT.
As others have mentioned, it’s the abundance of testosterone. The more testosterone the more likely to go bald. With women who have PCOS this can happen to them as well, in most instances in women with PCOS they have very high testosterone and may experience male pattern baldness and facial hair growth as well.
Latest Answers