Is hair loss hereditary?

16th October 2019

How often have you been told that if you’d like an idea of how your hair might end up looking in future, that you should take a look at your mother’s side of the family? It’s a very common misconception that the genes for pattern baldness are passed down from the mother’s side – hair loss can actually be linked to genes from both parents.

Pattern baldness is caused by a sensitivity to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), an androgen (sex hormone) that causes the hair follicles to shrink. The androgen receptor gene is behind the receptor on your hair follicles that interacts with the DHT – and if your receptors are particularly sensitive, it can cause hair loss. Now, this gene is found on the X chromosome – the female chromosome – which is why it’s assumed that it’s passed down through the mother’s side.

There are, in fact, around 200 genes that are involved in regulating hair growth, meaning that DNA does play a big part in pattern baldness, but it’s not just down to one specific balding gene. That’s not to say that if your parents are a little thin on top that you will definitely be, too, but it can be suggestive of your predisposition to future hair loss.

There’s no definitive age when male pattern baldness will start creeping in – even if your father’s hairline started receding at 20, it doesn’t mean that yours will necessarily follow suit – but around a third of men will experience some hair loss in their thirties, creeping up by around ten per cent for each decade. Hair loss can be extremely gradual, but the biggest giveaway of pattern baldness is a receding hairline and thinning temples.

Of course, you can’t change your genes, but if you do start to notice significant hair loss, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do something about it. There’s no cure for pattern baldness, but it can be managed successfully in many people. Medications such as Propecia, a medicine that arrests further hair loss and strengthens existing hair, and Regaine, a topical treatment that stimulates hair growth, can both be highly effective, as can other non-surgical treatments like low-level laser therapy and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy.

If your hair loss looks set to be significant and you’d like a permanent solution, a hair transplant could be for you – we don’t recommend them in younger men, as the hair loss should be more established to ensure the best possible results, but it can be a very effective treatment for those with pattern baldness.

We may not be able to predict what the future holds for our hair, but we can help restore it to its former glory! If it’s something you’ve been considering, why not book in for a free consultation?

HairClone: is the concept the future of hair restoration?

25th October 2019

Earlier this year, we announced HairClone, the world’s first follicle bank. It’s an innovative new technology that allows patients to preserve their hair follicles for future use, with the intention of making hair loss a thing of the past.

The process kicks off with a consultation, where a surgeon will assess the patient to decide if they are a suitable candidate for the procedure. If they’re given the green light, the surgeon will extract around 100 hair follicles via FUE, which will then be cryopreserved in a storage facility at -100°c. Then, when the patient starts to notice early hair loss in the future, they will be able to return to the clinic, after cells from the follicles have been multiplied in the lab, ready to be injected into the scalp to promote thickening thinning hairs.

The most common type of hair loss in both men and women is androgenetic alopecia, otherwise known as pattern baldness, which will affect around two-thirds of men and half of women during their lifetimes. The HairClone banking system can be seen as an insurance policy for later life – no-one can ever be sure how their hair loss will progress, so having the follicles banked means that they are there as and when they are needed.

As it stands, hair transplants are the only sure way to grow hairs in bald scalp, and the most successful treatment. However, there are a few limitations to the surgery. Hair transplants are not recommended for patients who have only just started to notice hair loss. This is because we won’t have a clear enough idea of how the hair loss will look in the future – for example, say someone had grafts around their hairline, but then the surrounding hair fell out years later. This would lead to a patchy, uneven result. With HairClone’s future cell therapy, the treatment can be started at any age – you don’t need to wait until the hair loss is more advanced.

Another factor is that donor hair is limited, so young people who undergo hair transplants may find they don’t have enough viable hair to keep up with the hair loss. However, hair limitation isn’t a concern with HairClone, as the multiplication process can create as many hair cells to keep thickening thinning hairs as needed.

This potential treatment isn’t a one-off fix though. Although only one initial extraction of 100 hair follicles will be needed, as all future follicles will come from the original banked follicles, we expect that the treatment will need to be repeated around once every three years or so until complete hair loss stability is achieved.

The banking service itself costs around £2,500 and the storage fee approximately £100 per year – the actual treatments of multiplied cell injections is anticipated to cost the same as a medium hair transplant operation.

HairClone has been in existence for 3 years during which a huge amount of research and development has taken place, however the founders have been involved in the hair cell regeneration field for more than 15 years. Already HairClone has a number of clinical partners around the globe where patients can seek advice and be able to bank their hairs. We may still be in relatively early stages, but there are some pioneering new ideas already in the pipeline – it’ll help bring us ever closer to making hair loss history.