Until now, we had managed to link alopecia to a small group of genes. However, research carried out by scientists at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) has discovered a total of 287 genes involved in the possibility of developing baldness. The study has been published in the journal PloS Genetics.
This is the largest study on the relationship between hair loss and genetics thanks to information from the UK Biobank.
The researchers examined the genetic and health data of 52,874 people (British white men between the ages of 40 and 69) , with a mean age of 57.2 years. Of all of them, 16,724 (31.6%) did not have hair loss, 12,135 (23.0%) suffered mild hair loss; 14,234 men (26.9%) suffered moderate hair loss and finally 9,781 (18.5%) severely lost hair.
They finally managed to locate up to 287 genetic regions involved in the structure and development of hair ; Most are part of non-sex chromosomes, but certainly a substantial part (13 genes) belongs to the X chromosome, which males inherit from their mothers.
To achieve this conclusion, the experts analyzed the genetic variants associated with male baldness, both early and late baldness, thanks to genome-wide association studies , which allow examining genetic variations throughout the genome in order to locate their association with an observable trait.
They designed a formula that was able to identify people predisposed to developing severe baldness based on the presence or absence of certain genetic markers in their DNA. However, these are not individualized predictions, but rather the establishment of population subgroups in which the danger of hair loss is significantly higher than in others. Despite the limitations of the study (not being able to make an exact individualized prediction), this is a breakthrough in understanding the genetic architecture of male pattern baldness.
