Hair loss, men and heads.

[spainlads]

This maybe a simple question, but why, when men loss hair it's only on their heads - and not the rest of the body.

[lastchance]

We all know men can't multi-task, so therefore when it starts to sprout from thier ears and nose it has to stop growing somewhere else!

[funkymoped]

i read somewhere that the gene responsable for baldness is passed to the child from the mother...

cant answer the question, but every little bit of info can bring the answer a little bit closer.

[steviep165]

hhmmmm, bit skeptical about that funky.
my mams side of the family all have full heads of hair and her mam and dad are in their 70's and 80's.
my dad however does not. damn him.

[David H]

They have half the answer. Testosterone is converted in the body to dihydrotestosterone. Both men and women can be born to be auto-immune to it in the hair follicles, but few women secrete much so remains unnoticed.
The hairs on the head are only sensitive in the front and back in most men so they die off gradually leaving the unaffected sides. That is why hair transplanted from those areas lasts for life.
Unfotunately they haven't found a drug that mops up this totally useless hormone so it never reaches the follicles but hopefully they will.

[steviep165]

so this hormone makes you go bald. is this an evolutionary thing since we came down from the trees? thats taking evolution too far if it is!!
does it hold true to darwins theory of evolution or is it more a stephen j gould punctuated equilibrium kind of affair?

[spudqueen]

In the case of Mr Spudqueen and his brother it would seem that the hair loss gene has been passed down through their mother, unfortunately they look just like her brothers who in turn look just like their Dad - in fact we call them the clones!

[Birt]

At a certain age some men experience what is known as reversal of growth syndrome. This is a genetic disorder that causes hair to stop growing where it is supposed to grow and to grow where it is not supposed to grow. So the hair protruding from mens ears and nostrils is actually head hair that has been affected by this syndrome.