How your height can determine if you'll go bald

pulse

March 10, 2017 2:31 PM

Find out if your stature is hinting at a hairless future.

Men of varying height.

More than 50 percent of all men experience some degree of male-pattern baldness—the receding of hair that thins first above the temples, then the crown, forming an “M” shape—by age 50, according to the National Institutes of Health.

So how likely are you to start losing your hair?

There are a lot of factors that may influence your risk of baldness, but researchers just discovered a surprising one that you may be able to gauge just by looking in the mirror: your height.

After researchers in Germany studied the genetic makeup of about 11,000 men with premature balding and 12,000 men with full heads of hair, they discovered 63 alterations in DNA that can raise your risk of baldness.

In particular, they found that four locations on DNA linked shorter body height to an increased risk of male pattern baldness.

The link between baldness and short stature isn’t clear, but the researchers theorize that it might be due to an accelerated progression of puberty when they were younger, as well as the earlier fusing of growth plates in their bones.

The researchers also found a link between male pattern baldness and pale skin, as well as to conditions like prostate cancer, sudden cardiac arrest,and neurodegenerative disorders.

Still, there’s a lot researchers don’t know about the link between baldness and these other conditions.

More research needs to be done to tease out the common link—but until then, balding men don’t need to be concerned, lead researcher Markus Nöthen said in a press release.

This increased risk of these conditions is quite small.

In the meantime, you can work on keeping the head of hair that you still have.

Try these 5 methods for stopping hair loss —and possibly even growing some back.

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