Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => That CAN'T be true! => Topic started by: Super Hans on 09/05/2013 02:09:20
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This is a statement I pulled from Yahoo answers, is it true?
"The gene for baldness is on the X chromosome. As a guy, you inherited your Y from your dad and your X from your mom. But she inherited one X from her mom and one from her dad. If you got the X that she got from your maternal grandfather, then you will have his pattern of baldness."
Now my maternal grandfather isn't bald, but my dad is. I look a lot like my dad I'm just hoping I didn't inherit his bald gene.
Is the statement true?
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It is certainly true that the original questioner is hoping that he didn't inherit his father's bald gene! [;D]
The rest of the answer is certainly also true, provided that the father's baldness is genetic in origin. There is a proviso for other causes of baldness, e.g. psoriasis, which might have a completely different genetic pattern.
http://www.psoriasis.org/about-psoriasis/science-of-psoriasis
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It sounds like the baldness hereditary is complicated, and likely involves several genes.
There is a strong link to generation skipping on the maternal line (X Chromosome). So, if your maternal grandfather was bald, your mother would carry the bald gene, and you would get a 50/50 chance of inheriting it.
However, notes indicate that a person also has a 2.5x greater chance of going bald if the father is bald, and perhaps also the paternal grandfather. I'm not seeing the exact numbers.
I'm not sure how X-Chromosome inactivation affects the baldness genes in women.
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Thanks for your replies. My Dad's brother isn't as bald as my dad, so I'm holding out some hope he was just a bit unlucky!
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What about your paternal grandfather?
Or your maternal grandfather?
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Have to say that i have the same pattern of shiny-headedness as my maternal uncles and maternal grandfather! My father (and paternal grandfather whislt he was alive) has far more hair than I or one of my elder brothers