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The story
A Nikkan Gendai article reporting that “thinning hair isn’t just inherited from the mother’s side” sparked a wave of pet theories on a 5ch news thread about what really causes hair loss. Conventional wisdom has long pointed to the mother’s bloodline as the main culprit, but the article’s suggestion that fathers play a role too split opinion between genetics and lifestyle habits. The thread mixed posts citing water hardness and regional differences, others blaming improper shampoo rinsing, and others pointing to celebrity examples — theories of wildly varying credibility.
Is “baldness comes from the mother’s side” outdated? The surprising truth about inheriting thinning hair from your father | Nikkan Gendai DIGITAL
Published: 11/13/26 06:00 Updated: 11/13/26 06:00
“My dad’s bald, but my grandpa on my mom’s side has a full head of hair. So I’ll be fine.”
Source: nikkan-gendai.com / Original article here
What people said
it's karma for your junk-food diet and never rinsing your shampoo out properly.
Baldness is genetic —
there are tons of homeless guys out there with full heads of hair.
There were guys living the same lifestyle and using the same shampoo at a facility I knew — one had a full head of hair, the other was bald. Even after five-plus years, the full-haired guy stayed full-haired and the bald guy stayed bald, so I'd say it's pretty clearly genetic.
There was even a guy in his 80s with a thick head of black hair, barely any gray, who said, "Everyone in my family's like this, so it must be genetic. Not having to dye it is nice and easy."
Natural disasters and baldness both strike without warning.
How old are you?
Baldness can hit fast.
Just accept it, man. We're all in this together, right?
I'm the only bald one in my whole family.
Water hardness.
There's less thinning hair in soft-water regions and more in hard-water regions.
Take Spain, for example — hard-water Barcelona versus soft-water Basque Country.
The Netherlands has a lot of thinning hair, right?
Japan's tap water apparently has its hardness adjusted, but within Japan, the Kanto region has harder water, doesn't it?
Even so, you can feel the difference moving from western Japan to Kanto.
Just get a hair transplant already.
Sounds like Ishida Issei (actor) got 2,300 grafts done for 2-3 million yen and it fixed him right up.
I doubt 2,300 grafts gets you a full head of hair —
apparently you shed about 100 hairs a day on average.
You bald guys better not have kids.
Can you say that to Prince William's face too?
Unless baldness gets weeded out of the direct bloodline, the tragedy just keeps repeating.
baldness is fate.
My younger brother is nearly 60 and still hasn't gone bald at all.
I'm the only one who went bald, in my early 30s.
So it must be some kind of punishment.
It's not just "probably" — I've seen it firsthand: guys who go bald young are basically always good-looking.
Guys who go bald old tend to be plain-looking, so depending on whether they've built up wealth, status, or honor by then, the worst kind of hell awaits them.
You're clearly the former type — you've got that air of a top-tier bald guy living his best life.
Honestly it just stirs up pure hostility in me (´・ω・｀)
Kusakari Masao.
Wasn't Takeshi Kaneshiro going bald too…?
No, no, that's not it, that's NOT it!
Listen up, listen carefully!!
Guys who go bald young are mostly good-looking, guys who go bald old are mostly plain.
You shouldn't be judging this on a "pitiful or not" scale — the basic thing to understand first is that it's a society where, if you're young, you can still get by on looks, but if you're old and bald, whether you're desirable comes down to the assets, honor, connections, and status you can bring to the table.
That's exactly why there's a whole swarm of companies falling over themselves to cater to people chasing hair-thickening treatments or transplants.
But hold on. First figure out which type of baldness you are (broadly: young-bald or old-bald).
Understanding that before you grow out your hair or spend your money will absolutely get you better results — first grasp your situation, set a clear policy and goal, and only then does your real "hair journey" begin. No doubt about it ☺
Eventually there'll probably be a bald-guy trend too, within the next 100 years or so… though by then baldness might already be curable.
Hope iPS cell research gets on that soon — not that I'd really know.
Curing baldness is the same kind of problem as making yourself taller —
it's not something that gets solved in a mere 100 years.
Actually, the real reason those guys keep their hair is that they don't wash it.
Washing your hair with shampoo every day accelerates baldness.
Though I guess that's kind of a taboo thing to say.
So washing it every day is actually bad? But if I don't wash it much, it sheds and gets dry and frizzy…
Honestly, hair length and patience seem linked — bald guys get angry easily. The men on my dad's side are all short-tempered, the type who just suddenly snap.
Stress-related hair loss grows back.
AGA (male pattern baldness) doesn't.
With stress, some other physical symptom usually shows up too, and the hair loss follows as a result.
With AGA, there's no other symptom at all — the hair just falls out and never grows back.
so everyone, watch how hard you tease bald guys.
Strongly agree — bump it up, baldy! (a pun on "禿同"/"hagedou," 2ch slang for "strongly agree")
Nice work there, Kumquat-head. ("kinkan-head" is slang for a shiny bald head, like a kumquat)
Ever since I started only washing it once a month, my hair loss went down.
Tough to pull off if you're not working from home, though.
https://images5.imagebam.com/ab/f3/c2/ME1EIBYA_o.png
You get double the dose inherited from your mother.
https://images5.imagebam.com/ab/f3/c2/ME1EIBYA_o.png
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Male pattern baldness (AGA) is believed to be strongly influenced by the androgen receptor gene located on the X chromosome, and since the X chromosome is inherited only from the mother, the conventional wisdom that “baldness comes from the mother’s side” became widespread. Recent research, however, has pointed to genes from the father and multiple other genetic factors as also playing a role in hair loss, and the original article appears to address this point. Within the thread, some comments make medically reasonable points — such as distinguishing stress-related hair loss from AGA — while others, like the folk theory linking water hardness to hair loss, rest on thin evidence; it’s hard to tell from the article alone which claims are actually backed by evidence. A perspective that doesn’t casually conflate genetic factors with lifestyle factors is needed.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Is “baldness comes from the mother’s side” outdated? The surprising truth about inheriting thinning hair from your father.”
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