Is alopecia areata hereditary ?
It is possible, but not likely, for Alopecia Areata to be inherited. Most children with Alopecia Areata do not have a parent with the disease, and the vast majority of parents with Alopecia Areata do not pass it along to their children. Alopecia Areata is not like some genetic diseases in which a child has a 50-50 chance of developing the disease if one parent has it. Scientists believe that there may be a number of genes that predispose certain people to the disease. It is highly unlikely that a child would inherit all of the genes needed to predispose him or her to the disease. Even with the right (or wrong) combination of genes, Alopecia Areata is not a certainty. In identical twins, who share all of the same genes, the concordance rate is only 55 percent. In other words, if one twin has the disease, there is only a 55 percent chance that the other twin will have it as well. This shows that other factors besides genetics are required to trigger the disease. Will My Hair Ever Grow Ba
I am by no means an expert in the area of scalp conditions are dermatology but what I do know is that ALL the women in my husbands family have some form of alopecia. My husbands grandmother, his mother, his female cousins, my step-daughter and now my daughter (who is 9 months old). I noticed the thinning edges that his Mom and daughter had when we first started to date and I immediately prepared myself incase my child would inherit. My daughter has very full and thick hair, but her edges (above her ears) are very sparse. On a funny note, his grandmother accused me of making my daughters edges come out by putting her hair in pigtails. She obviously has no clue as to the condition becasue I mentioned it to her and she waved me off.
Yes, heredity plays a role. In one out of five persons with alopecia areata, someone else in the family also has it. Those who develop alopecia areata for the first time after the age of thirty years have less likelihood that another family member will have it. Those who develop their first patch of alopecia areata before the age of thirty have a higher possibility that other family members will also have it. Alopecia areata often occurs in families whose members have had asthma, hay fever, atopic eczema, or other autoimmune diseases such as thyroid disease, early-onset diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosus, vitiligo, pernicious anemia, or Addison’s disease.
