Having a rough hair day?

Doctors believe bad hair days can be linked to your relatives after a recent study investigated hair follicles.

Investigators at the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that genetic variants can influence the hair follicles on your head, as SWNS, the British news service, reported. 

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Published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, the study included the examination of 2,149 Chinese people and the scalp 1,950 Chinese nationals’ scalps. 

Lead Investigator Dr. Sijia Wang studied the whorls on participants’ heads — known as patches growing in a circular pattern around one specific point, as SWNS indicated. 

"Hair whorl is one of the traits that we were curious about," he said. 

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"The prevailing opinion was that hair whorl direction is controlled by a single gene, exhibiting Mendelian inheritance," he recalled to SWNS, referencing a type of biological inheritance. 

These whorls have four genetic variants that can alter the appearance of hair. 

The point is dictated by the follicle orientation and easily can be identifiable between different people. 

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The patterns are then defined by whorl numbers, either single or double, and direction, either clockwise or counterclockwise, SWNS reported. 

In the study, Dr. Wang found that genetic variants did influence the hair whorl direction and follicle shape. 

In conclusion, investigators said that the way in which a person's hair lies on the head is rooted in genetics. 

"Our results demonstrate that hair whorl direction is influenced by the cumulative effects of multiple genes, suggesting a polygenic inheritance," he told SWNS. 

He also noted that no significant genetic associations were drawn "between hair whorl direction and behavioral, cognitive or neurological phenotypes."

More curiosity about this, he said, will continue to steer researchers in the future.