💈 Male Hair Loss — What Blood Can and Cannot Tell You
♂ Built for men · 10 markers · $160.65
with code CAMERON $178.50
Men losing hair at the temples or the crown, men shedding diffusely across the whole scalp, and men who want the reversible causes excluded before committing to years of finasteride or minoxidil.
🩸 Order this exact panel — 10% off
All 10 markers load into your cart in one click. No doctor's visit, drawn at any Quest location in the US, results by email in about two weeks. Code CAMERON applies automatically.
Add all 10 markers — $160.65 → Open the full Bloodwork Vault →Why this panel
Male pattern hair loss is diagnosed by its pattern, not by a blood test, and the hormone results in a man with textbook androgenetic alopecia are almost always normal. That is exactly why this panel is worth buying and exactly why it is built the way it is: its job is to find the OTHER thing — the iron, thyroid or nutritional cause that produces diffuse shedding, responds to treatment, and is invisible unless somebody measures it.
What this panel can settle, and by what logic
Ten markers that answer the question blood can answer, which is not the question most men arrive with.
- The panel separates pattern loss from diffuse shedding, and it only investigates the second. Recession at the temples and thinning at the crown over years is androgenetic and diagnosed by pattern; hair coming out all over the scalp over weeks to months is telogen effluvium and has correctable causes. Management algorithms for male and female pattern hair loss treat that distinction as the first branch Singh 2021.
- Ferritin read against a hair threshold rather than an anemia one is the single most useful number here. The iron level at which follicles suffer sits well above the level that defines anemia, and the iron-related mechanisms in alopecia have been reviewed in their own right Lin 2023. The Iron Panel (Iron, TIBC, Transferrin Saturation) is beside it because saturation stays low when inflammation is holding ferritin up Luo 2023.
- TSH (Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone) with Free T4 (Thyroxine) covers both directions. Overactive and underactive thyroid both shed hair, and the hormonal contributions to non-scarring alopecia have been catalogued together Owecka 2024.
- Total Testosterone with SHBG (Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin) is a baseline, not a diagnosis. Its value is that it exists before you start or stop a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, because comparing to a remembered number is not comparing.
- Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy) and Zinc, Plasma cover the two nutritional associations with the most supporting data in the hormonal and nutritional review of non-scarring hair loss Owecka 2024.
- Complete Blood Count (CBC) with Differential and Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) are the systemic background any diffuse shedding has to be read against.
Total & Free DHT is deliberately not in this cart. In androgenetic alopecia the problem is follicular sensitivity rather than circulating hormone, so serum DHT is typically unremarkable and a normal result answers the wrong question for about a hundred dollars. There is one situation where it earns its place: measuring the fall after starting finasteride or dutasteride, where the two drugs produce markedly different degrees of suppression Almudimeegh 2024. Add it then, not now.
What it cannot settle, and what would
It cannot tell you whether your hair loss is androgenetic. That is a clinical assessment of pattern, ideally with dermoscopy, and a scalp biopsy in the unclear cases Singh 2021. A consensus approach to androgenetic alopecia is built on examination first and bloodwork as an adjunct Landells 2025.
It cannot distinguish scarring from non-scarring loss, and that distinction is urgent. Scarring alopecias destroy the follicle permanently, and the window in which treatment preserves anything is short. Redness, scaling, itching or smooth patches with no visible follicle openings is a dermatologist this month, not a panel.
It cannot see follicle miniaturization, which is the actual process of androgenetic alopecia and is visible on dermoscopy as varying hair shaft diameters Singh 2021.
And it cannot predict whether you will respond to treatment. Response to a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor is not forecast by any baseline hormone value; it is measured by standardized photographs at 6 and 12 months Almudimeegh 2024. Taking those photographs now is free and is the single most useful thing on this page.
Draw conditions that decide whether the money is wasted
Four conditions, and the biotin one is the most commonly broken.
- No biotin for 72 hours. Hair supplements are the largest single source of high-dose biotin, and it distorts the immunoassays used for TSH (Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone) and Free T4 (Thyroxine) in opposite directions on different platforms Li 2020. A hair supplement producing a fake thyroid diagnosis is the exact failure this line prevents.
- Stop iron and zinc for 5 to 7 days so the results read your stores rather than yesterday's capsule.
- Morning draw, fasted 9 to 12 hours, for the testosterone rhythm and the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP).
- Not within 2 to 3 weeks of an illness. Ferritin rises with inflammation and can hide the empty store that is the whole point of the panel Luo 2023.
How you would know it answered your question, and what each pattern means next
Four patterns and the timescale on which each would show it was right.
- Low Ferritin or low saturation with diffuse shedding: correct it and expect the shedding to settle over 3 to 6 months rather than weeks, because the hair cycle is slow Lin 2023. Recheck ferritin at 12 weeks.
- Raised TSH (Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone) with a low Free T4 (Thyroxine): a treatable cause Owecka 2024. Hair response follows thyroid correction by months, not weeks.
- Low Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy) or Zinc, Plasma alone: worth correcting on general grounds and a weak explanation by itself. If shedding continues after 3 months of repletion with a normal repeat level, it was not the cause.
- Everything normal with temporal recession: the expected result, and not a wasted panel. It moves the decision to whether to treat the pattern, with the reversible causes excluded rather than assumed Singh 2021Landells 2025.
Sources read for these sections
- Owecka B, et al. The Hormonal Background of Hair Loss in Non-Scarring Alopecias. Biomedicines 2024 · PMID 38540126
- Singh M, Acharya A. Overview and Algorithmic Approach to Management of Male and Female Pattern Hair Loss. Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery 2021 · PMID 34984079
- Lin CS, et al. Diagnosis and treatment of female alopecia: Focusing on the iron deficiency-related alopecia. Tzu Chi Medical Journal 2023 · PMID 38035053
- Landells I. A Canadian Consensus on Androgenetic Alopecia: Approach and Management.. J Cutan Med Surg 2025 · PMID 40986632
- Almudimeegh A. Comparison between dutasteride and finasteride in hair regrowth and reversal of miniaturization in male and female androgenetic alopecia: a systematic review.. Dermatol Reports 2024 · PMID 39749123
- Li D, Ferguson A, Cervinski MA, Lynch KL, Kyle PB. AACC Guidance Document on Biotin Interference in Laboratory Tests. J Appl Lab Med 2020 · PMID 32445355
- Luo H, et al. A Practical Guide to Adjust Micronutrient Biomarkers for Inflammation Using the BRINDA Method. Journal of Nutrition 2023 · PMID 36792034
The 10 markers — and why each one is here
The single most useful number here, read against a hair threshold rather than an anemia one
Saturation stays low when inflammation is propping ferritin up — the case a ferritin alone gets wrong
Both an underactive and an overactive thyroid shed hair, and this is the first screen
Says whether an abnormal TSH is doing anything, and catches the failing thyroid a TSH alone can understate
The baseline you will want if you ever start or stop a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor
Decides how much of that testosterone is free, and moves with thyroid and liver status
Low status is associated with several non-scarring alopecias and is cheap to correct
Deficiency causes shedding, and it is common in restricted diets and after rapid weight loss
Anemia, and the red cell size that says which deficiency is behind it
Liver, kidney, protein and glucose — the systemic background any diffuse shedding is read against
What this panel is ordered to decide
A panel is a set of numbers until it settles something. These are the decisions this one feeds — each links the pathway it belongs to, what that pathway claims, and what its test list is read for.
Test before you treat, because diffuse shedding and pattern loss have different causes and different fixes. Ferritin under 70 causes shedding in women constantly and is missed because hemoglobin is normal.
Related panels
A panel gives you numbers. Skool is where they get read — 103 marker breakdowns with the optimal range rather than just the lab range, 42 evidence-graded protocols, and me answering questions daily. $10/mo, cancel anytime.
Join Skool — $10/mo →Frequently asked questions
10 markers: Ferritin, Iron Panel (Iron, TIBC, UIBC, Sat%), TSH (Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone), Free T4 (Free Thyroxine), Total & Free Testosterone (ECLIA/Direct), SHBG (Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin), Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy), Zinc, Plasma, Complete Blood Count (CBC) w/ Differential, Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP).
$178.50 before discount, $160.65 with code CAMERON applied automatically. Individual markers add a one-time $10 draw fee. Ordered through Marek Diagnostics and drawn at any Quest Diagnostics location in the US.
No. These are ordered direct-to-consumer through Marek Diagnostics — you order online, walk into a Quest location, and results are emailed to you in about two weeks. No physician visit or insurance required. Not available in NY, NJ or RI.
Fast 9-12 hours. No biotin for 72 hours — hair supplements are the single commonest source of high-dose biotin, and it distorts the thyroid immunoassays in both directions, which is how a hair supplement produces a fake thyroid diagnosis. Stop iron and zinc for 5-7 days so the results read your stores rather than yesterday's capsule. Draw in the morning for the testosterone. Do not draw within 2-3 weeks of an illness; ferritin rises with inflammation and can hide an empty store.
A low ferritin or a low saturation with diffuse shedding is the finding worth having, and hair responds to correcting it over 3-6 months rather than weeks. A raised TSH with a low free T4 is a treatable cause. A low vitamin D or zinc is worth correcting on general grounds and is a weaker explanation on its own. Everything normal in a man with temporal recession is the expected result and it is not a wasted panel: it moves the decision to whether to treat the pattern, with the reversible causes ruled out rather than assumed.
Where this goes next
The pages here are the frameworks. The protocols — the dosing, the order to correct things in, the week-by-week schedule and what to retest — are inside Skool.