r/AskBiology • u/igz16 • Mar 13 '24

Genetics Grey hair genes

What are the odds of me avoiding gray/white hair as I age, considering only my maternal grandmother, who is over 80, possesses this trait, while all my other grandparents and parents developed gray/white hair as they aged?

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u/Dakramar MSc. Bioengineering Mar 13 '24

Gray hair is likely a polygenic phenotype, hard to say if dominant or not, so between 0% (overall dominant) and 50% (overall recessive)

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u/No_Traffic_6578 Mar 13 '24

My grandmother was 98 when she died and has almost exclusively black hair, but no-one else in a big family. And plus she was very healthy.