At a Glance
Package: Hair Fall Test Package for Men. Tests: 68 parameters, 16 components. Price: From 1999. Fasting: Not required. Sample: Blood, single draw, morning slot preferred. Reports: 24 hours, digital. Home collection: Free across Noida. Lab: NABL-accredited. The systemic half — iron, thyroid, vitamins, minerals, liver, kidney, inflammation, autoimmune — is shared with the Hair Fall Test Package for Women. The hormone half is not: this version carries Dihydrotestosterone DHT, Free, Testosterone Total and Sex Hormone Binding Globulin, which the women's package does not contain at all. ## Tell Us Your Shift Pattern Before the Phlebotomist Arrives Several results here are read against the hour they were taken. Testosterone Total and TSH follow a daily rhythm, and adrenal steroids, including the 21-Deoxy Cortisol, serum here, are conventionally sampled in the morning after a night of sleep — the condition the reference ranges assume. If you work nights in Noida's BPO, call-centre or offshore-support sector, that assumption breaks: a 7 AM sample at the end of your working night is not the same physiological moment as a 7 AM sample from someone who slept. It still has value, but it needs your shift pattern noted on the request, and on a repeat test the sampling time should stay consistent relative to your sleep rather than to the clock. Night work also means almost no daylight, the main route to vitamin D — relevant to the Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy) value here. ## Today's Shedding Describes Last Quarter Systemic hair loss is usually telogen effluvium: a trigger pushes many follicles out of their growth phase at once, but the hair stays put and sheds roughly two to three months later. So today's test describes a cause that began before the shedding did; it still helps, because the deficiency normally persists. Male pattern hair loss moves over years instead, through follicle sensitivity to DHT at the temples and crown. Both can run at once. ## Blood Picture - Peripheral Smear Examination A slide, a microscope and a pathologist reading your cells by hand. No analyser does this work, so the cost is pathologist time — the line item cut to hold a price point. Five findings are reported: Red Blood Cells, White Blood Cells, Platelets, Hemoparasites, and the pathologist's written Impression. The Platelets finding shows the point most plainly: automated counters read clumped platelets as a dangerously low count, and only a human looking at the slide separates the two. The red cells answer the hair question — microcytic, pale cells for iron deficiency, the commonest nutritional cause of diffuse shedding; macrocytic cells for B12 or folate deficiency; sickle-shaped cells for sickle cell disease, and blast cells that may indicate leukaemia. Hemoparasites looks for malarial parasites, which matters in Delhi NCR, where dengue and malaria are endemic and a fever illness is itself a common shedding trigger. ## The Androgen Group Dihydrotestosterone DHT, Free (1): the androgen that miniaturises scalp follicles in male pattern hair loss, and the hormone finasteride and dutasteride suppress. Testosterone Total (1): the precursor, and a measure of overall androgen status. Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (1): the carrier protein that decides how much testosterone is biologically free, so it changes how a total value should be read. The limitation is as useful as the number. Pattern hair loss is largely inherited follicle sensitivity to DHT rather than a high circulating DHT, and men with textbook androgenetic alopecia usually have normal androgens. These tests exclude an endocrine abnormality and set a pre-treatment baseline; they do not confirm or rule out pattern hair loss, which is a clinical and trichoscopic diagnosis. ## The Other 12 Components Iron Studies (5): Serum Iron, TIBC, UIBC, Transferrin, % Iron Saturation. Ferritin, the most sensitive single iron marker in hair loss, is not in this profile; a doctor may add it. CBC with ESR (21): anaemia, infection, inflammation. Thyroid Profile (3): TT3, TT4, TSH — both underactive and overactive thyroid cause diffuse loss, and one in ten Indian adults is hypothyroid (Unnikrishnan et al., IJEM, 2013;17(4):647–652). Active Vitamin - B12 (1): holotranscobalamin, the fraction cells can take up, rather than total B12, which can read normal while the usable share is low; 47–70% of Indians are deficient, over 70% among vegetarians (Yajnik et al., JAPI, 2006;54:775–782). Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy) (1): under 20 ng/mL deficiency, 20–30 insufficiency (Endocrine Society, 2011); Indian prevalence 40% to over 90% (Ritu & Gupta, IJCM, 2014;39(4):178–184). Zinc Serum (1), Magnesium (1): required for keratin synthesis. 21-Deoxy Cortisol, serum (1): a steroid precursor used in assessing adrenal enzyme pathways; specialist interpretation only. C-Reactive Protein - CRP Quantitative (1): inflammation in mg/L, so repeat values compare; this is standard CRP, not hs-CRP. Anti Nuclear Antibody (ANA) (1): screens for autoimmune disease such as lupus, which can scar follicles permanently, but is positive in a meaningful share of healthy people and needs clinical interpretation. Liver Function Test (12), Kidney Function Test (12): chronic liver or kidney disease thins hair. ## Sources Unnikrishnan et al., IJEM, 2013;17(4):647–652 · Yajnik et al., JAPI, 2006;54:775–782 · Ritu & Gupta, IJCM, 2014;39(4):178–184 · Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline, 2011 · NFHS-5, 2019–21 Content last reviewed: October 2026
