There are times you would anxiously stare at your hairline in the mirror, looking distraught as soon as you may go bald.

According to experts, balding begins at any age but there are several early warning signs you must look out for. In adulthood, hair loss, also known as alopecia, can start at almost any age. You are more likely to see signs of balding when you are middle-aged and older, but there is a lot of variation from one person to another. While some people may notice signs of hair loss as early as their late teens and early 20s, others will be well into their 60s and beyond with a full head of hair and almost no thinning.

Doctors say the key to whether your hairline starts receding is in your hands—literally. According to US-based Dr. Joe Whittington, an emergency medic, signs of balding have everything to do with the proportions of your ring and index fingers. "There's a new and incredibly easy way to determine whether a man is going to go bald," he said in a video recently posted to his Instagram.

"This doesn't rely on any of those myths of baldness," such as whether or not your mother's father lost his hair,” he added. What you need to do is work out the "2D:4D ratio," or second to fourth digit ratio, which is the length of the ring finger compared to the length of the index finger, he said.

The doctor referred to a recent study, carried out by Chinese researchers, which measured the lengths of men's fingers and assessed the severity of their male pattern baldness.

According to the study, the 2D:4D ratio on participants' right-hand shows that a lower ratio means the ring finger is longer than the index finger and thus has a greater risk of androgenic alopecia. Dr. Whittington says those with the lowest 2D:4D ratio are almost six times more likely to suffer hair loss than those with the highest. If your ring finger is longer than your index finger, you were exposed to more testosterone before you were born.

According to Dr. Whittington, as you age, your follicles become more sensitive to DHT hormones, which slowly shrivel and die. "Well, that testosterone that you were exposed to before birth makes you even more sensitive to DHT as you age," he said.

This in turn results in a higher likelihood of going bald.

While doctors say it is normal to lose hair, there can be many underlying conditions due to which you may become bald, and so a treatment for that is necessary. If a certain medication is causing hair loss, your doctor may advise you to stop using it for a few months. Treatments include:

Over-the-counter mino which comes in liquid, foam, and shampoo forms. To be most effective, apply the product to the scalp skin once daily for women and twice daily for men.

In the most common type of permanent hair loss, only the top of the head is affected. A hair transplant, or restoration surgery, can make the most of the hair you have left.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a low-level laser device as a treatment for hereditary hair loss in men and women. A few small studies have shown that it improves hair density. More studies are needed to show long-term effects.

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