Is your hair thinning?
If you answer that one affirmatively, then don’t despair – you’re not alone!
Hair thinning and loss is, in one sense, quite normal. It happens all the time and for the most part, we just don’t notice it.
As we get older this thinning tends to accelerate and become more pronounced – in both sexes but particularly in large numbers of men.
For the vast majority of people, this process is perhaps rightly seen as part of the natural aging process and may not cause any great distress.
The exceptions
This isn’t necessarily true of everyone though.
For many men and some women, hair loss may become more pronounced and accelerated at earlier ages. This may lead to distress and even trauma.
In some cases the cause of the hair loss is clear – radiation or chemotherapy for example. Unpleasant as such events are, they are at least a clear cause that the hair loss can be attributed to.
In other cases the position is more mysterious – and that may be worrying.
For clarity – it is NOT normal for your hair to start rapidly disappearing, particularly if it is in clumps and progressing quickly over a period of a few days or weeks. In such a situation, you should consult a physician as this may indicate an underlying medical condition.
Premature hair thinning / loss without obvious explanation
We’re using the word ‘premature’ here with some caution because no accepted standards exist.
Some people, male and female, find that their hair starts to thin appreciably in their 20s and 30s. In some cases, typically males, this may even commence in their teens.
By the time the person concerned reaches their 40s, the rate of hair loss may suddenly accelerate.
In the case of many men, the loss of hair from the scalp typically follows one of a number of pre-defined patterns – often going back from the temples initially and from the crown. These thinning patches may eventually merge to leave hair only on the sides of the head.
The following of one of these patterns gives rise to the description of the condition as ‘Male Pattern Baldness’.
For women the position may be slightly different.
Sometimes called Female Pattern Baldness, this is often a more evenly distributed thinning. Bald spots are relatively rare although sometimes the hairline may recede also.
In women the condition may stabilize leaving the hair thin but essentially still covering the scalp – the reasons for this are not clear.
Causes
If you start experiencing hair loss, even if it’s not of the catastrophic variety mentioned above, it probably makes sense to get a quick check-up from your physician.
Underlying illness may be a factor but it’s comparatively rare. Even so, it may pay to check.
There are a huge number of potential causes of premature hair thinning, including:
• Testosterone (after conversion in the body) is known to have a detrimental effect on the hair follicles;
• Genetics – coupled with testosterone above, this is often regarded as one of the biggest causes of Male Pattern Baldness but it can also be a large factor in women;
• Hormonal changes – often a major suspect in the case of women who may suffer thinning during/after pregnancy and during/after the menopause;
• Medications – even some non-critical treatment medicines may result in hair thinning (this may also include some illegal substances);
• Diet – some forms of foodstuffs or dietary programs may cause hair thinning – for example some cite low-carbohydrate diets as being a factor but the exact mechanisms for this are not known;
• Environment – hopefully unlikely but if you’re being exposed to harmful toxins or radiation (non medical) then this may affect your hair;
• Stress – medical science is constantly revising upward its assessment of the effects of stress on hair loss (males and females);
• Hair treatments – perhaps now only affecting older generations of typically women, some hair regimes and products used in earlier decades may have had a long-term detrimental effect on the user’s hair and scalp health;
• Illness – multiple potential causes so see above for the physician recommendation.
Cures
The harsh reality is – there isn’t one.
That isn’t quite as gloomy as it sounds because more correctly what that means is that there can’t be one certain cure because thinning hair can have so many different causes.
The best general principle is that if your hair thinning can be attributed to a firm cause such as illness or diet, then changing the causative conditions may stop the hair loss.
Similarly, if it is arising due to medication or the environment, including stress, then it may be possible to address these and improve the position.
In the case of female and male pattern baldness, some treatments have now been licensed in the USA and are believed to have some beneficial effects (minoxidil and finasteride).
However, the long-term efficacy of these treatments is not yet well known and generally accepted nor are they guaranteed to be beneficial to all sufferers.
For the time being, pattern baldness sufferers may have little choice but to deal with any perceived image issues through cosmetic type activities.
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