When Hair Loss Takes Its Course

Among the few features that compose our appearances, one that girls and boys equally worry about is hair. Boys start carefully tousling them as soon as they learn to spell the word ‘gel’ and girls start caring as soon as they comprehend the function of the looking glass.

Though hair loss is a phenomenon typically known to be associated with age, that piece of information doesn’t stop us from losing more hair from worry when we see a tangled mass clogging up the bathroom drain when showering.

The visible part of the hair is called a shaft and beneath the skin lie the hair root and the follicle. There are on average about 100,000 hair follicles in the scalp and we lose anywhere between 50 to 100 hair strands every day. This is because not all the hair is growing at any one point in time. Baldness occurs when hair fall exceeds the number of hair growing.

Teens are generally not afflicted with hair loss (alopecia). The most common form of hair loss that we’ve probably noticed is age-related and is in part hereditary — male-pattern baldness or female-pattern baldness (medically known as androgenic alopecia).

Most men affected are around 30 years of age. However, often boys in their mid-teens are affected. Their hairlines begin to recede at the temples, thinning out at the top of the head. Women generally aren’t affected as severely and not until they are well in their advanced years. Girls, however, may sometimes be affected early with a general thinning of the hair and should consult their physician if so.

There are a few other more temporary forms of hair loss that might be found in teenagers. One of the factors causing transient effects, that a lot of people will be able to provide examples of, is stress. Hair loss often follows at the heels of stress, especially when related to an illness. The key is to work on mechanisms to cope with stress. And when being prescribed medications, don’t be afraid to ask what the side effects are. Certain medicines for depression and acne can sometimes lead to hair loss.

Poor diet — one deficient in protein, vitamins and minerals such as iron, zinc, and the like — in addition to eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, can be another cause. A diet rich in leafy green veggies, egg whites, meat, and vitamin B supplements will help in this situation. Keep an eye on the weighing scale, especially if on the lower side and avoid crash dieting.

Adopt better hair care habits. Stay away from excessive dyeing, chemical treatments, blow-dryers, straighteners, or curling irons. If you are keeping your hair pulled back in buns or braids too often, you need to let them down to prevent permanent damage.

Hair loss, though cosmetic, is an awful thing to happen, and particularly at an age when one is self-conscious as it is. For androgenic alopecia, over-the-counter medications — namely minoxidil sold as a spray or cream has shown to help in a small percentage of people.

However, keep in mind that both hair loss and growth might take a few months to manifest. There are also many hair myths, namely, that brushing the hair 100 strokes before bedtime can improve hair growth; this is just a myth since excessive brushing might even be harmful.

Hair Loss in Men: The Helpful and Harmful Effects of DHT

When it comes to that one culprit that causes male pattern baldness, DHT or dihydrotestosterone always comes to mind. But do you really know this hormone and what it really does to your body? And how come it has issues with your hair? DHT is one of those things that you need to brush up on if you want to understand your hair loss condition better.

DHT is what you may probably consider your sly hormone because it has both good and bad functions in your body. It starts off with the androgen testosterone. When testosterone comes in contact with the enzyme 5-alpha reductase, it is then converted to a more active form which is DHT.

All the changes that you experience during puberty such as the deepening of your voice, facial hairs, development of muscles, and sex drive are also brought about by DHT. It makes men to look and sound more like men, so to speak.

Another benefit that DHT has on your body is its antagonistic effect on oestrogen. You may be shocked at what oestrogen’s got to do with this when we’re talking about male physiology. But what you don’t know is that you actually have some amounts of this female hormone in your system, just as the ladies have some testosterone in them. So what DHT does is that it hinders the effect of oestrogen on tissues by competing on its receptor sites. It also reduces the amounts of gonadotropin that are released; this results to lessened number of materials for oestrogen production. You will appreciate this process more if I tell you that it prevents your body from forming man boobs, or what is medically known as gynecomastia.

Also, by its function to reduce gonadotropin — which in effect also lessens oestrogen levels — it reverts the process of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH). This is a common health problem affecting a high percentage of males.

So when does DHT become the traitor in this story? When these little buggers travel to your scalp and come in contact with your hair follicles, they cause the follicles to shrink and become very fine.

DHT produces a waxy substance and builds it up around the base of your hair which causes your hair to weaken. This will ultimately lead to excessive hair loss that leads to thinning and balding on some portions of your head. This condition is what we all know as male or female (since it also affects women) pattern baldness.

Medications, hairpieces, and hair transplants are some of the ways to help you manage this condition. So you really don’t have to lose hope when DHT gets on your hairs!

How to Stimulate Healthy Hair Growth

No one wants to begin losing their hair. But a lot of people who are in that position don’t like the idea of using hormone-based products such as finasteride to treat hair loss. They would prefer to go a more natural route if feasible. But is the more natural path feasible for baldness? Do nonhormonal products really do the trick?

There are a couple methods for encouraging hair growth that appear to work well. One is the product minoxidil. Minoxidil was initially employed as a blood pressure medicine; it was then discovered that minoxidil pills caused the undesired side effect of hair growth throughout the body. Due to this, minoxidil is usually applied topically and not taken in pill form. It encourages healthier hair growth as well as faster growth.

Another natural product that encourages hair growth is black castor oil. There are lots of hair products that have begun to use black castor oil in their formula because it contains particular nutrients that are easily absorbed by the hair and scalp.

You see, baldness is typically a mix of factors, and regularly, an unhealthy scalp is the root of poor hair growth. Black castor oil is reported to not only nourish the hair itself, but also the scalp. The scalp is a delicate region and can become unhealthy due to a lack of blood flow. Research has shown that absence of correct blood flow is at the root of a lot of baldness problems.

That’s the reason another compound, nitric oxide, has been demonstrated to be effective in treating some sorts of hair loss. Nitric oxide widens the veins and arteries and encourages more blood flow in the body. Greater blood flow means more nutritional elements which can considerably improve the health of the scalp.

Taking one or two of these three non-steroidal supplements might just do the job for you and help not only in growing healthier hair, but also boost the health of the scalp too.

If you are experiencing hair loss and wish to try a few of these approaches, check out minoxidil side effects and benefits first, as well as castor oil for hair growth.

Why Some Women Go Bald

Every year, hundreds of thousands of women — and some men — suffer from premature hair loss or pattern baldness. Here are the usual causes and what can be done to address the problem.

THYROID PROBLEMS

One of the roles of the thyroid gland is to regulate body processes, such as metabolism. A thyroid problem can affect the normal timing of the hair cycle. Usually, hair will ‘rest’ for three months before falling out. With a thyroid problem, this can be reduced to just a few weeks. The hair will also have a tendency to fall out sooner, before growing to a normal, reasonable length.

The good news is that once the thyroid problem has been treated (in the case of an underactive thyroid, this is usually with the hormone thyroxine) the hair loss is completely reversible.

CONTRACEPTIVE PILL

All oral contraceptives contain progestogens, synthetic hormones that produce similar effects to the natural hormone progesterone — needed to help prevent a fertilised egg being implanted.

Some of these progestogens are good for the hair; others less so. That’s because the progestogen used can have a male hormone–like effect on hair.

Women worried about hair loss, or who have a predisposition to genetic hair loss, should speak to their GP about choosing a hair-friendly pill which lowers testosterone to a degree.

The decline in oestrogen during menopause can cause male pattern baldness in women, as the testosterone in their bodies becomes more dominant.

BEING CHUBBY

Being overweight increases the risk of metabolic syndrome — essentially a precursor to type-2 diabetes. This is where insulin levels are higher than they should be.

The problem is that a high insulin level in women can trigger a higher testosterone level — and increase the risk of baldness.

STRESS

Stress can lead to a type of hair loss called telogen effluvium — forcing the hairs into the resting state before their time.

Chronic stress might also push the immune system into overdrive so that it makes white blood cells attack the hair follicles.

Chronic stress, associated with shock, is also linked to a specific form of hair loss, alopecia areata. The condition affects 2 per cent of the population. Treatment is available, although the condition often clears up itself.

Causal Factors of Female Baldness

A human hair grows for two to six years. At any one time, 90 per cent of our hair is growing, while the remainder is in a resting state (known as the telogen stage) for between two to six months, before it falls out.

The hair follicle itself then rests for three months before the whole process is repeated.

AUTUMN

Researchers found that women had the highest proportion of resting hairs in July — with the telogen state in most of them ending around 100 days later, from October onwards.

This pattern is thought to be evolutionary: the body holds on to hair to protect the scalp against the summer’s midday sun.

Autumn is not the only cause of unexpected hair loss.

Hair is an incredibly sensitive barometer. Hair cells are the second-fastest produced cells in the body (after bone marrow), so hair is often the first thing to suffer from any bodily upset. It can even forewarn you when there are no other symptoms of illness.

That’s because we don’t need our hair for survival, so if it’s a choice between your hair growing or keeping blood going to the vital organs, the former will suffer.

MEDICATION

A number of medications can trigger hair shedding. It is thought that drugs switch more hairs from the growing into the resting phase, and these hairs are then shed a few months later.

Certain prescriptions for acne are thought to cause unexpected hair loss in 16 per cent of people taking it.

Beta-blockers (for high blood pressure), anti-coagulant (blood-thinning) drugs, antidepressants and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have also been linked with hair loss, although why isn’t clear. However, for blood-thinning drugs, it is probably a question of balancing how bad the hair loss is against the reason they are on the drug in the first place. Usually the drug wins.

IRON DEFICIENCY

In premenopausal women, lack of iron is the most common cause of hair loss. Most of the iron stored in the body is bound to ferritin — a protein which helps in the production of hair cells and guards against hair shedding.

The three main causes of iron deficiency are a lack of iron in the diet, heavy periods and childbirth (because of blood loss).

Shedding between 40 and 120 hairs a day is normal; if you’re shedding more than usual, ask your GP for an iron test as well as a ferritin test. The normal range for iron is between 2 and 150 nanograms per millilitre, but we need a level of at least 70 to get good, healthy hair growth.

So you may show up as fine on a test, yet there isn’t a sufficient store for hair growth. It’s worth having both ferritin and iron levels checked for anaemia, as this is a specific marker for female hair loss.

Iron deficiency can also be triggered by coeliac disease — an intolerance to gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley and rye). This affects the gut’s ability to absorb food properly, so the body lacks nutrients including iron.

The good news is that hair growth resumes once the coeliac disease has been diagnosed and treated.

Good food sources of iron are red meat, egg yolks and green, leafy vegetables. Vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron, so have a glass of orange juice when eating.

However, the tannins in tea can stop iron being absorbed properly, so don’t drink tea with meals or at the same time as taking iron supplements.

Frequently Asked Questions about Hair Systems

No discussion about treatments and remedies for hair loss and baldness can be complete without a mention of wigs or toupees. And there’s a reason. Besides obviously coughing up the obvious, that is, covering up a balding head, wigs also work at giving the wearer an easy solution. More often than not, they are also low on cost in terms of both availability and maintenance, as opposed to other hair loss solutions.

Wigs are things of the past now, only used in tasteless comedies and in flash-backs. The wigs of today are not called wigs. They are called hair pieces, hair solutions, hair systems and a host of other technical-sounding terms. The basic idea remains the same though. Human, animal or artificial hair, woven onto a net or other substratum, is worn to cover a bald or thinning spot.

Who?

Wigs go back thousands of years and have been used both to improve aesthetics and indicate rank. In some countries, the judiciary still sports powdered wigs.

Wig and toupees are still widely used in theatre and performing arts. Toupees are generally smaller than wigs. These are patches worn to cover a bald or thinning spot. People with conditions that cause hair fall and people undergoing chemotherapy for cancer also require wigs.

How?

As with hair extensions, adhesives may be used to harness the wig. Some wigs are to be simply worn like a cap. It is advisable to go to a stylist so he can blend the wig in. Very rarely do wigs look inconspicuous. To get a natural look, a skilled stylist is required and for that, you need to spend money. A wig can be woven into existing natural hair if enough of it remains. In this case, it would be called a hair weave.

Where?

The only place you would remember wigs being sold would be costume shops but these are not the ideal places to make your purchase. You will find wig shops but most will not look current enough to you. This is where modern ‘studios’ score. Be sure to do your research before you make your purchase. This feature aims to help you do precisely that.

How Much?

Some wigs come really cheap, but it won’t be far from looking like a dead raccoon on your head! You can get a decent wig that is custom-made for you. Some international trichology centres will provide you solutions that can be very pricey. These are essentially wigs but named more agreeably. Feedback has varied so far.

Some people feel that the same wig is being sold to you at an extra-ordinary mark-up. Others see value in going for something that seems to have some research behind it and is endorsed by famous people. Recently, one such company was asked to stop airing its ads in the UK as the country’s regulatory watchdog deemed it misleading. So, due diligence is called for.

Prior to Remedying Hair Loss, Pinpoint the Reason behind the Condition

Millions of dollars are spent annually on remedies for hair loss with varying degrees of success. Remedies for hair loss have ranged from complex and intricate to downright ridiculous and absurd. There are few FDA-approved systems for the remedy for hair loss which are backed by solid research results confirming benefits.

It is normal to lose between 50–100 hairs a day with some reasons for hair loss being reversible. If hair loss is occurring beyond this point, it becomes a problem. Certain medications may contribute to hair loss. Remedies for hair loss have a sketchy history at best. Hair loss itself is caused by several factors. Pinpointing the reason behind hair loss is a good first step to devising an effective treatment.

Common reasons for hair loss range from genetics to stress. Hormonal factors play another key role in hair growth or lack thereof. This extends to women, who generally experience milder forms of hair loss. High fever, infection, the flu, certain medications, thyroid disease, dietary deficiencies, fungal infections of the scalp, major surgery and chronic conditions are other factors that may impede hair growth. Hair loss is a condition not limited to males. Women experience degrees of hair loss in much the same way men do.

A fuller head of hair is not just for cosmetic reasons or a lesson in vanity. Studies show men and women are more confident when they have a fuller head of hair. Self-confidence is a big part of self-image. Treating hair loss can lead to confidence in many other aspects of life, both personal and professional. Confidence leads to making more decisions without hesitation. Several studies link hair loss to depression and some level of dysfunction. Some people with hair loss issues may avoid social interactions due to self-confidence issues.

Remedies for hair loss that do not work can also lead to depression and confidence issues. It can also be downright frustrating to try remedies that do not produce results. That is why it is important to have realistic expectations and do a little research before trying any hair loss solutions. Do your homework and ask the right questions of any product that offer remedies for hair loss.