Hair Loss Overview

The general term "hair loss" can refer to many different problems — from mild hair thinning to total baldness — and can occur for many different reasons. The medical term for hair loss is alopecia. Everyone experiences hair loss in some form or another. It is normal to lose up to 100 hairs a day. However, some people lose more hair, or lose it at a younger age, because it runs in their family, disease, medications, stress, injury, or damage directly to the hair.

Medically, hair loss falls into several categories, including:

• Telogen effluvium: This is a generalized hair loss that happens 2 to 3 months after a major body stress, such as a prolonged high fever, major surgery, or serious infection. It may also happen after a sudden change in hormone levels, especially in women after childbirth.

• Drug side effects: Certain medications have hair loss as an annoying side effect, especially medications such as: lithium, beta blockers, the "blood-thinners", warfarin, heparin, amphetamines, levodopa, to name a few. Medicines used in chemotherapy also cause sudden generalized hair loss.

• Symptom of a medical illness: Hair loss can be one of the symptoms of an illness, such as: lupus erythematosus, syphilis, a thyroid disorder (hair loss occurs in both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism), sarcoidosis, cancer spreading to the skin, or a serious nutritional problem - especially a deficiency of protein, iron, zinc, or biotin. These deficiencies are not uncommon in women on weight loss diets or those who have very heavy menstrual flow.

• Tinea capitis (fungal infection of the scalp): This form of patchy hair loss happens when the ringworm fungus, Trichophyton tonsurans, infects the scalp. This causes the hair to break off right at the scalp surface and causing the scalp to flake or become scaly.

• Traumatic alopecia: This "man-made" form of hair loss is caused by hairdressing techniques that do at least one of the following: pull the hair (tight braiding or corn-rowing); expose hair to extreme heat and twisting (curling iron or hot rollers); or damage the hair with strong chemicals (bleaching, hair coloring, permanent waves).

• Male pattern baldness, or alopecia: Male-pattern or female-pattern hair loss, known as androgenetic alopecia, is the most common type of hair loss. Generally, this is a direct result of the genes that you inherited from your parents. Genes affect everything about your body, including how your hair grows. You hair follicles can literally shrink if your genes alert certain hormones. The shrinking follicles produce thinner hair until eventually hair production stops. By 50 years of age, about 50% of the population experience this type of hair loss. In men, hair loss may follow the typical "male" pattern (receding front hairline, and/or thinning hair at the top of the head). This is the most common type of hair loss, and it can begin at any time in a man's life, even during his teen years. Quite similarly, most women will develop at least mild female pattern alopecia. The pattern is different however, as thinning occurs over the whole top or crown of the scalp, sparing the front of the scalp, so that the "frontal recession" seen in men does not occur.

This information is in no way intended to diagnose any conditions, or to suggest that you take any sort of prescribed medication. Consult a doctor should you have any questions or before starting any treatment. Folica.com is not liable for claims that are made on behalf of the products that they carry.