Health - Family - Food

The medical term for hair loss is alopecia. Alopecia can be partial, or what is usually referred to as balding, or complete, leaving your head with no hair whatsoever. Whatever you call the condition, you should gather all the facts you can about your hair loss before you act. There is some information you need to know about hair loss so that you can better decide among the possible treatment options. Your chances of stopping your hair loss are much better when you know your options early on.

In order to best understand and treat your hair loss situation, you first need to determine what type of hair loss you are dealing with. This will help you begin to sift through the vast amount of information available. Hair loss can be a gradual development, or occur in patches and even be something that affects the hair all over your body. Some hair loss is natural, with the average person loosing approximately one hundred hairs every day. Considering that the average human scalp contain around one hundred thousand hairs on any given day the loss of one hundred a day is not overly significant. The life span of the average hair is approximately four and half years during which time it will grow about one half inch every six months. After about five years the hair will fall out and be replaces with a new hair in another six months. Genetic hair loss occurs when the body does not produce new hairs to replace those shed along with excessive hair loss.

Whether you are male or female makes no different to hair loss. Normally, growing older causes the same amount of lost hair both in men and in women. The same thing goes for hair thinning. However, it is true that men have more of an issue with inherited pattern baldness. By the age of thirty, 25 percent of men will have begun balding, and by the age of sixty over 65% will have developed balding patterns or be totally bald. Male pattern baldness usually consists of a receding hair line along with hair thinning in the crown area. Testosterone is the main culprit behind this common condition. For this reason, any man who has low testosterone for any genetic or medical reason probably does not have to worry about male pattern baldness at all.

Because there are many different reasons that you may lose your hair, you must carefully consider all potential causes before concluding that your hair loss is due to heredity. Baldness comes most often from aging, testosterone, and heredity. However, there are several less frequent reasons that hair may fall out. Excessive shampooing and blow drying may be at fault, as well as serious illness, parasites, high levels of stress, burns, nervous hair-pulling, or hormone changes.