Top 9 Causes Of Hair Loss

What Are The Top 9 causes of hair loss

There are some diseases or common causes of hair loss but allot of people go bald because of bad genetics, hormones and time.

Causes Of Hair Loss

Falling Hair - Causes Of Hair Loss

Women are more predisposed to hair loss from stress than men are. So more stress in a women’s body can cause hair loss of greater proportions than normal. Hair loss can be a real problem which may persist if you don’t take care of your body.

Causes of hair loss:

  • Hormonal influences on hair
  • Hair loss over time
  • Grandpa’s head look
  • Lack of blood supply
  • Stress
  • Environmental issues
  • Medical causes of female hair loss
  • Postpartum hair loss
  • Menopause related hair loss

So if you are interested in something to stop hair loss you first need to see the causes of hair loss and to avoid as much as possible these variables to ensure that you do your best to stop your condition or at least slow it down.

Hormonal influences on hair

What are hormones? Well that’s a simple question. Hormones are a powerful biochemical substance produced by various glands throughout the body and the primary male sex hormone is testosterone.

The testosterone is primarily produced by the testicles and it has a “masculinizing” effect. The same hormones which cause beard and acne growth can also trigger the beginning of baldness. Women also produce testosterone but in lower quantities and it is produced by the adrenal glands and the ovaries and most of the testosterone produced by women is converted in estrogen. The primarily hormone believed to be directly involved in andreogenetic alopecia ( common form of hair loss in humans also known as pattern baldness ) is the dihydrotestosterone (DHT). It is formed by the action of the enzyme 5-alpha reductase on the testosterone and it binds to special receptor sites on the cells of hair follicles to cause specific changes associated with balding.

The presence of testosterone, androgens and DHT cause some hair follicles to regress and die. In the women, the ovaries are the major source of hormones that can affect hair. Androgens like testosterone are converted in estrogens in women ( androgenetic hormones stimulate many of the male sex characteristics that we see in adult man ), which makes women develop their typical female sex characteristics.

Also women body builders who take anabolic steroids develop some mail sex characteristics and some of them experience hair loss.

Also some fitness products can also cause hair loss:

  • Whey-based nutritional supplements
  • DHEA
  • Steroids
  • Prednisone

Hair loss over time

Even if the necessary genes and hormones for hair loss are present, this is not enough to cause baldness. The hair follicles need to be exposed to the responsible hormones in order to cause some damage. The genetic expression, the testosterone levels, DHT in the bloodstream and age are all factors which can influence the onset of hair loss.

Usually this type of hair loss doesn’t occur all at once and most likely in cycles. So the majority of people who suffer from hair loss experience alternating periods of rapid and slow hair loss and periods when hair loss stabilizes. Also the factors which influence the speed of the hair loss are unknown. Twenty five percent of the men will show clinical balding by age 30 and half of the male population will show some clinical balding by the age of 50. As age progresses, so the balding is progressing and slowly continues into the next 10-20 years and it seems to slow down as men approach 60-65 years.

Balding later in life for men than earlier could be because of genetic hair loss and the hair loss in men that continues well into their 30′s and 40′s isn’t lost as quicky as if they would start balding in their 20′s. From this population, approximately 7 % develop a more complete form of balding and they usually observe it before they reach the age of 30.

Also most man who show signs of balding don’t necessarily lose all of the hair on their head but the hair loss in a more severe form, is permanent and measures about 2 1/2 in the mid-back of the head when the hair loss process advances through completion.

Also the most common baldness patterns are at the frontal hairline ( where the temporal and frontal recession occurs ) and moves slightly upward toward the top of the head more likely creating a bald spot which many times widen slowly as men age. But all the role is attributed to the genetics, as they determine the final look.

Grandpa’s head look

Everyone inherits genetic tendencies from their parents, and doctors often look down on the family tree looking for a sign of a genetic pattern baldness, which can explain your own baldness pattern which may cause hair loss for you.

Also a false notion that is circulating about baldness is the it comes more from the mother’s side of the family, a notice would be that the predisposition to baldness inherited from an affected mother is of greater importance than the predisposition inherited from an affected father and the reasons are unknown.

As a final note on this title, even if your mother or father has a predisposition to baldness it doesn’t mean that 100 percent of the hair on your scalp will have the same fate. It is possible that the gene is not “expressed” so even if you carry it you will not become bald ( because the ability of a gene to affect you is named expressivity ).

Lack of blood supply

When the bald head skin looses gradually blood supply, it becomes shiny and thin but the changes that occur now are not the cause of hair loss, because the adaptations come after the hair loss not before it.

A good example of what happens with the hair and skin in a transplant case would be that when they are transplanted, even if the blood supply is relatively poor in the graft , the presence of the grafted hair causes the local blood supply to increase, and the result from this is that when the hair grows, the blood supply also grows.

This is a simple situation to understand the typical hair growth and loss.

Stress

When our body experiences stress in a form of illness, traumatic experience, the hair loss rate can increase. Women’s hair loss may be more affected by stress than the men’s hair, because some women that have a predisposition to hair loss , genetic type, have hair with thinner than a normally sizes hair shaft.

The hair loss caused by stress is named telogen effluvium. Hair loss from stress is not a permanently one but most likely it will take his normal cycle of hair growth.

Environmental issues

Even what you eat can be added to causes of hair loss and we will list some factors that are the most proeminent causes of hair loss in women and men:

  • Selenium
  • Lead, cadminium, mercury, iron, aluminium,  and cooper
  • Air pollution and smoking

Medical causes of female hair loss

We will list some general causes and some specific causes including postpartum and menopausal hair loss

  • Medical conditions:
  • Thyroid disease
  • Anemia
  • Iron deficiency
  • Weight loss induced by severe dieting
  • Some autoimune diseases
  • Medical use

Postpartum hair loss

The pregnancy period alters a woman’s hormones ( and hair becomes a target organ in some womens ) and they can observe that their hair is thicker and more lush. This happens because the growth phase of the hair is prolonged in the pregnancy period of a women. But there is a downside to this: as soon as the baby is born, the hair goes back into the resting phase and which can last from two to six months. The overgrown hair may fall out and it will take a longer period for it to grow back to the normal size. So this is also a cause of hair loss.

Menopause-related hair loss

The menopause is associated with hormone fluctuations which can cause some hair loss and this happens to 50 percent of women.

These are some of the causes of hair loss and as a woman experiencing hair loss you should be first evaluated by a dermatologist in order to be sure that no skin conditions contribute to the hair loss.

 

 

 

Latest Articles & News:

Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved.