Factors That Cause Balding
Anyone, man, woman or child, can experience the onset of excessive hair thinning. What may start as a few extra hairs left in the brush can escalate to handfuls of hair being left on the pillow overnight. While a certain amount of hair shedding is normal, the sudden oncoming of accelerated thinning hair can be extremely distressing.
Men and women Pattern Hair loss
The leading trigger of hair thinning in men is male pattern baldness (MPB) which can be hereditary. The gene for MPB interacts with a hormone called DHT, which is normally linked to desirable masculine traits like muscle growth and deep voice and causes it to over-stimulate hair follicles. The follicles eventually lose their ability to maintain hair growth and the outcome is balding from the crown plus a recessed hairline.
Female pattern hair loss is also affected by hormones and genes. It's characterised by a thinning of the hair all over the scalp but unlike MPB the hairline and crown are not main areas of loss and unlike men, women very rarely experience total hair loss through female pattern baldness.
Telogen Effluvium
It's well known that chemotherapy patients often lose their hair but other types of stress can cause a similar sort of diffuse shedding including pregnancy, surgery, poor diet or some over the counter and prescription drugs.
Human head hair is frequently in a predominantly growing phase called anagen, with only 10-15% of hairs being in resting phase or telogen. Telogen effluvium occurs when something triggers a larger percentage of head hair to go into telogen at the same time.
Telogen effluvium can be short term, long term or chronic depending on the cause.
Traction Alopecia
Tight ponytails, cornrows and excessive hairstyling can trigger permanent damage to the hair roots and root. Although permanent damage can be performed, refraining from constantly pulling hair back into tight styles and stressing the root will permit new hair growth to return in many instances.
Auto-immune and Inflammatory Diseases
There are numerous autoimmune diseases that directly or indirectly trigger balding. One is Discoid Lupus Erythematosus, a chronic skin ailment that affects the neck, face and scalp. Lupus lesions on the scalp infect and damage hair roots and can cause permanent thinning hair.
Lichen planopilaris (also referred to as follicular Lichen Planus) is a skin disease that also affects the scalp causing redness, itching and inflammation and scarring of deep tissues causing permanent hair loss.
Alopecia Areata (AA) is an autoimmune ailment that can affect the hair follicles all around the body. On the scalp it causes patchy hair loss. Individuals spanning various ages can develop AA even though it has a greater occurrence in the 15 to 30 age group.
Fungal and Bacterial Infection
There are some fungal infections that target the scalp. One is ringworm, which can be an infectious fungal infection, much like athlete's foot. It may appear anywhere on the body but if found on the scalp will trigger patchy hair loss.
Piedra is another fungus that may weaken the hair shaft and cause patchy balding and Folliculitis is an inflammation of the follicles that can, when severe, cause permanent damage to the follicle. It could be attributable to a bacterial or fungal infection and leads to patchy balding.
