Hair Loss

Both men and women can have hair loss

It's an awful feeling to comb your hair and find clumps of it in the comb. The sense that you're losing your hair isn't just a physical issue, but also an emotional one as well. What a lot of people don't realize is that both men and women can suffer from hair loss.

That's right, both men and women can suffer from androgenic alopecia, sometimes called male pattern baldness (MPB). While this condition causes the majority of mean to lose hair, as many as two-thirds of all women also experience hair loss at some point in their lives.

In both cases, losing hair can be trace to a combination of heredity and environment. People who suffer from androgenetic alopecia have inherited sensitivity to a hormone, Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a byproduct of the body's processing testosterone. Again, not many people realize that women's bodies also manufacture testosterone, but in smaller amounts that are offset by the female hormone, estrogen.

Specifically, men and women who suffer this have inherited genes for hair follicles that are overly sensitive to DHT. These genes can come from fathers or mothers or both. This hormonal by-product causes the follicles to shrink, and eventually stop producing hair. Since the hair on your head is actually dead protein that's pushed out by the living hair produced by the follicles, it falls out once the follicle no longer produces hair.

One of the differences between men and women with this kind is that women typically don't face the kind of total baldness that men endure. Nonetheless, women can exhibit the same pattern of baldness from the crown, but they usually have more hair around the edges of their scalps that they can comb over their bald spots.

Among the myths about baldness in men and women is that frequent washing, coloring the hair, getting a permanent and other hair care contributes to lose hair.  None of these activities will cause hair loss by themselves, although some treatments might contribute to brittle hair breaking off. 

The good news about hair loss is that today it's treatable if caught early enough. A healthy diet that includes plenty of low-fat protein – hair is made of protein – plus vitamin and mineral supplements can slow individuals to lose hair. In addition, it's good to check with your doctor about any medications you're taking that might cause this effect. If that's so, your doctor may be able to prescribe a substitute.

Only one drug, Minoxidil, is approved in the United States for treatment of baldness in both women and men. Again, it's important to check with your family physician about your hair loss before starting any of the over-the-counter preparations that contain this drug.