Hair and Hair Loss

What is hair?

Hair is the fastest growing tissue of the body. It is made of keratins which are a type of proteins. Each hair strand includes three layers: the medulla (the inner layer), the cortex and the cuticle. Hair grows from roots-Those roots get the vital ingredients to the hair growth by the blood. The roots are a living tissue but the visible hair strand is a dead tissue. Therefore, any hair loss treatment should take care of the scalp and roots and not of the hair strands.

How does hair grow?

It is natural to loose hair. Actually, we all loose about 100 hairs a day. We start noticing that we suffer from hair loss only after losing more than 50% of our hair.

What are the causes of hair loss?

There are various conditions that may cause hair loss from heritage to stress. The common causes are:

- Infection: Fungal infections can cause hair loss. They are easily treated with topical medicines.
Hormones: For men baldness is usually caused due to hormones. Hair loss may occur due to an overactive or under-active thyroid gland. Changes in androgen and estrogen level can cause a hair loss in both men and women. Hormone/ Steroid injections are usually given to correct hormonal imbalance.

- Illness: Prolonged illness, major surgery, stress, can result in hair loss in large amounts. Temporary illnesses generally do not cause hair loss. Hair loss may also occur due to diseases, such as lupus or diabetes. It is important to find the cause of hair loss and get adequate treatment because hair loss is an early sign of disease.

- Pregnancy: Hair loss in women may occur after child birth. Such hair loss occurs after 3 to 4 months delivery. This is because of high level of hormonal changes during and after pregnancy. This type of hair loss is self correcting and new hair usually grow back.

- Medicines: Some medicines can cause hair loss such as anticoagulants used for treatment of gout, chemotherapy used to treat cancer, over consumption of vitamin A, antidepressant medicines, and birth control pills.

Various forms of Hair loss and baldness

Hair loss or baldness is a condition in which hair does not grow on the scalp after hair fall. The most common form of baldness is the development of a hair thinning condition called androgenic alopecia or male baldness which occurs in adult males.

The nature of hair loss or baldness can vary greatly. These are the types of hair loss:
1. Androgenic alopecia: Loss of hair in men is called as androgenic alopecia. Male pattern hair loss (also known as common baldness, male pattern baldness or permanent pattern baldness) is the most common one for males. In fact, It is inherited. It usually involves baldness on the top of the head and a receding hair line. Male pattern baldness is the most common type of hair loss in men. Male hair loss is caused by increased sensitivity to androgens or male sex hormones in certain parts of scalp, and is mainly a genetic problem.

2. Alopecia areata: Here hair loss occurs in some portions of the head. On the other hand, Alopecia Areata involves patchy hair loss over the body and the head. It can involve one or more patches and even full body baldness in rare cases. Its causes are still unknown and in most cases hair regrows within first 5 years after the first patch appeared.

3. Alopecia totalis: In this the hair loss occurs over the entire scalp to an extreme limit.

4. Alopecia universalis: This involves the loss of all hair from the entire body.

The other less common kinds of baldness are:

1) Traction alopecia: This type of hair loss is mostly observed in people with ponytails who pull their hair with excessive force while combing. Wearing a hat for more than 8 hours also causes hair loss. The scalp should breathe at least 7 hours in a day.

2) Telogen effluvioum: Hair loss some times occurs due to causes like major surgery, poisoning, child birth, chemotherapy severe stress etc and such condition is known as telogen effluvium.

3) Mycotic Infections: Mycotic infections can cause massive hair loss.

Prevention Methods

In the past, baldness was seen as undesirable or unfortunate. Nowadays it is a serious problem. Hair loss or Baldness is a major problem in both men and women. Young men with frontal baldness face a lot of ridicule too.
Prevention is better than cure, is very much applicable to hair loss. It is much easier to prevent the falling out of healthy hair than re-growing new ones. Regular exercise can help keep androgen levels low naturally and reduce falling of hair. Stress reduction can stop hair loss. A balanced and nutritious diet reduces the falling of hair to a great extent.
You can go for a natural hair loss treatment or chemical hair loss treatment. Natural hair loss treatment does not cause any side effect. However, it is recommended to go for an immediate treatment before conditions become worse.