Mens Hair Loss: Causes

Facts

There are 40 million adult males in North America today who are going bald or losing their hair. Mild to moderate hair loss affects about half of all men by the time they are fifty. One in four men who are genetically predisposed to hair loss begin losing their hair before they reach the age of twenty-one.

Effects

Contrary to societal belief, most men with hair loss are extremely unhappy with their situation and would do anything to change it. Hair loss affects every aspect of their life from interpersonal relationships to their professional interactions. It is not uncommon for men to change their career paths because of their hair loss.

Causes

Androgenic alopecia, better know as male pattern baldness, is an irreversible condition responsible for over 95% of all hair loss in men. Rare conditions such as alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis, where the entire scalp and entire body become completely bald due to a viral condition, are also irreversible. Patch baldness, in which hair falls out of the scalp in patches, is caused by stress or poor nutrition or adverse scalp conditions. In this case, the hair will usually grow back once the cause has been rectified.

The first signs of male pattern hair loss are either a receding hairline or thinning at the crown of the head or both. Male pattern baldness gets its name from the pattern of hair loss, which ultimately results in a horseshoe of hair that resides on the sides and back of the head, while the top of the head is completely bald. Male pattern baldness occurs due to a chemical known as Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) that builds up around the follicle and eventually kills the follicle and the hair.

A follicle's resistance to DHT is genetic - which is why some people go bald and others do not. If you have relatives with thin hair or who are bald, you may well develop the same problem. The gene can be inherited from either the mother's or the father's side of the family and skip generations.

While the effects of hair loss can be devastating, there are treatment options that can slow or stop hair loss or even gain the appearance of a full head of hair.