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It's all about the hair, baby!

Posted: November 12, 2009

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  • photo: canpages.ca photo: canpages.ca

Q: I've been shedding a lot of hair lately. Could I be going bald like my dad? Does baldness run in families?

A:  Hair normally grows in cycles that last between 2-3 years. About 90% of the hair follicles on the scalp are actively growing hair at any one time. The remainder are resting or involuting. It is normal to lose about a hundred hairs each day from all over the scalp.

"Male pattern baldness", or androgenic alopecia, is common to both males and females, believe it or not.  It typically starts as a receding hairline, especially on the sides, and a bald spot in the back. Medical lore used to hold that if your maternal grandfather was bald you would be too, but we now know that genetics is only part of the problem.

The most common cause of pathologic hair loss is stress, both psychological and physiologic: think trauma, dissertation defense, pregnancy, severe illness, significant weight loss, etc. This is called telogen effluvium. It is almost always reversible and usually happens 3-4 months after the stress. 

There are a variety of other medical, pharmacologic, psychological, infectious, environmental and hormonal causes of hair loss.

  • Traction alopecia from crazy tight hair-dos
  • Ringworm in the scalp (tinea capitis)
  • Diabetes, lupus, iron-deficiency anemia, and thyroid disease
  • Trichotillomania, a psychological disorder where sufferers compulsively pull and tear at their hair (and sometimes eat it)
  • Alopecia areata (think Dr. Evil) is a potentially treatable autoimmune disease that causes patchy hair loss.

If you're worried about your hair-or lack thereof- be sure to visit your primary care provider to talk about it.

Adam Brandeberry, Med IV (Ohio State University College of Medicine)

Victoria Rentel, MD (Ohio State Student Health Services)

Comments

  • Thursday, November 12, 2009 12:10:44 AM Posted by: J "'Male pattern baldness', or androgenic alopecia, is common to both males and females, believe it or not." I thought that male-pattern baldness was X-linked, and that's why we generally see it in males. Obviously, it's not as nasty as, for example, ALD, so it's not going to be selected out of the population so it will appear sometimes in females, but not nearly as commonly.

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