Women's Hair Loss - Types and Causes

I wrote this article to assist with understanding why women suffer from hair loss. There are forms of Alopecia that can be temporary and others that can be permanent so the options of women's hair loss products and choosing them can be daunting. The importance, when deciding on treatment for hair loss, of knowing what is the underlying cause is crucial. By determining this, you can make your choice so much easier and, in the best cases, you may not need hair loss treatments at all.

Types of Hair Loss

Androgenetic Alopecia
This type of baldness is common amongst both women and men and is largely inherited by parents or grandparents passing on the dominant genes. It can often miss a generation, although you would normally have a bald or balding parent. Not everybody inherits the gene that is responsible for the balding or thinning of hair, so your brothers and sisters may suffer from the condition and you may not, or vice versa.

In this case, the hair loss can be permanent but the extent of the hair loss depends on that of the relation that passed on the gene - by looking at their pattern of hair loss, whether male or female, you can generally see how you will lose your hair. Females generally lose hair from the top of the head, but rarely go totally bald unlike men who normally lose hair from the sides of the head.

Female Pattern Baldness
Men are the most common sufferers of pattern baldness although it is more often seen now for women to lose some of the hair on their head, partially or completely. This form of thinning may lead to balding but in most cases you will avoid this and just see thinning of the hair in places.
Pattern baldness is a cause of the body producing too much testosterone (a male hormone). It is normal for a female to product male hormones - we all have male and female hormones - although excessive production will cause a chronic thinning or balding of the hair.

Telogen Effluvium
This form of hair loss is temporary in most cases and any hair loss will normally return to the way it was before the event, the 'Telogen' is the resting phase that the follicles go through after such events. To outline events that can cause this type of Alopecia, they are:

. Extreme mental and emotional stress
. Surgery / shock to the body
. Pregnancy and child birth, and birth control pills
. Dieting and other drugs (cholesterol lowering drugs or anti-coagulants are well-known)

Severe mental stress can be a direct or indirect cause of women's hair loss. The increase in loss of hair can be a result of a particularly stressful event like family bereavements, being involved in accidents etc. The body reacts by losing hair from parts of the head, sometimes other parts of the body (although rare), as the follicles weaken and the hair breaks before it can grow.

A major operation will sometimes cause hair to fall out as the body copes with regenerating other more important parts of the body. The body allows itself to repair and recover other areas so the hair follicles weaken and hair is lost. Some illnesses themselves can cause hair to fall out as the body concentrates on repairing damaged cells, one well known cause is the disease Lupus, and this can be a permanent loss of hair.

It is well known that hair and skin become much healthier during pregnancy, will the increased levels of hormones (progesterone and oestrogen) around the body and the mother being more conscious of their daily intake of healthy foods (by instinct, most pregnant women have cravings for certain foods that contain an essential nutrient that assists with the healthy growth of their child). After childbirth, the extra hair gained during pregnancy eventually sheds, this will happen around four to six months afterwards as the hair returns to normal. In a slightly similar way, birth control pills work by increasing hormonal levels as most have to contain slightly more male hormones to work as the contraceptive.

Finally, dieting drugs and illegal drugs will have an effect on the thinning of hair as the drugs normally curb the appetite and cause a lack of nutrition in the diet. Some drugs increase the appetite but this sometimes leads to an increased intake of junk foods which, again, will cause a severe lack of nutrition.

In the cases above, the effects are usually temporary and the hair growth will begin to return to normal around three to four months after the event (or when the additional drugs or pills have ceased being taken). The hair follicles strengthen and allow hair to re-grow back to its normal condition.