There are many causes of hair loss, from simply getting older to sudden hair loss due to a trauma. There are also a number of ways to treat the loss of hair depending on the cause. We take a look at one of the most common causes of hair loss and suggest a way the problem can be addressed.

One of the most common reasons for hair loss is simply through the ageing process. As we get older, the way the hair grows and the cycles it goes through changes. It is a misconception to think that hair loss means losing hair altogether. Humans do in fact have the same number of hair follicles as primates; we just grow different types of hair.

The hair growth cycle happens in three stages. A growing phase, followed by a resting phase and then again by a shedding phase. There are also three different types of hair known as vellus, intermediate and terminal. Vellus hairs are very short and colourless and in contrast terminal hairs are longer, thicker and darker. Vellus hairs can be found all over the body, whereas terminal hairs only grow on the head and pubic areas.

Normal hair loss occurs when the growth cycles begin to change with follicles that were once producing terminal hairs turning to produce vellus hairs instead. The hair loss condition known as pattern baldness, which happens to women as well as men means that this happens in a certain pattern. Male pattern baldness is characterised by a receding hairline and loss of hair at the crown. This loss continues until the terminal hairs on the head form a horse shoe shape, starting from the nape of the neck, round the sides of the head and finishing over the ears.

This growth pattern means that one of the treatments for hair loss, a hair transplant, succeeds by taking donor hairs from the back of the head and surgically implanting them in the balding areas. These hairs are transplanted with the follicle and as such continue to grow in the same manner as they did in the donor area. Surgical methods of hair transplantation have improved exponentially since transplant surgery first appeared.

Today, it is possible to transplant individual follicles with supreme accuracy to give a hair loss patient a natural looking hair transplant with the terminal hairs continuing to grow as they did at the donor site.

Dom Donaldson is a hair expert.
Find out more about Hair Loss and the treatments available for sufferers at HS Hair Clinic.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Hair Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.