At some stage in life, one in three people will experience unusual or excessive hair loss. While easy to see in males, hair thinning and balding is a female affliction too...

Scalp hair has a life cycle, made up of growth, rest and eventual destruction. In the first phase of life, hair strands grow for 2-6 years. At any one time 90% of your hair is in this active stage of growth. The other 10% is resting, for 2-3 months.

At the end of the resting phase, the hair is shed, at which time a new hair grows in its place from the same follicle. Sometimes the balance of the different phases can be disturbed, resulting in hair entering the rest phase too quickly. Over time, this leads to thin-looking hair with low hair density.

The causes of hair loss are numerous and often interacting. In women, hair loss may simply be the result of an overly aggressive hair styling regime. Over-colouring and perming, or tight hairstyles can damage the hair and lead to hair loss. Fastidious hair cleaning involving daily shampooing, with excessive combing, brushing or use of heat styling tools (such as dryers and straighteners) can also lead to brittle, damaged and dying hair.

Female hormonal change is another common cause of hair loss. Many women notice thinning hair after giving birth and during the post-menopausal years, when hormonal balances change. Oral contraceptive pills can also cause hair loss in some women.

Many women place themselves at risk of hair loss through extreme diets. For example, low calorie diets cause the body to save protein by shifting the hair into the resting phase prematurely. Iron deficiency, again more common among women, can also trigger hair loss. Thyroid problems can cause hair loss in both men and women.

Numerous commonly prescribed medications can cause hair loss. Among men, hereditary thinning or balding is the most common cause of hair loss. This condition is known as androgenetic alopecia and can begin as early as the teenage years.

One of the causes is an overabundance of a particularly active form of testosterone, within the hair follicle, called DHT. This is the same hormone that influences many aspects of male behaviour, from sex drive to aggression. Over time, this hormone causes hair follicles to degrade and the growing phase of the hair to shorten, resulting in more hair falling out.

Japanese researchers have discovered another cause of balding that they link to western dietary trends. They discovered a correlation between excessive oil (sebum) in the scalp and hair loss. This causes a high level of the special enzyme that converts normal testosterone into the super active DHT form of the hormone, leading to balding.

The sebum also clogs the pores in the scalp, causing malnutrition of the hair root. Since the consumption of animal fat has increased in the Japanese diet, not only have Japanese men increased significantly in height but more of them have also started experiencing problems with baldness.

Stress can also cause your hair to fall out. After a particularly stressful event or major shock, increased hair shedding will occur between 6-16 weeks later. Living with constant stress and high levels of stress hormones in the blood can trigger hair loss.

Some experts theorise that living with constant stress increases the body’s uptake of glucose, leaving less available for non-essential tissues such as hair, causing it to fall out prematurely. These same stress-related hormonal changes also cause the adrenal glands to increase the production of testosterone, increasing DHT levels and accelerating hair loss.

Article by Thomas Curzio
Thomas Curzio is a leading expert on hair loss and the International Educator for Nioxin worldwide. For over 20 years, NIOXIN researchers have understood that a healthy scalp skin is essential to achieving healthy looking hair. NIOXIN products contain vitamin-rich natural herbs to help create a healthy scalp environment which promotes healthier looking hair and addresses thinning hair problems.