Alopecia - Commonly Called Hair Loss - written by Andrea Morris

Alopecia, that is the proper term for hair loss whether total or partial. Most people will just use the words bald or balding. No matter what you call it, before you can treat it you need to have all of the facts about hair loss. There are a few things that you must take into consideration to better understand your hair loss situation and the various options currently available for its treatment. The more information you have early on in treating hair loss, the better your odds for success.

If you are to make sense of and deal with your situation with hair loss, first you must find out what kind of hair loss you are experiencing. Doing so will help you sort through the huge amount of data that is available. Hair loss can occur gradually, or happen in areas, and sometimes even effects body hair. It is natural to have some hair loss -- on average a person will lose about a hundred hairs per day. This is not really significant, since most human scalps have about a hundred thousand hairs. For an average hair, the usual lifespan is about four and a half years. During this time, this hair will increase in size about a half inch each six months. In approximately five years, this hair will fall out, to be replaced with a hair just like it after about six months time. A type of hair loss called genetic hair loss can occur when a person's body doesn't make new hairs to take the place of the ones that have been shed excessively.

Hair loss occurs in both men and women alike. As people get older, they all loose the same amount of hair, man or woman. The thinning of hair is the same. Inherited pattern baldness does occur more for men then women and about one fourth of all men will begin to go bald by the age of 30, and two-thirds will begin developing balding patterns and be bald by sixty. Male pattern baldness usually includes a receding hair line which is accompanied by the thinning of hair around the crown. Testosterone is the key factor to male pattern baldness. Men lacking testosterone due to genetic abnormalities usually will not develop male pattern baldness.

Many etiologies of hair loss exist. Thus, it is of paramount importance to evaluate all available information on possible causes of hair loss instead of assuming that one's hair loss is hereditary. While baldness is usually the consequence of aging, inheritance or testosterone, myriad other factors exist that should not be ignored. These include hormonal variations, severe illness, medications, too much shampooing or blow drying, stress-whether psychological or physical, nervous habits, burns and even parasites such as ringworm.