Q.1: Does shampooing the hair too frequently cause hair loss?
Reply: Essentially NO it does not. Also – unless it’s a harsh or tar-based treatment shampoo it will not strip natural oils from the scalp either. With the exception of mechanical or chemical burn-induced hair loss, the precipitating factor is always the result of internal body disturbance.
Q.2: Will blow-drying or tinting one’s hair cause hair loss?
Reply: Again the answer is essentially NO. Whilst a too vigorous ‘stretch & burn’ can result in hair breakage – most people who style their own hair learn just how much heated blow drying their hair requires. However a number of nutritional or metabolic deficiencies result in thin, dry hair that is prone to breakage. Bleaching one’s hair will often cause dry, porous hair shafts that fracture more easily.
Q3: Does shaving the head stimulate the hair into growing back ‘thicker’?
Reply: This is an erroneous illusion! As in the situation with a man’s beard – constant shaving causes the hair shaft to ‘mature’ in the follicle, but when left unshaven emerges as thicker stubble. As the hair’s length increases it grows as hormonally programmed to do.
The same principle applies to those with long hair – trimming it to a ‘bob’ will not stop an excessive hair fall problem. However those women (+ men) fortunate enough to be able to grow long hair know that split ends are stopped by trimming the hair back beyond the fractured shafts.
Q4: When hair loss is deemed ‘genetic’ nothing can be done?
Reply: Informed people now know this is incorrect. When male androgenic alopecia is treated early with an approved combination of topical Minoxidil & oral Finesteride, the condition can be stabilised in a very high percentage of men. Current generation Minoxidil formulas possess advanced penetration agents, DHT hormone blockers, Minoxidil activators, ‘vellus-reversal’ properties, and anti-inflammatory agents. Reviewing diet, lifestyle, & a preliminary blood test enhances the prospect of optimal outcome.
What about female genetic hair loss? I was the first practitioner to identify two forms of so-called ‘genetic’ pattern thinning in females. True genetically inherited female androgenic alopecia is an autosomal recessive hereditary trait affecting numbers of women within an extended family. The woman will recount a family history of her mother, grandmother/s, sisters, aunts or female cousins with a comparable thinning hair problem. These women tend to exhibit the condition after puberty or in their early twenties, particularly following childbirth.
The more common form is what I term ‘acquired’ pattern alopecia. This exhibits as the result of a compensatory adrenal gland response when iron levels/metabolic activity are inadequate. Testosterone (TT) is up-converted from DHEA (produced in the adrenal cortex) to DHT (dihydrotestosterone) which has a miniaturising influence on ‘androgen-sensitive’ hair follicles across the top of the scalp.
Increased facial/body hair (hypertrichosis) often accompanies female pattern thinning because these follicles are stimulated in the presence of male hormone.
Whilst there are more influencing factors to consider with women, both forms of pattern thinning can be treated to a very sucessful degree.
Q.5: I’m a woman & I’ve been told I have ‘male balding’. Is this true?
Reply: Unless you have undertaken ‘gender re-assignment’ (male to female with a pre-existing male androgenic alopecia), have extremely high Testosterone levels, or are using serious amounts of anabolic steroids – the answer is NO!
Female and Male androgenic alopecia are two distinctly separate clinical entities – the only common feature is miniaturisation of DHT-influenced hair follicles. Their respective presentation & progression differ; males tend to lose their frontal hair line margin whilst the female hair line generally remains intact. Males may proceed to total (or near total) baldness, but hair follicles in the female ‘androgen-sensitive’ scalp area are usually arbitrarily affected.
Severe female pattern alopecia (Ludwig III) is frequently a concomitant pattern thinning with underlying influences – notably hypothyroid-induced alopecia.
Those who call female androgenic alopecia “male balding” are unskilled in differentiating the subtleties of hair loss & how it presents. Such an incorrect conclusion can be emotionally devastating to women.