Saturday, May 31, 2008

Androgenetic Alopecia - Baldness.

Alopecia, commonly known as baldness, is a set of disorders which involves the state of lacking hair where it would normally grow, especially on the head.

One out of every three women experience noticeable hair loss, while the case for men is about 50%. Due to hormonal difference, women can hardly suffer total hair loss like men, instead their hairs can just thin down. This, scientifically speaking, is as a result of the fact that men produce more testosterone than women, and testosterone being the major cause of Androgenetic Alopecia (Baldness). While Androgenetic Alopecia is the number one reason why individuals experience hair loss, it is not the only one. But is hair loss a disease?

Hair loss is obviously not a disease but a natural process. According to Wiki the average human head has about 100,000 hair follicles. Each follicle is likely to grow somewhere around 20 individual hairs in a person's lifetime, and average hair loss is about 100 strands a day. This means that hair loss is natural. And while someone who is genetically disposed to Alopecia is getting older, the chances to baldness increase. But baldness not being a disease, why is there so much fuss?

The fuss is found in our society which grows by continuous maintenance of everything. We want to continue maintaining our youthfulness, and the truth is it looks good to be youthful. That is why from ancient times a lot of effort has been put into re-growing lost hair. From Egypt to Africa, down to Middle and Far East and the Americas a lot of medical and magical efforts have been put into curing hair loss. Egyptians and Africans have used from chopped lettuce patches, Fir Tree extracts, Castor Oils to properties of Avocado, and also mixed Olive Oil. The Indians have used things like Amla Oil and Fenugreek powder. And in more recent times Emu Oil is favored with a reduction in the volume of vitamin A consumption.

How successful those cures had been is better left to ancient medical history. But even today hair loss continues to be a thing of serious concern, and better treatments are being made available by professionals. And there are good ones to choose to help those with balding heads return to (once nostalgic) youthfulness.