A Family History of Hair Loss

A major factor in determining hair loss for males or females is your susceptibility to it based on your family history. In a well known study, as many as 90% of males and 70% of females can trace back their hair loss problem to a hereditary condition called “Androgenetic Alopecia”. The condition can start occurring just as your pass puberty or even start as late as in your 50s.

Hair loss due to the condition is not biased to certain ethnic groups and can be inherited from either side of the family, maternal or paternal. Previously it was believed that the condition is inherited from the maternal grandfather but that theory has been found to be untrue and it can be either party. The problem is that this condition can skip some generations and as such looking at your parents isn’t enough, sometimes you have to look at your uncles or even great grandparents to determine if you may be afflicted with this condition.

A common trait of Androgenetic Alopecia is the miniaturization of the hair follicles which leads to a shortening of the growth cycle of hair development. For a normal scalp, hair follicles are in the growth stage about 70% of the time with the remaining 30% of the time the follicles are in the resting stage. It is at this resting stage that hair is almost always detached from the follicles. With Androgenetic Alopecia, the follicle tends to rest more and more which causes hair to become finer and finer then eventually the follicles go into resting 100% of the time and no hair is produced.

Andorgenetic Alopecia can also be called “male pattern baldness” or “female pattern baldness” depending on the gender. The characteristics of male pattern baldness are thinning of the hair starting from just above the temples and in the middle of the scalp and from these points gradually radiating out starting with thinning then full baldness. Female pattern baldness on the other hand almost always start from the middle of the scalp and radiates outwards only without the starting points above the temples loosing any hair. If you have hair loss that is characterized by these indicators then it is more than likely that you are experiencing Andorgenetic Alopecia.

With hereditary hair loss, the faster you recognize it the and the faster you start treatment the higher the chance that you will still have a full scalp of hair into your retirement years. The good news is that hair loss of this nature is highly treatable if you detect it fast enough that your follicles have not all gone into resting yet. Even simple steps like massaging your scalp or using specialized medicated shampoos or even balancing out your vitamin requirements can all contribute to a healthier scalp which is much less likely to “fall asleep”.

We recommend that you have a look around the rest of my site so you can get help on how can start treatment of your hair loss so that it won’t affect you as badly.