Causes Of Female Hair Loss

There are a number of different reasons for why a woman may find that she starts to lose her hair. Yet although some women do suffer from hair loss, it is not to the same extent that men do. In this article, we look at one reason that is the cause of female hair loss and is the most common.

Yet even though we still think that hair loss is predominantly a male problem, today quite a few women are likely to suffer from some form of serious hair loss. In fact, according to the American Academy of Dermatology around 30 million women in the United States alone are troubled with hair loss of one sort or another.

For quite a few women the reason that they start losing hair is because of their genetics. All women have hormones in their bodies called androgens, but for a few, these can actually interfere with the way that their hair grows normally. The main hormone in this group, which causes such a problem, is testosterone.

For some unknown reason because of a woman’s genetic makeup, there are times when the testosterone hormone in her body comes into contact with an enzyme that makes it convert easily into DHT. When it does this the DHT is able to bind to the receptors deep inside the hair follicles which prevents messages from being able to gain entry and so prevent them from growing as normal.

Generally, this build up of DHT on the hair follicles takes some time so a woman will only see a gradual increase in their hair loss. The build up also causes the hair follicles to shrink and so the pattern for natural hair growth in a person begins to alter. Often as this happens, a woman is likely to notice that they are beginning to suffer from female pattern baldness or androgenic alopecia if you wish to use its medical name.

Yet even though this form of baldness in women is similar to the version that men get there are some slight differences between them. In most cases for women, it will be very difficult to see because it is diffused and often is a thinning of the hair rather than them losing hair and becoming bald. As for men they will start to see the line of hair begin to thin and then recede altogether. The most common place it occurs on women is on the top of their scalps, as for men it happens at the crown, on the temple, or at the back of the head.

As well as this difference in the two types of baldness, the other is that it only occurs in men as they grow older. Whilst for women they can start to suffer from female pattern baldness at any stage in their lives. For some women who get it when they are young it is because they may well be suffering from some other medical condition.

As well as the above, there are other reasons as to why a woman may suffer from hair loss. Certainly, when it comes to deciding what the cause of female hair loss is in a particular woman it may come down to a number of different factors. With Some women, the cause can be from a traumatic event in their lives, whilst for others it could be down to some kind of medical condition or treatment.