Men and women who lose their hair, are either expe­ri­enc­ing hair thin­ning, com­plete bald­ing, or in most cases suf­fer­ing from a genetic con­di­tion known as andro­ge­netic alope­cia. This is pre­pon­der­ance for los­ing one’s hair on cer­tain areas of the scalp that is passed from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. It used to be believed that the bald­ing prob­lem was only passed down through the mother’s genes but that is no longer true. Now we know that this form of hair loss, or alope­cia, is not deter­mined by one par­ent or the other.

Andro­ge­netic alope­cia, also known as pat­tern bald­ness or pat­tern hair loss, is caused by a sit­u­a­tion that actu­ally stops the hair fol­li­cles from pro­duc­ing hair shaft mate­r­ial. The fol­li­cle can be thought of as the hair fac­to­ries in one’s body. The fol­li­cle is con­nected to the blood sup­ply which pro­vides it with oxy­gen and nutri­ents which are essen­tial for the man­u­fac­tur­ing of hair. When pat­tern bald­ness is active a hor­monal metabo­lite known as DHT is pro­duced in the body and even­tu­ally makes its way to hair fol­li­cle. The DHT bonds to the hair fol­li­cles and causes a dis­rup­tion in the pro­duc­tion of hair mate­r­ial. Nor­mally a hair fol­li­cle will pro­duce hair in a cycli­cal man­ner. It goes through growth and rest stages that can last sev­eral months. The DHT short­ens the growth phase of the fol­li­cle to the point that it can no longer pro­duce a healthy hair shaft and the shaft falls out. If not treated quickly, the pat­tern bald­ness will ren­der the fol­li­cle com­pletely ineffective.

The best hair restora­tion sys­tem involves deal­ing with the affect of DHT and also trans­plant­ing new hair fol­li­cles into the balded area. There are two hair loss treat­ment drugs that have been approved by the US FDA and have proved effec­tive at slow­ing down the loss of hair but they will not do much to re-energize the fol­li­cles that have stopped pro­duc­ing so these hair fol­li­cles must be replaced. Of the two drugs only one, Minox­i­dil, is approved for both men and females. This is a top­i­cal solu­tion that is applied to the scalp and helps to allow the hair fol­li­cles to con­tinue to pro­duce as needed. The sec­ond drug, Finas­teride, is only pre­scribed for men as it can cause birth defects. This drug actu­ally works to limit the amount of DHT that is pro­duced in the body. Hair restora­tion doc­tors will usu­ally use one or both of these drugs to keep what hair there is still grow­ing along with hair implan­ta­tion to pro­vide replace­ment hair fol­li­cles for the bald­ing that has already occurred.

The part of the sys­tem that causes the high­est hair restora­tion costs is the implan­ta­tions. Thus if a per­son can start the treat­ments early to save what hair they still have the hair restora­tion price will be much lower. As is usu­ally the case, the sooner a prob­lem is addressed the cheaper it is to deal with.  Apply­ing the cor­rect hair replace­ment sys­tems can get you the head of hair you deserve. Start today to deter­mine your path to a full head of hair.

If you’re start­ing to get wor­ried because you think you’re los­ing your hair or just won­der­ing if the amount you’re los­ing is nat­ural, take a small hand­ful of hair in your hand and tug it as hard as you can. If you have more than six strands of hair in your hand then you are los­ing hair. A nat­ural loss would be less than six strands of hair a day. The “how to tell if you are los­ing your hair” test is the best way to make the dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between nor­mal shed­ding and per­me­ate hair loss.

Hair loss is a big con­cern for many men, women and chil­dren. There are many causes. You may know that you have rapid hair loss already or even a lit­tle loss and won­der what is caus­ing it. Maybe you already have a patch of hair loss. You may not be sure so here’s a good way to tell if it’s abnor­mal or not.

What do you do about it?

First of all try to deter­mine if it’s related to any cur­rent med­ical diag­no­sis you have right now. Then take a look at any med­ica­tions you may be tak­ing in case it’s tem­po­rary and related to med­ica­tions, med­i­cines or drugs.

If you’re a man then male pat­tern bald­ness could be a pos­si­bil­ity espe­cially if you notice a reced­ing hair line. Symp­toms could be related to preg­nancy if you’re preg­nant. It could be a thy­roid issue. If you are los­ing in big chunks it could be alope­cia areata. There are many causes for hair loss.

In any case you’ll want to learn how to stop or pre­vent it. There are many ways to learn through blogs, forums and dis­cus­sion groups. How­ever one must be care­ful there because there is a lot of mis­in­for­ma­tion and guess­ing going on. It’s always bet­ter to get med­ical advice from experts in the field, espe­cially if pro­gres­sion is a mat­ter of concern.

Genetic fac­tors may pre­dis­pose males to hair loss, this is con­di­tion is often referred to as male pat­tern bald­ness. Male pat­tern bald­ness is more sus­cep­ti­ble in males who have high lev­els of DHT (dihy­drotestos­terone) a gene that is found to be the cul­prit of bald­ing. Pre­vent­ing hair loss should be a mat­ter of con­cern for those who are more sus­cep­ti­ble to hair loss and begin­ning to expe­ri­ence male pat­tern bald­ness. Obtain­ing knowl­edge and a clear under­stand­ing of the envi­ron­men­tal and genetic fac­tors that go into crest­ing this con­di­tion is imper­a­tive oth­er­wise, if not addressed, can lead to baldness.

Alope­cia is what doc­tors and other med­ical experts call hair loss that has been caused by genet­ics. In just about every case, this alope­cia is andro­genic in nature, mean­ing that there are hor­mones within the body that inter­act with hair fol­li­cles of the scalp. In some males, these fol­li­cles become sen­si­tive to DHT (dihydrotestosterone).

There is also sev­eral other genetic or envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that go into mak­ing up the con­di­tion that cre­ates andro­genic alope­cia, and although it is referred to as “male pat­tern bald­ness” women are just as sus­cep­ti­ble. One such envi­ron­men­tal fac­tor has been iden­ti­fied that relates the kinds and qual­ity of aer­o­bic exer­cise to the bald­ness though the link is still some­what unproven.

At any rate, many men and women are con­fronted with grad­ual loss of the hair on top of their heads and quite often become alarmed by it. There are ways, through, to help pre­vent such loss these days. New prod­ucts– mostly nat­ural in nature – have come into the mar­ket that show great promise in help­ing men and women to keep what they already have on their head and maybe even add a lit­tle bit more to it.

Most of these new prod­ucts are com­posed mainly of vit­a­mins, herbs and min­er­als into sup­ple­ments that are taken orally and some­time are com­bined with a top­i­cal appli­ca­tion. Those who sus­pect or fear that they will become vic­tims of alope­cia can begin tak­ing these vit­a­mins and herbs as soon as they begin to expe­ri­ence hair loss. They do not have to accept exces­sive or per­ma­nent hair loss, espe­cially with all of the pre­ventable prod­ucts on the mar­ket today.

While the loss of hair from the scalp- hair thin­ning, male pat­tern bald­ness, a reced­ing hair­line, and alope­cia– is a very com­mon and frus­trat­ing prob­lem among both men and women, some indi­vid­u­als suf­fer from loss of over­all body hair. There are five main causes of body hair loss– skin con­di­tions, hor­monal dis­or­ders, med­ica­tions and other med­ical ill­nesses, stress, and diet. Cer­tain skin con­di­tions, such as eczema, pso­ri­a­sis, der­mati­tis, skin injury, and burns, cause dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles and sur­round­ing cells mak­ing hair growth impos­si­ble. In some of these instances, espe­cially in the case of severe skin burns, the cell dam­age can be irre­versible so the body hair loss is also permanent.

Aside from hor­monal dis­or­ders and skin injury, cer­tain other med­ical ill­ness can lead to loss of body hair. Can­cer, dis­eases that affect the immune sys­tem, and con­di­tions that dis­rupt organ func­tion can all cause tem­po­rary lapses in the nat­ural hair growth process. In most cases the body hair loss is restricted to one or two areas most affected by the dis­ease or ill­ness, but in some cases the hair loss can be seen all over the body.

Because there are so many dif­fer­ent rea­sons that you may be los­ing the hair all over your body it is imper­a­tive that you see a doc­tor at the first sign of this hair loss. If the hair loss is a result of an under­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tion it is impor­tant that you receive treat­ment for the dis­ease not just the hair loss.

Make sure to pick up NEWSWEEK dou­ble issue: MAY 24 & 31, 2010

John Kahen, M.D the founder and med­ical direc­tor of Bev­erly Hills Hair Restora­tion is cur­rently fea­tured in NEWSWEEK mag­a­zine, an exclu­sive issue fea­tur­ing BEST DOCTORS IN THE GREATER LOS ANGELES.

Hair restora­tion pro­ce­dures have changed in the decades since they were first done. The ear­lier meth­ods of using hair plugs were not accept­able to soci­ety. Hair trans­plant patients appeared to have doll like hair. Now hair trans­plants are more nat­ural look­ing due to the inno­v­a­tive meth­ods being used, such as micro grafting.

In gen­eral, most hair trans­plant surg­eries today involve micro graft­ing. Micro grafts hold about 1–3 or four hair fol­li­cles. Older style hair grafts often held on aver­age a dozen hair fol­li­cles. These new micro grafts are only pos­si­ble because skilled sur­geons have refined their method of extract­ing them.

Micro grafts are use­ful in hair trans­plant surgery because they can give the hair a quite nat­ural appear­ance. The hair emerges from the scalp in the most nat­ural way, with the same num­ber of hairs that nature intended. If the pro­ce­dure is done cor­rectly, no one can tell the difference.

Pre­vi­ously, when hair plugs were used, doc­tors did the hair trans­plant surg­eries much dif­fer­ently. They used an instru­ment called a trephine to cut cir­cu­lar grafts from 2mm to 5mm in diam­e­ter. These plugs were inserted into the bald­ing area.

Finally, the micro grafts will be fin­ished by being divided into indi­vid­ual grafts by using a stere­omi­cro­scope. The sur­gi­cal team will make a vari­ety of grafts from eight-shaft mini grafts to one or two shaft micro grafts. These will be moved dur­ing hair trans­plant to the recip­i­ent sites so that the hair will have a nat­ural hair­line with full­ness on top.

Top 5 foods for Healthy Hair

When it comes to healthy hair, it’s not just what prod­ucts you use that con­tributes to its heath. Hav­ing healthy hair also includes hav­ing a healthy diet. If you were born with fine, thin hair, you’ll never have rope-thick tresses — no mat­ter what you eat — but a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of growth-promoting pro­tein and iron can make a dif­fer­ence. Read on for the top 5 foods that should be the foun­da­tion of your healthy hair diet.

1. Salmon

When it comes to foods that pack a beauty punch, it’s hard to beat salmon. Loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, this high-quality pro­tein source is also filled with vit­a­min B-12 and iron.

2.     Dark Green Vegetables

Spinach, like broc­coli and Swiss chard, is an excel­lent source of vit­a­mins A and C, which your body needs to pro­duce sebum. The oily sub­stance, secreted by your hair fol­li­cles, is the body’s nat­ural hair con­di­tioner. Dark green veg­eta­bles also pro­vide iron and calcium.

3.     Beans

Legumes like kid­ney beans and lentils should be an impor­tant part of your hair-care diet. Not only do they pro­vide plen­ti­ful pro­tein to pro­mote hair growth, but ample iron, zinc, and biotin. While rare, biotin defi­cien­cies can result in brit­tle hair.

4.     Nuts

Brazil nuts are one of nature’s best sources of sele­nium, an impor­tant min­eral for the health of your scalp.Walnuts con­tain alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid that may help con­di­tion your hair. They are also a ter­rific source of zinc, as are cashews, pecans, and almonds. A zinc defi­ciency can lead to hair shed­ding, so make sure nuts are a reg­u­lar on your healthy hair menu.

5.     Poul­try

Chick­ens and turkeys may have feath­ers, but the high-quality pro­tein they pro­vide will help give you the healthy hair you crave. Poul­try also pro­vides iron with a high degree of bioavail­abil­ity, mean­ing your body can eas­ily reap its benefits.

There are sev­eral vari­a­tions avail­able and the most pop­u­lar and effec­tive of which include:

Hair Trans­plant Surgery

Hair trans­plan­ta­tion is a pro­ce­dure in which the sur­geon removes areas of hair-bearing scalp from the back or sides of the head and inserts the grafts  to the bald­ing areas. The rec­og­niz­able term for this tech­nique is ‘graft­ing’. The newly relo­cated hairs grows in the trans­planted areas that were pre­vi­ously bald. Once the hairs are trans­planted they are per­ma­nent and can be treated such as you would normally.

Hair flap surgery

Best choice for men with severe bald­ness. It involves a large flap of skin, on which hair is alive and grow­ing, to be pulled from the back and sides over the top sur­face area of the bald spot. It is then sur­gi­cally attached into place. The hair re-roots and begins to grow from its new loca­tion, ulti­mately elim­i­nat­ing any hair­less area.

Scalp tis­sue expansion

A balloon-type mech­a­nism is care­fully inserted under the scalp through an inci­sion. A salt-water con­coc­tion is added to slowly fill this bal­loon over time even­tu­ally caus­ing a swelling and stretch­ing of the scalp. The loose­ness actu­ally causes new skin cells to grow. After about two months this skin can be relo­cated to the area of bald­ness effec­tively mov­ing the hair to cover the spot.

Scalp reduc­tion surgery

 Also known as ‘advanced flap surgery’ since it is sim­i­lar in prin­ci­ple except a sec­tion of the bald scalp is actu­ally removed; rather than just pulling the skin over the hair­less spot. With the reduc­tion the sur­round­ing areas are actu­ally pulled up and con­nected in place of the absent scalp.

The roots of mod­ern day were cul­ti­vated in Japan in the late 1930s. In 1939, Japan­ese der­ma­tol­o­gist Dr. Okuda detailed his ground­break­ing work in sur­gi­cal hair restora­tion for burn vic­tims. He described using a punch tech­nique to extract round sec­tions of hair-bearing skin, which were then implanted into slightly smaller round holes made in the scarred or burned areas of the scalps of his patients. After the skin grafts healed, they con­tin­ued to pro­duce hair in the pre­vi­ously bald areas of scalp. In 1943 another Japan­ese der­ma­tol­o­gist refined Okuda’s tech­nique by using sig­nif­i­cantly smaller grafts of one to three hairs to replace lost pubic hair in his female patients.

In 1952, Dr. Nor­man Oren­tre­ich, a New York der­ma­tol­o­gist, per­formed the first known hair trans­plant in the U.S. on a man suf­fer­ing from male pat­tern bald­ing. Oren­tre­ich essen­tially rein­vented modern-day hair transplantation.

Seven years later, after much crit­i­cism, Oren­tre­ich pub­lished his find­ings and set forth his the­ory of “donor dom­i­nance” in the Annals of the New York Acad­emy of Sci­ences. His work demon­strated that the hair from the back and the sides of a man’s scalp was for the most part resis­tant to the bald­ing process. How­ever, his tech­nique mir­rored the less aes­thet­i­cally “punch graft” process of Okuda instead of the more nat­ural, smaller graft­ing tech­nique of Tamura.

It wasn’t until the mid 1990s that sur­gi­cal hair restora­tion pro­duced natural-looking results. Newer tech­niques, such as fol­lic­u­lar unit micro graft­ing, fol­lic­u­lar unit trans­plan­ta­tion, and fol­lic­u­lar unit extrac­tion, have made hair trans­plan­ta­tion a vir­tu­ally unde­tectable, viable option for many.

Causes of hair loss induced by scalp infections.

Fol­li­culi­tis

Fol­li­culi­tis is a term for inflam­ma­tion of hair fol­li­cles. It looks like acne with lit­tle rings of inflam­ma­tion sur­round­ing the open­ing of a hair fol­li­cle. In the early stages of a fol­li­culi­tis, the hair fiber may still be present, but as the fol­li­culi­tis pro­gresses the hair often falls out. There are non-infectious forms of fol­li­culi­tis, such as those caused by oils and greases applied to the skin that clog up the hair fol­li­cles, but fol­li­culi­tis is usu­ally due to a bac­te­r­ial infec­tion. Non­pre­scrip­tion top­i­cal antibi­otics such as bac­i­tracin, myc­i­tracin, or neomycin can be used to treat minor folliculitis

Piedra

Piedra (tri­chomy­co­sis nodu­laris) hap­pens when the hair fibers are infected by a fun­gus. The vis­i­ble indi­ca­tor of a piedra infec­tion is devel­op­ment of hard nod­ules on hair fibers. Indeed, “piedra” is Span­ish for stone. Piedra infec­tion may affect hairs of the scalp, body, and gen­i­tal areas. Usu­ally the infec­tion is rel­a­tively benign. In parts of Malaysia, the nod­ules of black piedra are con­sid­ered attrac­tive and tra­di­tion­ally women encour­aged its growth by sleep­ing with their hair buried in the soil. Treat­ment gen­er­ally involves shav­ing off affected areas. Anti-fungals such as keto­cona­zole or terbinafine are also used.

Demodex fol­licu­lo­rum

Demodex is a lit­tle worm-like crea­ture that likes to live on skin and in hair fol­li­cles. It feeds on dead skin and oils, so it par­tic­u­larly likes to live in hair fol­li­cles where there are lots of both.

Humans are born free of Demodex, but dur­ing child­hood, through con­tact with oth­ers, the skin can become infected with it. For the most part, we never know they are there. They are benign, if repul­sive, lit­tle crea­tures. The most com­mon prob­lem with Demodex is that they may cause irri­ta­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the eye­lashes. If you have itchy eye­lashes, Demodex may be the problem.