Learn What Causes Baldness

What causes baldness? It’s a question that has riddled man for thousands of years. In Ancient Rome, they believed baldness was caused by lack of acidity, which is probably why animal urine was regarded as a pre-eminent hair loss remedy.  And up until about 50 years ago, electric shock treatments were used in the belief that the flow of blood, or lack thereof, was responsible for hair loss. The truth is…you really should be blaming your parents. (And not just your mom either.)

Baldness is caused by a mixture of genetics and hormones that we have very little control of. Though scientists are pretty close to identifying the genes responsible for baldness, (there’s more than one), the actual process of baldness is still quite a mystery. They are pretty sure that it is one particularly enzyme’s overzealous conversion of testosterone into (DHT) or dihydrotestosterone, an important part of male fetus development that causes baldness.

For some reason, science still isn’t sure why, these high levels of DHT react in a negative way with hair on the scalp, causing small hair follicles that ordinarily would be regenerating new hairs every 2-6 years, to shrink and render them useless to the creation of new hair. Again for some reason, and scientists don’t know about this one either, the hair on the sides of the head do not react the same way to DHT, leading to that “monk look” so common in men suffering from baldness.

Women suffering from baldness can blame powerful andogens created by the ovaries and adrenal glands combined with loss of estrogen for their hair loss. This is evidenced by a high-rate of female pattern baldness among women during menopause when testosterone levels are highest among women.

As we move closer to finding the cause of baldness we will probably find it is more a combination of factors than one isolated cause. It is important to remember that pattern baldness is not a disease and has no corresponding side effect other than hair loss. (And not all of it coming from your mom’s side. So give her a break.)

To get a more detailed explanation on what causes baldness contact Pistone Hair Restoration for a free consultation.