Hair loss: what is normal and when to start worrying

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We all regularly lose a certain amount of hair. This is due to the fact that they go through their growth cycle and then renew themselves. But some factors that negatively affect the body increase hair loss.

People spend a lot of time and effort trying to find a way to prevent hair loss. The market for products designed to help tackle this problem is growing by leaps and bounds. Donald Trump's liquid comb is another illustration of what people go to to make their hair look more attractive.

Throughout life, we all lose a lot of hair. But how to understand that their loss has exceeded the norm?

The hair that is located on our head, eyebrows, eyelashes, as well as pubic hair is formed from protein. Their color is determined by melanin, a pigment that is also found in the skin and in the iris of the eyes. The type of hair (straight, curly or curly) depends on the shape of the hair follicle (bulb): straight hair usually grows from round follicles, wavy hair from oval follicles, and curly hair from kidney-shaped ones.

The period of active hair growth usually ranges from two to six years. This period is not the same for all hairs, so they grow unevenly. Basically, the rate of hair growth in different people is similar: 10-15 centimeters per year. Variations are determined by hereditary factors.

However, the length that your hair reaches depends a lot on how you test it. Styling, hairstyles with a firm hold or tightly pulled hair, careless combing, and sometimes even drying with a towel can significantly damage some strands.

Hair grows in cycles and these cycles do not match. The growth stages of each hair are differently distributed over time. So, roughly speaking, from 90 to 150 thousand hairs grow on our head, each of them is either at the stage of active growth, or in the resting stage (when, for two or three months, the hair still remains in the hair follicle, but no longer grows), or falls out, and all this at different times for different hair.

Every day we lose a certain amount of hair, and this is absolutely normal, because some strands just reach the end of their development cycle. Therefore, do not panic if you find tumbleweeds on the comb after a shower.

As many beauty bloggers assume, curly hair falls out more after washing than straight hair, because their owners usually brush their hair less often.

But if you are losing entire tufts of hair, it could be a signal that your body is under some stress. Pregnancy, surgery, insomnia, problems with the thyroid gland or malnutrition prevent the hair from going through the entire cycle of its development normally. In this case, your body is under great stress and simply cannot allocate additional resources for hair growth. Thus, the hair enters the resting stage prematurely. Suddenly about 40% of the hair stops growing. When the resting stage is over, they fall out in whole bunches.

Hair can also fall out during chemotherapy treatment. The drugs used to fight cancer stop cell division. Since the cells of the hair follicles are dividing very actively, chemotherapy attacks them along with the cancerous ones, which makes the hair fall out very quickly.

Hair loss with age, especially in men, is completely normal.

The follicles are extremely sensitive to the effects of the sex hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a type of testosterone. Under its influence, they shrink, and as a result, shorter hair grows from the follicles. Although usually with age, the male body produces less and less testosterone, the sensitivity of hair follicles to DHT increases. As a result, a larger number of follicles are compressed, which ultimately leads to the appearance of foci of baldness.

Now that we have clothes, and air conditioners can control the heat in the room, we no longer need hair as much as before. But scalp hair still has important functions. For example, through them we receive feedback from our body about its state. In addition, hair protects us from the sun. Alas, we often begin to appreciate all this only when we lose.