Whenever anything goes wrong with the children, we all want to blame the parents. See an out-of-control teen and the instinctive responses all kick in. Broken marriage, broken children. While there may be some justice in this when it comes to behavior, it’s less fair when scientists start announcing genetic causes for how children turn out. Take obesity as an example. How or why some people end up carrying more weight than others is not simply down to the genes they inherit from their parents. At some point, children have to take responsibility for themselves. They are the ones taking the day-to-day decisions on how to live their lives.
The latest “official” statistics on male pattern baldness claim it affects two-thirds of all men. In reality, all men slowly lose their hair as they age. Come the time to enter the ranks of the retired, the hairline will have receded and scalp will be showing through the thin wisps on top. As that ancient Brit, King Canute, discovered, you can sit on the beach at low tide but, no matter how much you command the sea not to come back in, it will. Biology is fixed by the clock. Hair thins and drops out. So why do some younger men lose their hair before the usual time?
Well, here come those pesky genes, specifically one or two on the X chromosome regulating how men react to the different versions of testosterone floating around in the bloodstream. Really, it’s all the fault of dihydrotestosterone. All men produce it but, if you have the wrong genes, this will trigger early hair loss. Did you know you get your X chromosome from your mother? She has two: one from her paternal grandmother and one from her mother. So if your your maternal grandfather had male pattern baldness, you are doomed. An exaggeration, of course, because many different genes contribute, deciding whether you will go completely bald or only lose enough hair to form that magic M. There are also environmental factors. Your hair loss can be accelerated by high stress, and by the presence of diabetes or heart disease. Diabetes in particular is significant because it affects the amount of testosterone in the blood. more…
It’s obvious that most people aren’t quite happy with hair loss when it occurs. Of course, there’s a large number of people who are completely cool about balding and don’t find it tragic at all, but most men are quite sensitive about their hair and become worried when the hair loss process takes force. And to make things even more unpleasant, there are actually many different factors that may become the cause of hair loss in each person individually.
In most cases hair loss results from unpleasant factors of nutritional, hormonal, genetic and environmental nature. Although, all of these factors tend to mix up in a unique with every person, there’s nothing really exceptional about them at all. They all are known for disrupting the natural nutrition of hair follicles resulting in decreased rates of natural hair growth and eventual hair loss.
Typical causes of hair loss in men
There are many different conditions and circumstances that may be the actual cause for hair loss in men, and it’s crucial that you define the actual factors in your case. Things like surgery, injury or even psychological trauma can lead to hair loss too. It is important to understand that any stress, whether everyday or an exceptional situation, can lead to the disruption of natural hair nutrition and subsequent balding problems. Things like skin infections and diseases that affect the scalp directly are another set of factors that are quite common candidates for hair loss initiators.
Loss of hair can also be a consequence of certain treatment or medication intake, especially of drugs that affect hormonal levels. Chemical and radiation therapy used for treating certain types of cancer quite often leads to partial or full hair loss. Still, one of the most common causes for hair loss in men, especially of the so called male pattern hair loss, is the excessive amount of DHT production coupled with individual genetics. At first, it was believed that genetics are the main cause for baldness in men. However recent discoveries in this problem have put the genetics a bit further from the forefront of the hair loss development process. Today, most scientists see DHT (dihydrotestosterone) as the main cause for baldness and hair loss in men of different age. more…
