Basic Causes of Hair Loss

There are some basic cuase of Hair loss like age, changing hormones, and heredity cause many to lose hair more than others. The basic causes of hair loss can be many. The causes may include stress, hormonal imbalance, disease or infections, medicines, and tugging of hair.

Basic Causes of Hair Loss

Despite common perception, hair loss does not come down to one's lack of luck. Most people naturally lose some of their hair as they get older. Overall, age, changing hormones, and heredity cause many to lose hair more than others. The result can be partial or total baldness, a phenomenon which men are more likely to experience. So how does it start? Well, the normal life cycle of hair is between two and three years and during this cycle, it grows approximately one centimeter each month. About ninety percent of the hair on your scalp is growing at any one time, with the remaining ten percent in a resting phase. After three to four months, the resting hair falls out and new hair start to grow in its place. Given the natural cycle, it is normal to shed some hair each day. However, some people may lose more than their normal quota.

The causes of hair loss can be many. The causes may include stress, hormonal imbalance, disease or infections, medicines, and tugging of hair.

  • Stress: The Stress can be one of the causes for loss of hair. The more the stress, more hair will be seen on your comb than on your scalp.
  • Hormonal imbalances: The Imbalances caused by hormones like overactive or under-active thyroid glands or an androgen or estrogen, may cause loss of hair among men and women.
  • Disease or Infections: loss of hair can be due to a particular disease or infection like lupus or diabetes.
  • Medicines: Anticoagulants or medicines used for gout, high blood pressure, depression or heart problems can also cause this condition.
  • Hairstyles: The Hairstyles that need you to pull your hair may be one of the reasons for hair loss known as "traction alopecia". This specific loss of hair is usually brought about by hairstyling that puts too much pressure on the scalp. The pulling causes the roots of the hair to be weak and disables it from growing healthy hair.

One of the causes for loss of hair is androgenetic alopecia or commonly known as the pattern baldness. Males and females who are prone to this might discover slow growth of hair as well as weaker stands of hair compared to before. In this condition, the main reasons for loss of hair could be heredity because the history of pattern baldness may increase your risks of losing your hair. Due to heredity, age is also affected which in turn, speeds up the rate of loss of hair.

Another reason for hair loss can be attributed to cicatricial alopecia or permanent loss of hair, caused by inflammation. In this condition, the inflammation was able to wreck the hair's follicle and later, became scars.

These scars can prevent growth of new hair. This particular condition can be caused due to skin conditions like lupus erythematosus and lichen planus.

One more reason that could be cited for hair loss is alopecia areata which is caused by autoimmune disease. The cause of this condition is yet to be found. This condition is generally caused to healthy people. Some state that the condition can be brought about by autoimmune disorders like thyroid illness, genes or certain virus in the environment where the person spends a long time in.

One reason for losing hair is due to a change in the normal hair cycle, called telogen effluvium.

This situation occurs when something has shocked our system which leads to premature resting of hair growth. This can be caused by physical or emotional stress such as death of a close person or any other upsetting event. As mentioned above, psychological stress, weight change conditions, deficiency in nutrition, differences in metabolism can be reasons for hair loss.