Baldness
Stop pulling your hair out (sorry for the bad pun) and get the facts
Baldness is a lack of hair where hair would normally grow. Though it can occur anywhere on the body, baldness is most often associated with the head (which makes sense, since this is the most visible hair on the body).
Baldness Cause
What causes baldness? This is a question that humans have struggled to answer for thousands of years. In Ancient Rome, a lack of acidity was blamed for hair loss. Believe it or not, this actually led people to turn to animal urine as a cure. Only half a century ago, scientists guessed that electric shocks could increase blood flow and cause hair to grow. They guessed wrong.
Because so many people are sensitive about their hair loss, millions of dollars have been spent on baldness research. Scientists today feel like they have a pretty good grasp on what causes baldness. The answer is that many different factors can cause a person to lose his or her hair, including diet, illness and injury.
More than anything else, though, baldness is caused by your hormones and what’s in your DNA. Scientists don’t completely understand how or why it happens, but they are pretty sure that typical pattern baldness is caused by enzymes in the body reacting with hormones. This causes the follicles in the scalp to shrink and stop producing new hair. The whole process is very complicated, so all you really need to know is this: if there is a history of hair loss in your family, chances are that you’ll be affected as well (and there’s not much you can do about it)
Baldness Myths
Though many people believe that certain shampoos, dyes and even some foods can cause hair loss, these are myths. Likewise, wearing a hat or getting your hair permed will not make you more or less likely to go bald. The only external factors that can cause hair loss are disease, malnutrition, injury and side effects from some medications.
It’s also a myth that the “baldness gene” comes from your mother’s side of the family. The truth is that there are several different genes involved and they are inherited from both your mother and father. In fact, there are so many genetic variables at play that it’s impossible to predict whether anyone will go bald or not (so you can stop inspecting mother’s father’s head and trying to predict what’s in store for you).
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