Alopecia or male pattern baldness
December 30th 2007 -
When we talk about baldness, in most of the cases, we refer to male pattern baldness or androgenic alopecia or alopecia androgenetica. Alopecia is broad term that literally means loss of hair in both males and females. Other forms of alopecia are, alopecia areata, loss of some hair from the head, alopecia totalis, loss of all hair from head. The most serve for my hair loss is alopecia universalis that involve loss of all body hair.
Male pattern is characterized by hair receding from the lateral sides of the forehead, known as “receding hairline”. Receding hairlines are usually seen in males above the ages of 25.
Causes of baldness
The most important factor responsible for the androgenic alopecia is genetic. It is an established fact that baldness runs in families and the environmental factors has little to do with hair loss. Both maternal and paternal side of the family can affect an individual by causing alopecia.
Apart from it, the other most important factor responsible for baldness is interplay of hormones. It is believed that men with androgenic alopecia typically have lower levels of total testosterone, higher levels of unbound/free testosterone, and higher levels of total free androgens including DHT.
The baldness can have some other factors behind it too like fungal infections, the trauma, chemotherapy, traction etc.
Treatment of baldness
As for as treatment of baldness is concerned, treating the cause helps improves this condition. It is believed that treatment of alopecia has very little success rate. Since the most important factor responsible for this is genetic so drugs can have a very little impact. Some of the sufferers may benefit from the available drugs in the market but it is not always true in all the conditions. Few such examples of clinically proven treatments are finasteride and topically applied minoxidil that work by stopping the further loss of the hair and re-grow them.
In cases where fungal infection is responsible for the baldness, Ketoconazole can benefit such individuals.
Apart from the above mentioned treatment modalities, hair transplantation stays as a mainstay with many sufferers around.