Reasons for hair loss

With the exception of the soles of the feet, the palms and the lips, around 5 million hairs cover the human body.

The body hair is short, light and fuzzy compared to the approximately 120 000 horn strings that are located on the head. These are generally longer, thicker and darker. Scientists have researched with different menthods and different success how hair loss actually happens. A normal hair grows for 2-8 years. Every day it becomes 0.3 millimetres longer. After this period of time the cells that produce hair die, and the scalp follicle takes a 3 month break. Afterwards, the hair root reawakens and the cycle starts again.

People who are affected by baldness have hair that loses substance increasingly from one cycle to the next ergo hair that becomes thinner and lighter, until nothing is left at all. This means that bald people have as many hair follicles as people who are not bald, but the amount of hair has shrunk to a minimum.

People who go bald have as many follicle growth cycles, but the speed that theses cylcle happen in is much quicker according to research. It is assumed that every follicle has a predetermined number of cycles.
So, for people with hair loss, primarily the speed of the cycles is responsible for baldness.

Hair loss usually begins in the forehead area with a receding hairline. This bald area then continues to grow towards the back of the head. Simultaneously, a bald patch on the back of the head can develop. If these two bald areas continue to grow, only the hair on the lower part of the head is left over. The reason that the heads hair disappears is probably due to genetic programming. The hair on the lower part of the scalp seems to be programmed differently, and is more resistant to testosterone deposits at the root.

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