Hair fall: myths vs facts

If you’re starting to see clumps of hair in the shower drain, it’s not hard to start freaking out a little. After all, hair is a large part of your identity and nobody wants to suffer from hair loss and thinning more prematurely than they have to.

 

We’re also led to believe that hair loss is typically a man’s problem, so often it’s the women suffering in silence. But it’s important to take into account, that there are a myriad of hair loss myths which we address below, for you to get a better perspective on the truth behind thinning hair.

Whilst it’s true that as you age, your hair may start to thin and become sparse as your follicles start to get tired, there are various conditions that can lead to premature hair loss or balding. For instance, male and female pattern baldness or pattern alopecia can affect people as early as their teenage years.

It is normal to lose between 50-100 strands of hair on a daily basis. So, if you’re noticing strands in your hair brush, on your pillow or on the bathroom floor, fear not, as this is a regular shedding. However, if this gets notably bigger, quickly, then this is a sign that your hair is shedding too rapidly, or that your growth cycle is shortening.

Genes do play a major part in the likelihood of hair loss, but you don’t necessarily inherit the hair loss genes from your maternal family. We now know that there are a huge number of genes involved in hair loss, including FGF5, so it can be quite complicated. Hair loss can skip generations, and often, can be affected by hormone levels and aging, rather than family history.

Traumatic stress; often experienced in child birth, chronic illnesses and more, can be a trigger of hair loss, we’re not denying this fact. Similarly, physical stress may also lead to hair fall. However, the latter is often more of a temporary loss, with hair regrowing back within a few months or even sooner.

This is another myth! You’ll often read that dandruff is one of the main factors leading to hair loss, and that’s just simply not the case. Dandruff is the condition of having a dry and itchy scalp that flakes off leaving embarrassing ‘snowflakes’ on your collar. This can be caused by local dryness, but the main cause is a type of fungus that irritates the scalp and causes it to shed in flakes. When the itchiness increases, we tend to scratch as a reflex. It is for this reason that hair may start to break and fall, not for any direct relation between dandruff and hair loss.

 

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