Baldness can be categorized into different types, depending on its cause.
Androgenetic Alopecia The medical name for baldness (either male or female pattern hair loss) can be better understood by breaking it into two parts.
Androgen is one of the many hormones that controls the emergence and development of masculine features such as testosterone.
The same hormone is also produced by ovaries and adrenal glands in women.
Genetic (inheriting the genes from either of the parents), when combined with Androgen and age, starts a time clock which signals the hair follicle to produce an enzyme called alpha reductase.
The hair follicle receptors are sensitive to this enzyme and initiate the process of male or female pattern baldness.
Male-pattern baldness Male-pattern baldness is generally a hereditary situation and can start at any age, after attaining puberty.
Baldness usually starts on the front, then sides, and/or on the head.
While some men may just get a bald spot or a receding hairline, others may lose all their hair and be fully bald.
Female-pattern baldness Female pattern baldness is different from that of male pattern baldness.
Total baldness hardly ever results in females.
In female pattern baldness, the thinning of hair happens all over the head and usually the front hairline does not diminish.
Alopecia Areata In this type of baldness, there is sudden loss of hair in a specific area of the head and coin-sized bald patches appear on the scalp.
The hair may generally grow back after a few months, except in persons with widespread baldness.
However if the loss is sudden, the re-growth may not happen.
The reason of this type of baldness is not known, but it could be caused by a mixture of factors like allergy, genes, emotional stress, body's immune system reaction etc.
Scarring alopecia Scarring due to injury, burns, or medication therapies like x-rat may stop the hair to re-grow.
Additionally diseases like fungal growth on skin, lupus, tuberculosis, skin cancer may also cause scarring, preventing the growth of hair on the affected area.
Telogen Effluvium Telogen effluvium is a kind of hair loss or baldness that arises when hair follicles move into the telogen (or resting) stage prematurely.
The symptoms are thinning of the hair.
This kind of baldness is triggered by factors like stress, child delivery, surgery, medication, thyroid abnormalities, nutritional status, high fever etc.
This type of baldness is temporary and is recovered generally within 4-6 months after the cause is taken care of.
Anagen Effluvium It normally is due to medication taken in chemotherapy whose agents poison the growing follicle.
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