Hair loss or color Archives

What's with all the hair loss?

I have been noticing in the past two years or so that so
many people, especially women, seem to have more
visible problems with thinning hair. Is this something
new? I have always been a very observant person and
have lived in the same area my entire life. I guess I
remember little old ladies with thin hair and bad perms
to cover it up when I was little, but now I see so many
more ladies with near baldness, even women in their
30s and 40s. I have also noticed so many young
women, like teenagers and early 20s that have so
much visible scalp. Even teenage boys that have more
advanced hair loss than would be normal even for a
guy prone to male pattern baldness. I know that there
are hormonal problems like PCOS that can cause this,
but I'm not kidding it seems like an epidemic around
here. Everyday I see what look like normal people with
advanced baldness and overall thinning. Young
mothers at the grocery store, teengage boys at the High
School etc that look like they are in otherwise good
shape etc.

The reason I ask is because my sister is now one of
these people and we can't figure it out.She is otherwise
a very healthy young looking 43. In every other respect
she looks about 30, her skin and body are in super
shape, but her hair has thinned so much all over that in
the sun her scalp is pretty visible. She said it started
about 3 years ago, but I only noticed it in the past year.
Her dermatologist says it is genetic because her hair is
following the pattern that would be typical, in that with
each successive round of new hair they grow in smaller
and last a shorter time, then fall out and an even
smaller hair grows in. He said this miniaturization is
the hallmark symptom of genetic hair loss. I can see
this because she has lots of different length hairs all
over that look wispy and she says they fall out before
they get long. Her thyroid and iron etc are all fine and
even her hormone tests do not show levels that would
make you think it is low estrogen. Besides, since when
is it normal to lose hair when estrogen lowers? Her
doctor says this is normal, but why would I not have
noticed this before then in women around me? I;m not
talking about the fact that I am looking harder now for it.
I am talking about hair loss that is so visible it would be
hard NOT to notice. It's the first thing you observe in
these people. I'm sure there are many more that are in
the process of thinning that I don't notice.

I live in a an area that is very racially mixed. Just on my
block alone there are latin, polynesian, asian and white
families. I see a cross section of ethnicites every day.
While I notice the hair thinning less in the latin group, I
do see it across the board in every other group,
espceially asian. I do t'ai chi every morning at sunrise
with a group of about 100 people in a park near my
house. At least 90 of them are asian (mostly chinese)
and most are in their 50s or older. I can honestly say
that nearly all of them, especially the women are nearly
bald on top or all over to the point where I am shocked
that they do not opt for wigs.

It is easy to say that the envrironment and people's diet
etc are not as healthy as in years past, but I would think
that if one's health has deteriorated to the point of
massive hair loss, there would be other more severe
symptoms of ill health too. How can you have beautiful
skin, excellent energy etc and be losing your hair? Hair I
would think would be one of the last things to react to
say some envronmental poisoning. You'd be feeling
pretty sick before that happened don't you think?

Does anyone know of any specific reason that hairloss
of the "genetic" kind would happen earlier than before?
Or to people who have no history in their families?

My poor sister is at her wits end. She has used rogaine
for about 8 months with no improvement. Her hair is so
baby fine that it has absolutely no weight to it anymore.

Hair loss

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