Is Your Basketball Team To Blame For Your Baldness?

Baldness is a degrading condition for millions of men and women, and can lead to psychological problems and feelings of self worthlessness. On the other hand, there are also millions of baldness sufferers who just treat their hair loss as a fact of life - a part of growing old.

Baldness treatments are becoming more effective, owing to recent scientific discoveries. And like so many other medical and personal health dispositions, if you act on the problem at the start, you've got a better chance of minimizing the affects, or at times, even reversing the condition.

Now it should be pointed out that there is not a magic pill for reversing balding (yet) and there is no one single therapy that works for one and all. As a salient fact, in many cases a combination of a few anti- baldness products will reap better results than any one product or technique. The baldness treatment that suits each of will need to be tailored to our individual characteristics and traits.

That brings us to the imminent question, whether or not stress can cause baldness? You see, stress is so routinely referred to as the major cause of hair loss, that many people believe this to be genuine. The fact is that stress is a cause of baldness, so you can blame your job or your sporting team if it makes you feel better, but it is not the major cause. Often stress can be contributing factor, but there is one major cause of baldness that precedes all others.

Hair loss can be caused by many factors, with more than 50% of males encountering some form of hair loss or thinning by middle age. Women also suffer from hair loss, and around 35-40% of women will suffer some type of balding or thinning by age 60. The most prevalent hair loss cause is Pattern Baldness. Pattern balding alone affects more than 40% of the male population. Pattern hair loss is easy to explain - it is a genetic disposition - it occurs naturally.

Our genetic make-up naturally predisposes most men and women to Pattern Baldness. The cause of Pattern balding is very complex, but in laymans terms, it occurs when testosterone interacts with a specific enzyme and is converted into what is know as dihydrotestosterone (aka DHT). DHT has a negative affect on the hair follicles - it is the causer for slowing down hair production and produces weaker, shorter hair - and eventually stops hair from growth altogether.

Men and women suffer from Pattern baldness in very different ways. Men tend to experience thinning hair in certain sections or patches of the scalp and that's why most instances in men result in the 'monk' effect, i.e. balding on top, with hair still growing at the sides and back. Women tend to lose hair equally across the scalp, so instead of having a visibly bald patch, a woman can actually lose more hair than a man, but still appear to have a full head of hair.

There are many other causes of baldness too, but again, none are as prevalent as pattern baldness. The other causes of hair loss are accountable for such small percentages of instances, and in many cases are the easiest to prevent, detect or even reverse. Other known causes of baldness are hormonal imbalances (especially in women) illnesses, modest diet, below par hygiene, drug abuse and last but not least, stress. Again, stress is a definite known cause of hair loss. Not a major cause, but it ranks in the top few causes.

Stress related baldness has a scientific name - Telogen Effluvium. This type of baldness can also be caused by experiences such as trauma, childbirth, puberty, major surgery and even severe chronic illness. Telogen Effluvium is characterized by immediate hair loss caused by an interruption in the normal hair growth cycle. Stress and trauma cause large numbers of hair follicles to simultaneously enter a stage of rest. After some time, the hair follicles will enter a stage of growth, and the old hair will be ejected out of the follicle by a new hair that is formed beneath it. The result is a period of hair shedding, and is usually self correcting, but if the stress is ongoing, then this type of balding can become chronic and eventually lead to more prevalent baldness.

In theory you could blame your favorite sports team for stressing you so much that you went bald. But in actuality, although stress can lead to hair loss, it is one of the secondary causes of balding. And it is only really related to more dramatic experiences that have bought on stress. Fact is, Pattern Baldness is the most prevalent cause of hair loss, and acting on it quickly can help the minimize the effect it has.

Finding a hair loss remedy that is right for you depends on gender, the stage your hair loss is in and the type of hair loss your experiencing. Taking all of this infiormation into account, your doctor or physician will be able to find a hair loss solution to suit you. Visit http://www.hairloss-baldness.info for in depth articles and useful information.