Women’s hair loss: some facts and myths

Hair loss is more often associated with men, but women’s hair loss is becoming more and more common, and the effects can be extremely distressing and ultimately lead to a loss of confidence and even depression.
Women’s hair loss is generally triggered by the body’s reaction to intense stress on the body, which can be caused by crash diets, illness, hormonal fluctuations due to childbirth, contraceptive pills or menopause, general life stresses, or even as a side reaction to other medication. Unlike hair loss in men, women’s hair loss generally affects the whole head with a general thinning of the hair, although some patients can experience patchy loss.
Mild hair loss on a daily basis is perfectly normal, and some experts suggest that losing around 100 hairs a day is fine but any more than 125 a day could mean that new hair growth might not keep up. It’s also true that women can inherit hair loss genetically, and that the genes can actually be passed down from either the mother’s or the father’s side of the family.
Everyone has heard the myths about women’s hair loss, too, and they shouldn’t be believed. For example, women don’t need to brush their hair with 100 strokes a day to improve its appearance, hair colouring won’t make women lose hair unless it actually burns the scalp, and there is no evidence that nutritional supplements for hair growth actually work!
What’s more, it’s not true that women’s hair only starts to thin after menopause as age and loss are not proportional at all. And finally, it’s also not true that dandruff causes hair loss as it’s simply an increased turnover of skin cells and doesn’t affect hair growth - it’s the scratching that can damage hair follicles! For more info visit: http://www.thehospitalgroup.org/womens-hair-loss.php