Alope­cia Bar­bae is also called bald­ness. This is the exceed­ingly rec­og­nized ail­ment encoun­tered by many today. The vic­tims of this dis­or­der belong to both gen­ders. How­ever, research reveals that the causative agents of Alope­cia Bar­bae are respon­si­ble for the appar­ently dif­fer­ent effects too in men and women.

Bald­ness is wide­spread across the globe, vic­tim­iz­ing 50% of males and a sim­i­lar per­cent­age of females above the age of 40 years. How­ever, in this group of females, 13% of pre­menopausal patients express only slight signs of the dis­ease. Nonethe­less, the chances of falling prey to Alope­cia Bar­bae increases after menopause that 75% women over the age of 65 years of age get affected by this prob­lem. Before reach­ing the age of 40 years, the suf­fer­ers bear signs of Alope­cia Bar­bae, and some depict this even before they turn 30. 

Alope­cia is a psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ment for the suf­fer­ers. Hair loss allows the head to be exposed to the UV rays, giv­ing rise in actinic inflic­tion. Car­diac ail­ments could be accel­er­ated by Alope­cia in males, and increase in mild pro­sta­tic hyper­tro­phy could be asso­ci­ated with this prob­lem too. If the ongo­ing research stud­ies evi­dence that the above rela­tions are valid, then the clin­i­cal impli­ca­tions with Alope­cia would increase too.

White males are the most affected by bald­ness in terms of fre­quency and sever­ity while the sec­ond most affected are Asians and African Amer­i­cans. The least affected are Native Amer­i­cans and Eskimos.

Onset of the Ailment

Alope­cia Bar­bae begins slowly. In men, it starts with hair loss in the tem­po­ral region which reshapes the pos­te­rior hair­line. Then, it devel­ops with the usual ante­rior and apex hair loss. While in case of women, it begins with scat­tered hair loss in the crown. The tem­po­ral hair loss is sim­i­lar to men, but gen­er­ally, females retain their ante­rior hairline.

Phys­i­cal Changes

The suf­fer­ers of both gen­ders expe­ri­ence the tran­si­tion from healthy, pig­mented ter­mi­nal hair to weak, short and scat­tered hair. The end result is stunted, flimsy, non-pigmented hair in the affected areas. With time, the ana­gen step decreases while the tel­o­gen part is unaf­fected. It gives rise to the hair fall among the vic­tims. Though it pro­vides a gen­er­al­ized pic­ture, the dif­fer­ences in the devel­op­ment of ail­ment always per­sist among dif­fer­ent indi­vid­u­als. In case of females, usu­ally, the patch of hair loss can­not be spec­i­fied. Gen­er­ally they lose hair in all areas over the crown. The core dif­fer­ence is that the ante­rior hair­line is safe in case of females while that is lost right at the onset of the prob­lem in case of males.

1. DHT Hair Loss: A Chem­i­cal Process

Dihy­drotestos­terone (DHT) is a nat­ural metabo­lite in the human body that is the main cause for hair loss.  The trou­ble starts once testos­terone com­bines with an enzyme present in the oil glands found in hair fol­li­cles. DHT shrinks the hair fol­li­cle which causes the hair fol­li­cle gets smaller and finer. This is referred to as minia­tur­iza­tion with which the hair ulti­mately falls off. This is how DHT is respon­si­ble for about 95% of hair loss. The men or women who lose more hair are those who are genet­i­cally pre-disposed in pro­duc­ing more DHT than others.

2. Mir­a­cle Hair Care Prod­ucts for Baldness?

 There is no mir­a­cle hair care prod­uct that will stop bald­ing. How­ever, if a prod­uct blocked enzyme pro­duc­tion in the oil glands and DHT it should result in block­ing the hor­mone that causes balding.

3. FDA Approved Prope­cia for DHT Hair Loss

 Finas­teride is a drug that was used to treat prostate can­cer but the FDA has tested this drug and found that it reduces the pro­duc­tion of the enzyme 5 alpha thereby reduc­ing DHT lev­els. Hair loss is pre­vented when using this drug, how­ever it is only intended for males to use as a pre­ven­ta­tive hair loss solution.