Male And Female Baldness Essay, Research Paper
Baldness is the partial or total absence to; hair in the scalp. Some
thinning of the scalp hair take place as a normal part of the process
of aging. However, many types of abnormal hair loss also occur. Some
kinds of baldness involve only a thinning of the hakr from one small
area of the scalp. But in the most common type, called male pattern
baldness, a man loses much or all of the hair over the top of the
head. A smaller number of women have a comdition known as female
pattern baldness, which involves thinning of the hair but usually not
complete baldness. A healthy scalp sheds old hairs continually, and
new ones grow to replace them. Baldness develops when new hair stops
growing for any reason. In male pattern baldness, hair loss results
from the combination of an ingerited trait and the effects of the
hormone testoterone. Loss of hair may begin duting the teen-age years
or at any later time. Pattern baldness cannot be cured. However,many
types of baldness are timporary, and normal hair growth cannot be a
symptom of many serious illnesses, of a skin infection, or of emotional
stress. The use of certain drugs may also cause temporary baldness.
In male pattern baldness, heredity strongly influences the degeree of
hair loss and the age at which it begins. A man can ingerit baldness
from either hes father or hes mother. The exact pattern of influence
is not known. The percentage of men who have male pattern baldness
increaseswith age. People may use any of several methods to cover bald
areas. Many wear a hairpiece, such as a toupee or a wig. Others
prefer hair, wearing, a technique in which the sides of a hairpiece are
served into the remaining hair. In a process called hair tranplanting,
a doctor surgically, removes plugs of the scalp that contain growing
hair. The plugs are then transplanted to the bald areas. In addition,
clinical trials have ahown that treatment with a special drug
stimulates hair growth in some individuals with baldness. This drug,
which has the trade name ^Rogaine^, was approved in 1988 by the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of baldness. It must be
applied to the scalp twice daily to maintain hair growth.