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.