Discover What Causes Hair Loss and How to Reverse It

There can be a multitude of factors behind what causes hair loss, but quite often they boil down to the following; poor diet, thyroid problems or stress, all of which are temporary conditions. However, what causes hair loss on the biggest scale by far is androgenic alopecia, which is more commonly known as pattern baldness and was thought to be permanent condition.

Pattern baldness is something you usually inherit from your parents. It can be either parent but it is more strongly linked with your mothers side of the family. What happens when you inherit the condition is that you become sensitive to a hormone in your body called DHT. This hormone is created by the mixing of an enzyme you produce called 5 alpha reductase with free testosterone that is in your bloodstream. The resulting DHT will then flow to your follicles and thin them out until they no longer produce hair.

Now if you have lost all of your hair then chances are there is not much you can do to reverse the condition. However if you still have some hair then there are options you can take. The first option is to undergo a transplant. This is not cheap though and can cost anywhere between $3 and $10 per graft and most people needing between 500 and 2000 grafts. And of course to get the best results you are going to have to pay towards the higher end of the scale to get a better surgeon.

Another option is medication; this works by reducing the amount of testosterone produced in the body. Although this works, some men do report that it has an adverse side effect on their libido. There is one final area though that is getting positive feedback and that is using natural treatments, the most popular being one that uses the following ingredients:-

• Saw palmetto, this has been shown to be effective at inhibiting 5 alpha reductase production
• Zinc, this too is effective at reducing the amount of the enzyme your body makes
• Nettle root, this is effective at mopping up the testosterone in the blood, but without the aforementioned side effects.

In conjunction with this there is also something known as minoxidil which can be applied topically to the scalp. Minoxidil is getting very good reports and is even approved by the FDA because of the way it stops DHT reaching the follicle, and also because of the way it improves circulation in the scalp which encourage hair growth. Other things included for hair growth are magnesium, vitamin B6 and biotin.