Hair Loss, Thinning and Baldness: Most Common Types

Most people use terms like “hair loss” or “hair thinning” or even “baldness” interchangeably. But there are different types of conditions behind what ultimately shows up as hair loss.

Here are some of the most common hair loss conditions:

Androgenetic Alopecia (Pattern Hair Loss)

• The most common type of hair loss, often referred to as “male-pattern hair loss” or “female-pattern hair loss.”
  
  
• Heredity, meaning is it inherited and part of one’s genetic make-up.
  
  
• Affects men and women.
  
  
• How it looks:
  
  
• In males: Receding hairline and/or hair thinning or loss on the top of the scalp.
  
  
• In women: Hair thinning or hair loss on front and top of scalp.
  
  
• In men and women: Can show signs/symptoms of the opposite pattern of hair loss. However, occasionally a man will experience female-pattern hair loss and a woman will show signs of male-pattern hair loss for reasons unknown to researchers.

There are effective treatments and treatment combinations designed to lessen the effects of Pattern Hair Loss.

Alopecia Areata

• Autoimmune condition that causes the body makes antibodies to its own hair, actually attacking its own hair follicles and causing itself to lose hair.
  
  
•  Genetic reasons/causes for Alopecia Areata.
  
  
• Affects almost 2% of the U.S. population in the US.
  
  
• Affects men and women equally, all ages, though it is most common in children and younger adults.
  
  
• Can present itself as smaller patches of hair loss that regrow on their own to extensive hair loss all over the body (not just on the scalp).

Central Centrifugal Scarring Alopecia

• Affects mostly African-American women.
  
  
• Characterized by hair thinning / hair loss on the top of the scalp and often by hair loss / hair thinning in front of the ears (called “traction hair loss”).