New therapies What helps with hair loss

New drugs can stop hereditary hair loss

07/10/2014

Hereditary hair loss (alopecia) affects mostly men, and more rarely women. Blame is a hypersensitivity of the hair follicles to the body's steroid hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Most hair loss on the forehead and forehead begins and can already be felt in early adulthood by receding hairline. However, new medicines can help.

Natural hair loss
On average, the person loses 100 hair a day, while at the same time regrow enough new ones, so that the natural hair loss does not attract attention. Head hair usually takes about two to six years to reach its maximum length. With normal growth, hair grows about 0.3 millimeters per day and about one centimeter a month. Especially in women hair can be more than a meter long. Once they have reached their maximum length, they remain in the scalp for between two and four months. Then they fall out and are replaced by new hair.

The hair growth is hormonally controlled by the metabolism. The small hair roots are located about five to six millimeters below the scalp in skin pockets, where they are connected to blood vessels. They provide them with nutrients and hormones so that the hair made from horn can optimally watch. However, this supply can vary greatly from person to person. The season also plays an essential role, explains Prof. Dr. med. Erhard Hölzle, Director of the Department of Dermatology and Allergology, Klinikum Oldenburg, in conversation with the online edition of the „Nordwest-Zeitung“. „The hair grows much faster in summer than in winter.“ This affects not only the head hair but also the rest of the body hair like the beard growth.

First signs of hereditary hair loss show up early
Especially men often suffer from the first signs of hair loss early on. In many, even during puberty, the main hair is less developed until a bald head in some patients. Most then there is a genetic disposition for hair loss. Even women can - although much less often - be affected. People with genetic hair loss have about 100,000 visible hairs, which remain on average up to 1000 days until they fail.

Cause of premature hair loss is a hypersensitivity of the hair follicles, which are responsible for anchoring the hair in the scalp, compared to the body's own steroid hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The hormone, which is already formed at the beginning of puberty from testosterone with the help of the enzyme 5-alpha reductase, can cause a significantly shortened growth phase of the hair. In bald people, this phase is already over before the hair grows out of the scalp, causing the hair follicles to increasingly stunt. This process goes on and on, creating more and more hairless areas. In particular, the upper part of the head is affected by alopecia, the medical term for genetically caused hair loss. At the back of the head and neck there is usually less hair loss. The first signs of alopecia can be felt in the forehead and forehead area. Already young adults often already have receding hairline and thinning hair on their foreheads.

Hair loss is usually particularly stressful for women
Many men suffer from their hair loss. However, the loss of hair is even more burdensome for women, who often suffer from a lighter form of alopecia, but consider their hair as a key feature of attractiveness. Other than in men with genetically caused hair loss in women's hair thin mostly in the upper head area, which leads to an annual loss of about five to six percent of hair without therapy.

The exact causes of an increased tendency to hair loss are scientifically not fully understood. Meanwhile, however, there are drugs that can stop the progressive loss of hair, reports Hölzle. „Sometimes it even succeeds to grow hair again in a previously bald spot“, so the expert.

Medications can stop hair loss
Some of these drugs inhibit the enzyme 5-alpha reductase, which reduces the formation of DHT in the hair follicle. As a result, the hair can then grow again. Another treatment option offers solutions with special ingredients that stimulate hair growth. The solutions, which are equally suitable for women and men, must be applied to the scalp. According to Hölzle, the remedies usually have no side effects. In some cases, however, it would lead to slight skin irritation. Unfortunately, the costs for the therapy would have to be borne by those affected themselves, since the statutory health insurance would consider hereditary hair loss merely as a visual, but not as a health problem.

Hölzle also emphasizes that current scientific studies from the USA prove that hereditary alopecia can often even be stopped altogether. „This is especially true if you start with a targeted and consistent treatment at an early stage“, explains the dermatologist. (Ag)