Category: Hair Loss Causes

When hairs become miniaturized, are those hairs necessarily doomed to fall out and not be replaced? Or, can some men maintain miniaturized hair indefinitely?

I honestly don’t know. There are no set rules and I’m not aware if anyone has ever scientifically studied this in detail. We see finasteride hold on to miniaturized hairs for years and likewise some patients will be able to hold on to them with minoxidil.

In general, we know that for non-balding men and women, miniaturized hairs do exist. Those miniaturized hairs fall out eventually and a new hair grows in its place that most likely will be miniaturized as well. The percentage of miniaturized hair in non-balding men and women are low (under 20% or so) and if one looks at the length of these hairs, they are often short. The shortness tells us that these hairs are the vellus hairs that are found in the follicular units.

When you are balding or thinning, this percentage of miniaturized hair is much greater and many of those miniaturized hairs fall out, never to return after a few cycles.

Hello Dr Rassman,
I believe that I have body dismorphic disorder. The object of my obsession is my eyebrows. I am 28 years old and ever since I can remember I have been overly obsessed with them and constantly plucking them and checking them in the mirror. It has now gotten to the point where I think about them EVERY waking moment and check them in the mirror anywhere from a few minutes up to an hour at a time about 20 times a day… literally. The problem is that one of my brows (my left one) keeps growing hair and then it falls out without any reason. I have seen a derm and primary doc and they don’t see any underlying pathology.

So, my question to you is: can it be possible that I am psychologically inducing this hair loss? I have heard of telogen effluvium (which I don’t think this is as it is localised to my one brow) but have you ever heard of or do you think its possible to be so focused on one part of your hair that it is causing hair fall? I really need your help as I have exhausted all efforts and would love to know your thoughts as a hair loss expert. By the way this has been going on (hair growing and falling out) for about ten years now. God bless.

I’ve never heard of the ability to cause hair loss in a particular area (left eyebrow, in your case) just by focusing attention on it without some kind of physical contact to the hair.

It sounds like you have trichotillomania. It is an obsessive compulsive disorder that needs professional help.

I am a 23 year old male, and I have been a vegetarian for over 10 months now. I am careful with my diet and take a multivitamin every day; I am not absolutely meticulous about what I eat and take in for nutrients, but I was positive that I have been getting an adequate nutrition. Lately, however, I’ve noticed some frontal hair loss, and I was told that my diet might have something to do with it.

Now, I am well aware that inadequate diet can lead to hair loss, but my hair seems okay other than what appears to be the onset of male pattern baldness (or a mature hairline). So, my question is this – can an inadequate diet somehow trigger male pattern baldness, or does genetic hairloss have a mind of its own?

If you love in a third world country and can’t eat a balanced diet due to starvation, it is possible that there is such a connection… however, in the United States or Western Europe, even a diet of only greasy fast food will not be a cause for hair loss.

I would want to understand what you mean by a poor diet. Being a vegetarian does not mean that you can not get all of the needed foods for a good, healthy diet.

Snippet from the article:

Mouse researchers conducting stress hormone experiments have stumbled onto a surprising new discovery — a potential treatment for hair loss.

Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Veterans Administration were working with genetically altered mice that typically develop head-to-tail baldness as a result of overproducing a stress hormone.

The experiment wasn’t focused on hair loss. Instead, it was designed to study a chemical compound that blocks the effects of stress on the gut. The researchers treated the bald mice for five days with the compound and then returned them to the cages, where they scampered about with several furry mice from a control group.

Read the full article at NY Times — In Surprise Finding, Bald Mice Find Their Fur Again

Doctors interviewed in the article are cautioning that not only might this mouse study not be applicable to humans, but that even if it is, it would likely only lead to treating stress-related hair loss (not genetic hair loss). The article also notes that mouse hair growth cycles are different from that of you and I. This is early research, so I’m sure there will be more news on the horizon.

i notice that i’m shedding alot of hair in all my body. for example if i pull my eyebrows i can get like 2 or 3 hairs every time, same with legs and arms. So i shaked my hair very strong with my hands and i counted 67 hairs fall out in just like 30 seconds. should i go to the doctor or what?

my hair and eyebrows are thick though

Perhaps you should stop pulling on your body hairs. If you cannot keep self control of doing this, it may be something called trichotillomania. Most people do not count the hairs that fall out and catalog them. I don’t know about your environment or hair styling methods, so I can’t really say whether losing 67 hairs by shaking your hair is abnormal for you. If you use hair product (gel or hair spray), you might be trapping some of those hairs that would normally fall out during the day, so you’re seeing many fall loose at one time. Or if you wear a hat, the same could apply. It’s normal to lose 100 or so hairs per day.

If you’re concerned about hair loss, see a doctor. It couldn’t hurt. You indicated you’re in New York, so I’d suggest paying Dr. Robert Bernstein a visit.

You’ve said before that balding comes from both sides with a tiny bit more weight on your mother’s side. When looking through a family tree for traits and patterns of hair loss (which I’m sure every visitor to this site has done over and over), how far back or in to your extended family should you look (cousins, uncles, great uncles, etc.), or can it spring up out of anywhere? I understand there are many environmental factors as well, but I ask because I have some unique traits I can’t attribute to anyone I have photos of in the past two generations or my second cousins even.

Genetic hair loss will likely be visible somewhere in your family tree, but I really cannot give you a definitive way to predict if you have the hair loss gene just by looking at your family members. The best way to know is look in the mirror… or see a doctor for a miniaturization study and/or hair bulk analysis.

The genes can be determined by genetic testing to 70% accuracy (see HairDX), but the test doesn’t tell you at what point the genes will be expressed, if at all.