Hair loss - baldness as ageing?

[sjbuk]

Some people seem to class hair loss as an inevitable part of ageing but the facts are not everyone has hair loss as part of ageing. Everybody will experience hair going grey and most all will get wrinkles here and there but not all will have hair loss as part of the ageing experience.

What do others reckon on this; would you say hair loss is part of ageing or more akin to a physical condition eg stretch marks, freckles?

 

[Agustin Araujo]

Hair loss, especially if it's genetic, has absolutely nothing to do with aging. Losing hair is not part of the normal aging process and is a genuine medical condition. Genetic hair loss is misinterpreted as part of the aging process quite commonly.

 

[sjbuk]

Interesting but then hair loss does happen as a gradual process within time and everyone ages differently, such as different rates of greying, wrinkling bone shrinkage, eye bags, cellulite etc all these things happen over time.

Any other takes ?

 

[abcdefg]

Not entirely true I mean everyone gets wrinkles and things as they age no matter who it is. There are men that are 50+ with teenage hairlines still and look how many older women dont lose any hair at all yet are 70 if it was aging why dont women lose their hair too? Most older men are balding and most women arent why that difference? What fits that hole? Androgens fit and make perfect sense.
Castrated men dont bald as they age but most men dont. Most men hair is sensitive to the androgen changes as you age. So it appears to be aging but its really not. Everything with aging is arguably some unknown or poorly understood process happening. male pattern baldness is no different.

 

[sjbuk]

Not entirely true I mean everyone gets wrinkles and things as they age no matter who it is. There are men that are 50+ with teenage hairlines still and look how many older women dont lose any hair at all yet are 70 if it was aging why dont women lose their hair too? Most older men are balding and most women arent why that difference? What fits that hole? Androgens fit and make perfect sense.
Castrated men dont bald as they age but most men dont. Most men hair is sensitive to the androgen changes as you age. So it appears to be aging but its really not. Everything with aging is arguably some unknown or poorly understood process happening. male pattern baldness is no different.

Hair loss as in male pattern baldness isn't an issue for women though generally although some get thinning. If ageing is taken as changes which happen to men & women then male pattern baldness isn't ageing true but hair loss does happen as in thinning to both sexes.

Seems like baldness isn't ageing but hair loss could be ?

 

[razy111]

I know many who are totally bald at a young age

 

[abcdefg]

Hair loss as in male pattern baldness isn't an issue for women though generally although some get thinning. If ageing is taken as changes which happen to men & women then male pattern baldness isn't ageing true but hair loss does happen as in thinning to both sexes.

Seems like baldness isn't ageing but hair loss could be ?

Yeah its possible baldness isnt aging and hair loss is. There are people though at 50 or 60 even with hardly any hair loss which makes it hard to believe its aging. Although even aging is different processes happening and accumulating over time. Androgens or maybe other things like PGD 2 over the course of decades slowly destroys your hair. Might not be related to aging at all.
Pretty safe to say no one knows for sure so its all in realm of opinion still.

 

[DoctorHouse]

Hair THINNING can be caused by both aging and androgenic factors. If your hair diameter just gets smaller from turning gray but still completely goes through all the normal hair cycles throughout your life, you will still have the same amount of hair. However it might look thinner because of the gray hair and contrast to the scalp.

On the other hand, with androgenic hair loss, your hair no longer goes through the normal hair cycles and eventually the hair because vellus or not visible anymore so you really notice loss and we call that balding or bald. Obviously men who never go gray until much later in life like 70's are going to have NW1s as long as they don't they don't have the gene to go bald.

One of two men by the age of fifty is going to show some hair loss and I am really now believing it is mostly do to androgenic cause instead of aging. I used to think it was aging but I no longer do. Diffuse thinning without any Norwood pattern is a little more confusing since it still tends to be a full head of hair but just less density. But in most cases, its the hair line that most people focus on and that area is the hardest to treat. If you look at most threads, its all about the hairline. And that is understandable as it frames your face. And I still believe, the "mature hairline" is still the very first stage of androgenic alopecia. Any person that keeps their NW1 throughout their life does not carry the gene for androgenic alopecia.

 

[sjbuk]

Hair THINNING can be caused by both aging and androgenic factors. If your hair diameter just gets smaller from turning gray but still completely goes through all the normal hair cycles throughout your life, you will still have the same amount of hair. However it might look thinner because of the gray hair and contrast to the scalp.

On the other hand, with androgenic hair loss, your hair no longer goes through the normal hair cycles and eventually the hair because vellus or not visible anymore so you really notice loss and we call that balding or bald. Obviously men who never go gray until much later in life like 70's are going to have NW1s as long as they don't they don't have the gene to go bald.

One of two men by the age of fifty is going to show some hair loss and I am really now believing it is mostly do to androgenic cause instead of aging. I used to think it was aging but I no longer do. Diffuse thinning without any Norwood pattern is a little more confusing since it still tends to be a full head of hair but just less density. But in most cases, its the hair line that most people focus on and that area is the hardest to treat. If you look at most threads, its all about the hairline. And that is understandable as it frames your face. And I still believe, the "mature hairline" is still the very first stage of androgenic alopecia. Any person that keeps their NW1 throughout their life does not carry the gene for androgenic alopecia.

Good points DH. It just goes to show the area can be confusing with a lot of grey areas except male pattern baldness which is pretty black and white as a factor for us fellas.

The whole area of hair loss could be purely androgenic even if women get it because we're said to carry both hormones which to me suggests it goes very deep into sex and gender issues for hair thinning.

 

[MI92]

Hairloss is associated with ageing by the general public as going fully bald as a young man is considered "premature" which is absolute BS. Obviously if one were to lose hair slowly overtime then the older he gets, the more severe his hairloss looks, but it is just an accumulation overtime. Not some magic switch that switches on when you reach a certain age. It can start at a very young age, or can surface when one is much older.