The Hair Clinic London

Debunking Common Myths About Hair Loss

If you are playing with your hair, brushing it or washing it, you may notice strands of hair left in your hands, but for the most part that is completely normal.

People tend to lose between 50 and 100 of the 100,000 hairs on their heads per day, so noticing hairs in your brush or in your hand is natural.

However, because male hair loss is on the mind of many men, particularly those who may have a genetic precondition towards pattern baldness, there are a lot of myths floating around about hair loss that it is important to debunk.

Stress Does Not Cause Permanent Hair Loss

People who go through a traumatic event, extreme levels of stress or anxiety may notice they are losing more hair than usual, which can sometimes lead to further worries. However, whilst the clumps of hair may suggest otherwise, stress does not make you lose your hair permanently.

Instead, you are suffering from a temporary, reversible condition known as telogen effluvium, where hair sheds more than usual, but they are replaced by new, growing hairs, so this is not a permanent condition.

High Testosterone Does Not Cause Hair Loss

Many people link bald men to high testosterone, but in practice, it is not quite that simple and relies on a range of different factors.

If you have a genetic tendency towards male pattern baldness, your scalp can sometimes be sensitive to the effects of dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, which is a hormone your body produces using testosterone.

If both male pattern baldness and an excess of DHT is found, it can cause significant hair loss, but it is not quite as simple as a link between testosterone and lack of hair.

Shampooing Does Not Cause Hair Loss

This is often a cause of correlation not equalling causation. When we are washing our hair, we lather, massage and run our fingers through our hair more often, which means we grab onto more strands and thus think we’re losing more hair.

There is no connection between washing our hair and losing it, however.