opINIoN | BALDNESS |
Male pattern baldness
Peter Charlish discusses male androgenetic alopecia, its affect on quality of life, and the pharamcological industry’s solutions
I
PETER CHARLISH Principal Analyst, Informa Business Information
email:
peter.charlish@informa. com
two thirds of american men will
experience some degree of hair loss by the age of 35 years, and by the age of 50 approximately 85% of men have significantly thinning hair.
68 ❚ May 2011 |
prime-journal.com
N maNy cultures, baldNess — or at least a shaven head— is a badge of honour. think of the us marines, or buddhist monks. some men shave their heads as a response to the onset of
baldness — andre agassi is a well known example. But for many men, baldness is a disaster.
Hair plays a significant role in a man’s self‑image, and baldness can be associated with a reduction in self‑esteem and perceived quality of life, and an increase in stress levels. Attractiveness is associated with success and power, and baldness is regarded by many men as unattractive. And it’s not just baldness — hair loss and thinning hair generally, can cause considerable distress. The most common type of baldness, and
the one that will be the focus of this article, is so‑called male pattern baldness, or androgenetic alopecia. The condition can affect men of almost any age, and is characterised by a symmetrical, progressive loss of hair from both sides of the head, beginning above the temples and on the crown. It rarely results in complete baldness. In fact, the areas affected by male pattern baldness are not completely devoid of hair; rather, the hair produced is very small and invisible to the naked eye. According to the American Hair Loss
Association (1), which aims to promote understanding about hair loss, two thirds of American men will experience some degree of hair loss by the age of 35 years, and by the age of 50 years, approximately 85% of men have significantly thinning
hair. In approximately 25% of men who suffer with male pattern baldness, the condition begins before they reach the age of 21. There is a significant genetic component
to male pattern baldness; one recent study found that men whose fathers had hair loss were two‑and‑a‑half times more likely to have had some degree of hair loss compared with men whose fathers had no hair loss (2). And quoting The Washington Post, the Association says that Americans spend more than $3.5 billion per year on a range of treatments for hair loss. There are a number of approaches to
treating hair loss in men. The simplest is the combover, where the hair on one side of the head is grown long and then combed across the bald area in an attempt to disguise its appearance. This technique is not really effective, although at least it is free (which makes its adoption by certain wealthy individuals in the public eye all the more difficult to understand). At the other extreme is surgical hair restoration, which involves harvesting hair from one part of the scalp and transplanting it onto the bald area. A less drastic approach is non‑surgical hair replacement with a hairpiece, which may be constructed from human hair, animal hair or artificial fibres. That leaves treatments aimed at
encouraging hair regrowth, which are the focus of this article. So far, only two products have been approved in the US for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia, although a third has been approved in South Korea and is reportedly used off‑label for that indication in the US. In
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