Can Anything Be Done About Baldness?
While the late and totally bald actor Yul Brunner may have been regarded as a symbol of virility and male sex appeal, most men consider even the first signs of thinning hair and a creeping hairline as dreaded forewarnings of old age. But according to one Santa Fe cosmetologist, hair loss and baldness need not be inevitable and may even be reversed.
Janice Meidam, 38, who has been researching hair loss for 20 years and has sent a book-length manuscript on the subject to several publishers, makes no extravagant claims and has no magic potions. But in determining who will become bald, she firmly believes that lifestyle factors such as nutrition far outweigh the effects of genetics as the main culprit, she said recently at DFW Bodhisattva, the West San Francisco Street beauty salon where she works. Meidam spoke primarily about male baldness, but also about hair loss experienced by female clients.
While hair loss is a complicated topic, and while it can be caused by a number of physical and even psychological conditions, heredity is usually cited as the cause of the most commonplace baldness found in men. Certain Santa Fe doctors, however, are willing to consider the role of stress and nutrition in hair loss, and have varying viewpoints on the subject (see accompanying story). A tenaciously held belief is that the most common baldness found in men is transmitted in the genes. Research has shown that two-thirds of American males have experienced discernible hair loss by age 60 and are resigned to it. But genetics accounts for far less baldness than supposed, claims Meidam, who has read exhaustively on the subject and has counseled people about hair loss for years, often with the result of effecting new growth or at least retarding the loss, she said.
Meidam, in fact, says she has learned through her research that only 30 percent of 40-to-70-year-old men whose hair is thinning can correctly attribute it exclusively to heredity. Furthermore, she says that in her own work she has observed that the percentage is closer to 20. In from 70 to 80 percent of the instances of hair loss not directly related to disease, she claims, the real cause is simply the way people live. The most common kind of hair loss is called male pattern baldness, and starts in some men with a receding hairline or with thinning of the hair on lop of the head. Ultimately it results in a rim of hair around the back and sides of the head said Meidam, who as a cosmetologist styles hair, gives permanents and colors hair
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