Why don't women go bald?

Baldness in men is much more common than it is in women. Although in recent decades the percentage of bald women has been increasing, a majority of men continue to lose hair until they reach total or partial baldness.

Why don't women go bald? The answer has to do with the endocrine system and the functioning of hormones. In this text we explain the reasons why women do not go bald and how true this statement is.

What are the reasons why women are not bald?

The reason that women do not lose so much hair until they are bald is due to biological issues. However, as already mentioned, in recent years the number of bald women has increased and many women also suffer from alopecia, although not with the same severity or frequency.

It may not be that women are immune to baldness, but that they actually They do not let them see it, because the psychological impact of baldness in women is greater than in men. mens. But let's look at the reasons why women don't go bald.

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Causes of male pattern baldness

The main cause of baldness in men is due to genetic inheritance. Has to do with a testosterone problem, which is the male hormone. An alteration in this hormone produces androgenic alopecia, which begins with hair loss, usually on the front.

Because women also have testosterone in very low amounts, this problem is not common for them. In contrast, some men begin to experience significant hair loss around adolescence. When this occurs, heredity can be taken as a reference to predict that it is alopecia.

Even the pattern of baldness is very similar between parents and children.. Although it is not a rule that a bald person will have bald children, as it may happen that among siblings there is one or more who have this situation, while the others do not present it. All of this can manifest itself in adolescence or a few years later.

In short, male pattern baldness is due to a problem with testosterone with genetic causes. This begins to manifest itself in adolescence and can be somewhat predicted by looking at the pattern of alopecia in the father. There are alternatives to recover hair, but implantation surgery is required in almost all cases to alleviate baldness.

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Causes of female baldness

Although it is less common, women also have alopecia. Historically it was known that women did not have baldness problems. The number of bald men versus women with the same problem was notoriously distant. Usually what happened is that they suffered only from a thinning of the hair due to the natural aging process. But today the figures and the situations have changed.

Due to hormonal issues, women have also started to show patterns of alopecia. Although the effects are less noticeable and radical than compared to men, since they commonly present a weakening and thinning of the hair in the frontal and upper area of ​​the skull, which is very evident but does not come to present total baldness.

Women who have severe alopecia are actually a small percentage. However when a person undergoes chemotherapy treatments, hair loss becomes practically total. In these cases, when the treatment ends, the hair grows back and completely covers the skull.

It is also common for women to lose a significant amount of hair in the postpartum stage. When this happens, about 6 months later, women regain their hair density and hair loss decreases. Other situations in which they lose hair are due to stress or hormonal changes, but in all these cases the hair returns once the cause of its loss is fixed.

Reasons why we don't go bald

Women can have considerable hair loss. But as we have already mentioned, they will hardly reach the degree of alopecia that many men present. This is basically because the origin of male pattern baldness lies in testosterone, a hormone found in very low levels in women.

For this reason it is that women do not go bald, even though lately the statistics of women with mild to moderate alopecia have been increasing due to several factors such as stress, hormonal changes, poor diet, smoking or excessive exposure to hair products such as those used for coloring, perms or applying extensions.

In addition to all these reasons, we must also add the fact that women are more open about the possibility of wearing wigs. When the baldness problem begins to be very noticeable, they resort to hair extensions and all kinds of wigs that allow this situation to go unnoticed by the rest.

However, the number of women with alopecia with patterns similar to those of men is on the rise. Apparently the causes are mostly hormonal alterations and as in the case of men, it is irreversible even with complementary hormonal treatments.

So while it seems that women still do not go bald today, this is beginning to change. Fortunately, in addition to wigs, there are alternatives such as hair implants, which have a high success rate in most cases. In this way you can recover your hair and forget about alopecia.

Bibliographic references

• Cranwell W, Sinclair R. Male Androgenetic Alopecia. [Updated 2016 Feb 29]. In: Feingold KR, Anawalt B, Boyce A, et al., Editors. Endotext [Internet]. South Dartmouth (MA): MDText.com, Inc.; 2000-. Available in: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK278957/,
• Ramos, P. M., & Miot, H. TO. (2015). Female Pattern Hair Loss: a clinical and pathophysiological review. Anais Brasileiros de Dermatologia, 90 (4), 529–543. doi: 10.1590 / abd1806-4841.20153370.