Androgenetic Alopecia : Meaning & its causes - Dr. Priyanka Dasari Reddy

Androgenetic alopecia or male pattern baldness is a genetically determined patterned hair loss that commonly affects man. What causes this androgenetic alopecia. There are something called as the testosterone receptors or the androgen receptors that are founded on the root of the hair. There is testosterone that freely flows in our blood steam. This testosterone makes its way all the way to the roots of the hair, and with the help of an enzyme called as 5 alpha reductase, it gets converted into another hormone called as dihydro testosterone. This dihydro testosterone is the main reason for the male pattern baldness. This affects the root of the hair and affects the blood supply to the hair and causes a decrease in the blood supply to the hair shaft. Therefore decrease in the thickness and the height of the happens progressively. That is why one does not lose hair overnight. They lose it over a period of time in a patterned way either for the temporal area or the frontal or the corner areas. There are some other conditions that causes overnight loss of hair or patchy loss of hair. But this is the whole process of androgenetic alopecia.