To understand uniform hair loss, we have to examine its basic patterns and incidences in relation also to the specific groups of people that are affected. Men and women both suffer from hair loss, but not everything can be traced back to genetic predisposition.

What is Uniform Hair Loss?

Briefly, uniform hair loss is the generalized balding of hair over a large area. In contrast with other patterns of baldness, it appears that uniform hair loss occurs across all the regions of the scalp. In contrast with another balding, which isolates portions of the scalp, U.H.L. causes hair to fall off at the front, side and back of the head.

The 3 Phases of Hair Growth

Make no mistakes about it; hair loss is a natural process of renewing the hair on the scalp. It’s also a way of removing damaged hair so that healthier hair shafts can take its place. Briefly, the hair undergoes three distinct phases of growth and ‘death.’The first phase is called the anagen phase, and this the active reproducing phase of hair shafts. After a while, this phase ends, and the hair goes into the catagen phase. The catagen phase is the middle phase where hormonal changes prepare the hair strands for the final phases. The third and last phase are called the telogen cycle. This is the natural falling out of hair.

Advanced Age and Uniform Hair Loss

Like most medical conditions, uniform hair loss is baffling. However, it has been observed that people that have gone past the golden age of fifty are more susceptible to this condition. Women who have had long and thick hair since they can remember will begin to experience increased hair loss. A significant fraction of males and females past their seventies are affected by geriatric alopecia. This form of alopecia has been termed senile alopecia to differentiate it from generalized, uniform hair loss that occurs at younger ages. Unfortunately, no medical treatment has been developed to counter the effects of this balding. People who are experiencing senile alopecia can only try to minimize the effects, but they would not be able to stop it completely.

Alopecia in Younger Men

Men that are supposedly at their ‘peak’ are not safe from uniform hair loss. Medical science has a different term for uniform hair loss that occurs at younger ages. The term is diffuse unpatterned alopecia. When you compare the symptoms and the rate of hair loss in senile alopecia and diffuse unpatterned alopecia, there are no essential differences. The only difference perhaps can is the age when the two types of hair loss occur. When does diffuse patterned alopecia occur? Unfortunately for men, this balding can manifest itself as early as twenty years old.