Approximately half of men and a quarter of women experience some form of hair loss in their lifetime. The most common forms of hair loss in men, male patterns baldness, is genetic and worsens over time. Often, hair loss occurs slowly with a gradual thinning or rising of the frontal hair line as thick hairs are replaced by thinner hairs or are simply not replaced at all.
Hair loss in men can occur in adolescents as young as 16 and by age 30, 25% of men will have noticeable hair loss. By their forties, almost half of men have lost a significant amount of hair. As startling as these statistics seem, the number of young men experiencing early hair loss is even greater than many believe.
Hair loss in women is almost as prevalent as hair loss in men with 40% of cases occurring in women. Female pattern hair loss, can begin at any point during or after puberty. Most women with this condition have hair that slowly thins all over, eventually becoming most sparse on the top of the head and crown. Receding in the frontal hair line is also not uncommon. In most cases, the condition becomes quickly evident during or after menopause. The recent explosion in the number of "herbal solutions" and shampoos promising to thicken hair attests to the widespread nature of this problem.
