There can be a multitude of causes of thinning hair but not all necessarily mean you are going bald, and we are going to go through some of these in detail today, but before we do that lets have a quick look at hair growth and also a little test you can do to check if you are losing your hair.

One of the first things to know about hair is that not all of it is growing at the same time, in fact at any one time about ten percent of your hair is in a phase that is known as resting, and when your hair is in this phase, it is not uncommon for it to fall out.

A quick little test that you can do to check if you are going bald and it is known as the tug test. Basically all the tug test is is to take about 20 or so strands of hair between thumb and forefinger and pull slowly and firmly. If you lose about 6 strands or so then you may be going bald.

Now that we have covered that, let us look at 5 possible reasons behind hair loss :-

1. Ageing- unfortunately part of life is getting older, and one of the downsides of this is that when we age we start to lose our hair, for some hair loss can start as early as late teens but for a lot of people hair loss really happens between the ages of 20-50

2. Medications- If you are on medication then sometimes this can also have an effect on your hair and may cause it to fall out. Some drugs used for things like antidepressants, contraception, arthritis and even antibiotics have been linked with hair loss and there are more you could add to that list. Also if you are unlucky enough to be going through any kind of radiation or chemotherapy then you will be aware that will have an effect on your hair too.

3. Illness- Being ill can have many side effects on the body in general. However there are certain ailments which seem to be directly linked with hair loss and included amongst them are problems with the Thyroid gland, diabetes, lupus and scalp fungal infections. Again there are probably more that you can add to the list but if you have started losing hair and you are ailing from something then there may be a link.

4. Sebum- You normally only hear about sebum when acne is discussed as a build up of it can be a cause behind acne, but it can also be a cause behind hair loss too. This happens if there is a build up of sebum on the scalp as it can attack the bulb of the hair from which the follicle grows.

5. Stress- Stress can have a significant impact on hair loss, although the good news is this is likely to be temporary. What can happen is that if you are under severe stress it can cause more of your hair than normal to go into the resting phase and because of this a higher percentage than usual of them all fall out around the same time

These are just a few of the things that can be behind what causes baldness, however the list is not exhaustive and if you are concerned about hair loss then you may want to seek expert advice or do further research into ways how to prevent hair loss.

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