Menopausal Hair Loss: Understanding, Treatment and the Role of a Healthy Lifestyle

Menopause brings about many changes in a woman’s body, and one of the less talked about yet distressing is hair loss. While it’s a natural part of ageing, understanding why it happens, knowing that it’s treatable, and learning how a healthy lifestyle can mitigate its effects can empower women to seek help from this unnecessarily distressing issue.

First lets talk about why hair loss can happen at or after the menopause.

Understanding Menopausal Hair Loss and Androgenetic Alopecia

Androgenetic alopecia, commonly known as genetic hair loss, affects both men and women. Its manifestation in women often occurs during menopause when oestrogen levels drop, reducing the hormone’s buffering effect against testosterone’s impact on hair follicles.

This is the driving factor of genetic hair loss in both sexes, in men testosterone can start impacting the hair in the teens and twenties, in women it can either be driven by hormonal issues before the menopause (such as Polycystic Overy Syndrome) or when oestrogen naturally reduces.

Basically the diving factor is importance of hormonal changes rather than the difference in gender per se. Studies have shown that the miniaturisation of hair follicles, a hallmark of androgenetic alopecia, is equally attributable to genetics in both men and women, albeit with different timelines due to hormonal variations [1].

Treatment Options: There’s Hope

It’s crucial to understand that menopausal hair loss is treatable. The adage “better late than never” doesn’t hold well here, as early intervention can significantly alter the condition’s course. Various treatment options, ranging from topical treatments like minoxidil to hormonal therapy and hair transplant surgeries in advanced cases, have shown success.

The key is not to suffer in silence; consulting with us can open the door to these effective treatments. There is countless research articles that underscores the efficacy of these treatments, especially when started early, in managing androgenetic alopecia in postmenopausal women [2].

However, taking a blind or non-clinical approach may just lead to a waste of your money and, more importantly, ‘time’!

The Role of a Healthy Lifestyle in Managing Hair Loss

A holistic approach to managing menopausal hair loss includes a healthy lifestyle. Nutrition plays a pivotal role in hair health, with deficiencies in vitamins and minerals directly impacting hair quality and growth. However, the marketplace is flooded with products promising miraculous results without addressing the underlying cause. This is where professional guidance becomes invaluable. Determining the specific cause of hair loss through consultation paves the way for targeted, effective treatment, making lifestyle and dietary changes part of a comprehensive treatment plan rather than a shot in the dark [3].

Our advice is if the problem is a genetic one, you will need something stronger than herbal supplements/tinctures to regrow hair.

Take Away Advice

Menopausal hair loss, is late onset androgenetic alopecia and is a spectrum, it can manifest itself as a mild thinning to a significant balding but in either case is chronic and progressive. Its a condition shared across genders but differentiated by the timing of hormonal shifts.

It can be treated very successfully, with a range of options available to those seeking timely help.

A healthy lifestyle, underpinned by good nutrition, will help along with maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking, but these factors will help with hair health, not hair regrowth; for that, we need to discuss treatment options.

With professional guidance, we successfully manage this condition effectively. Let’s break the silence on menopausal hair loss and approach it with the knowledge, treatment, and lifestyle changes it requires.

References

1.”Genetic Predictors of Male Pattern Baldness,” Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 2020.

2.”Efficacy of Minoxidil in Treating Androgenetic Alopecia: Meta-Analysis,” Dermatologic Therapy, 2019.

3.”Nutritional Factors Affecting Postmenopausal Women’s Hair Loss,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2018.