By Elena Fysentzou
DERMATOLOGISTS in Cyprus are organising a campaign against hair loss next week, aiming to enlighten the public and to dispel common misconceptions on the issue.
The plan was announced yesterday by the Chairman of the Dermatological Company of Cyprus, Costas Demetriou, together with members Androulla Kyprianou and George Vakis.
Speaking at a news conference in Nicosia, they said hair loss was a problem that affected mostly men – with almost half of the male population suffer from hair loss. White men are especially affected, while Asian men are less likely to suffer from the condition.
Kyprianou said most cases of hair loss were caused by genetic reasons. Hair follicles are genetically coded and if genes responsible for hair loss are present, they make the hair follicles on top of the head sensitive to the hormone dihydrotestosterone, or DHT. These follicles are predisposed to begin shrinking when the person reaches adulthood. Once this process begins, it continues throughout a person’s lifetime until the shrinking follicles stop producing any hair at all.
Women can suffer from hair loss too, but mostly due to pathological reasons. Pathological hair loss is mainly caused by hormonal anomalies, lack of vitamins in the body, stress, anaemia and other bacterial diseases. Iron deficiency in women can also cause hair loss and once this is diagnosed, it can be easily treated. Kyprianou pointed out that hair loss during the warmest seasons was normal and some medication could speed up the recovery of hair loss, though in such cases it could also be regained naturally. Some women can experience a temporary hair loss a couple of months after they give birth due to hormonal changes in their bodies, while others begin to lose hair when they reach menopause. Once diagnosed, these can easily be treated.
There can also be seasonal hair loss where a person can lose as many as 100 hairs in a day but this is not seen as serious as the average person has around 100,000 to 150,000 hairs on their head. Treatment is not necessary if the hair loss is seasonal. If unnecessary treatment is given, however, the loss could become irreversible.
With so many different types of hair loss, diagnosis is essential for any treatment to be successful. Medical science is still searching for a complete understanding of the biochemical processes that occur within hair follicles, and Vakis said only very few medicines in the market actually worked, adding new drugs such as minoxitili and finasteridi were showing high success rates (up to 60 per cent) but these needed to be taken permanently to be successful.
Demetriou emphasised repeatedly that only dermatologists could diagnose and treat hair loss, and expressed his concern at the number of cases of consumers exploited by so called “hair experts” charging an arm and a leg for bogus services. He appealed to the public not to trust such “experts” and to make sure the dermatologists they consulted were approved by the Medical Association.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
