Baldness, referred to by the medical profession as Alopecia, is partial or complete hair loss of the head, body, or both. It may result from genetics, systemic disease, hormonal imbalance, drug side effects, aging, anticancer treatment, skin disorder, thyroid condition, childbirth or stress (just to name a few). ThymuSkin offers a possible baldness cure. Common forms of hair loss include:

In alopecias areata, there are well-defined bald patches, often round or oval in shape. They present themselves on the head, beard, and other hairy parts of the body. Even if the condition clears up within a year without treatment, it's common for the suddenly visible alopecia areata to recur somewhat later. A few other less common names are used to identify this problem too. It's variably called alopecia celsi, alopecia circumscripta, and Jonston's alopecia.

Quite often the alopecia areata condition responds well to the hair revitalizing ingredient in thymus gland extract from the calf, which reactivates dormant hair follicles in men and women, revitalizes normal hair cells for fuller, thicker, healthier hair, and is applicable with positive results in almost all cases of thinning hair for both sexes. It's a full program of treatment which, when steadily applied, prevents the alopecia areata from returning.

alopecia universalis is a complete loss of hair that shows an all parts of the body. It sometimes occurs as an extension of generalized alopecia areata, and the thymus gland extract frequently does work well to correct this condition.

In patchy alopecia (although "patchy" is nothing more than a descriptive term), areas develop on the parietal (front) and occipital (back) regions of the scalp that look moth-eaten. The condition is suspected of being connected with the invasion of some microorganism inasmuch as such hair loss has occasionally been a secondary characteristic of various infections. Dr. Klio Moessler, one of the main dermatologists at the Dermatological Department of the Municipal Clinics of Darmstadt in Germany, who participated in research on diseases producing baldness and new potential hair-growing products, points out, "Patchy alopecia may come from a fungal or bacterial infection or from genetic defects involving the hair. It occurs in cicatricial (scar forming) alopecia, alopecia areata, and some skin diseases." Thymus gland extract may not be effective in treating some of the more complicated causes of patchy alopecia.

For alopecia totalis (complete baldness), all the hair on the scalp is lost. This is an uncommon head hair defect with no known cause, but it does respond to the calf thymus preparation referred to.

With the three types of alopecia areatas (patchy, universalis, and totalis) evidence is mounting that an immunological signal is involved. In the double condition diagnosed as alopecia areata totalis et universalis the entire head and body of an individual becomes bald. Hair disappears from the pubic region, armpits, eyelashes, eyebrows, chest, legs, beard, and other areas. It has been proven, in clinical studies that thymus gland extract is useful in reversing the effects of the combination condition of alopecia areata totalis et universalis as well.

You probably are aware that baldness has been considered irreversible and there hasn't been any corrective treatment before today. Immunological aspects of alopecia newly discovered have changed all that.

In alopecia disseminate, also referred to as alopecia diffusa, there is hair loss around the whole scalp or even from other parts of the body: The cause may be a nutritional deficiency (especially lack of zinc or iron), a dysfunction of the thyroid gland, a polluting intoxicant, or some chronic and generalized illness. alopecia diffusa can't be corrected with thymus gland extract applied topically unless the underlying difficulty is found and eliminated

As regarding alopecia androgenetica (also known in dermatology as alopecia hereditaria), approximately half of the adult males residing in the United States and other Western industrialized countries exhibit this condition. Dr.Moessler told me that at least 65% of all German men suffer from the problem. In men, some of the other names for the condition of alopceia androgenetica are male pattern baldness, androgenetic alopecia, premature baldness, seborrheic alopecia, common baldness, hereditary baldness. In women, alopecia androgenetica is referred to as female pattern baldness or diffuse alopecia.

Rodney Dauber, MA, MB, ChB, who is consulting dermatologist at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford and clinical senior lecturer in dermatology at Oxford University, both in the United Kingdom, and Dominique Van Neste, MD, PhD, Director of the Skin Study Center in Tournai, Belgium, have reported: "Androgenetic alopecia probably occurs to a degree in all adults some time after puberty - only being obvious in some women in old age."

The lose of hair is strongly suspected by dermatologists both in the United States and in Europe, to arise from a baldness gene. For both men and/or women with androgenetic alopecia, this gene is suspected to be inherited from their fathers and occasionally from their mothers.

But with all the conjecture among hair specialists, the true reason for alopecia androgenetica to appear is not entirely known. Dermatologists do recognize that it is the most common form of baldness showing up in males and females. Its onset occurs at puberty in genetically predisposed individuals, and the condition is an autosomal dominant disorder. (Autosomal dominant means that alopecia androgenetica has a pattern of inheritance in which a dominant gene on a nonsex determining chromosome [the autosome] makes a certain characteristic of baldness. Affected individuals usually have a bald parent. However, normal children of the affected parent do not carry the baldness trait. Thus, among two male siblings having a bald father, one son may be bald and the other not. The nonbald brother will not pass on the chromosome for baldness to his sons or daughters, but the bald brother may do so.

Idiopathic male / female pattern baldness is a separate condition, too. The term, idiopathic, merely means that the medical profession acknowledges that it has not determined the cause of this form of baldness.

To clarify hereditary baldness, in alopecia androgenetica or alopecia hereditaria, the male pattern baldness and female pattern forms result from sex-influenced dominant inheritance. Androgen (meaning hormonal) stimulation is required to produce hair loss in heterozygous individuals (in which there are two different genes situated at the same place on matched chromosomes). For example, the individual with male pattern baldness could have inherited the bald-headed gene from one parent (mother or father) and the alternative gene from the other parent. The offspring (boy or girl) of a heterozygous carrier of the bald-headed gene has a 50% chance of inheriting this gene from his or her parent. There is a relationship of androgenetic alopecia and increased circulating androgens, at puberty, which probably represents one of the precipitating events in such a heterogeneous hair disorder.

Furthermore, the cause of androgenetic alopecia appears to be related mostly to androgen metabolism in the skin, the hair follicle, and the sebaceous gland lobule. Hair scientists have found hormonal abnormalities of cytosol and nuclear cell receptors and cytoplasmic-carrying proteins and minerals especially within the body's metabolism of calcium and irons.

Biology and body chemistry gone awry simultaneously are the usual causes of baldness, particularly in men but also in those women who may possess too much testosterone - the male hormone. In that case, a woman could be exhibiting female pattern baldness (FPB) by her hair's obvious thinning as a result of chronic fallout caused by an excess of male hormone being generated by her endocrine system.

Male pattern baldness most likely starts with testosterone, the hormone produced in the testes that helps make a man a man (and go bald like a man). Testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone that stimulates the growth of male (androgen) characteristics. As testosterone flows through the body, it interacts with an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase, which is concentrated in the genitals and skin. The enzyme converts testosterone into a more potent hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which some urologists have referred to as "testosterone times ten.." It is formed directly from testosterone in tissue, particularly in the secondary sex organs and is higly biologically active, except in muscle and bone.

In the scalp, each hair follicle is genetically programmed to react differently to DHT. Men with MPB have DHT sensitive follicles at the front or top of their heads, which wither and die from extended exposure to the hormone. It stands to reason that the onset of balding might be prevented biologically by one of several strategies:

By stopping the body's production of testosterone.

By stopping the testosterone from becoming DHT

By blocking DHT before it gets to follicles.

By making follicles less sensitive to DHT.

A man interested in curing his baldness would probably skip strategy A, because it involves castration at an early age. Eunuchs never go bald. Although the German scientists who have perfected the hair-growing qualities of the calf-derived thymus product to which I have alluded don't exactly know how it works, they believe it does accomplish at least one of the remaining B, C, or D strategies, or all three, or just two of the three. Perhaps strategy D offers the most logic relating to the product's action: making follicles less vulnerable to hormonal ravages.

Manfred Hagedorn, MD, chief of Dermatology at the Municipal Clinics of Darmstadt, points out that baldness has been shown under the microscope to be an auto-immune disease wherein one's leucocytes consisting of lymphocytes and macrophages, actually attack hair follicles and cause them to go into dormancy.

In alopecia androgenica, another separate disease, a male type baldness associated with excessive endocrine gland (androgenic) activity prevails in women as well. This specifically female condition labelled FPB (female pattern baldness) is similar to alopecia androgenetica. It has a genetic background coming under the influence of androgen hormones in which the woman possesses more testosterone than she needs.

In Chapter Thirteen of the book, Bald No More, is the frst clinical study conducted by Prof. Dr. Hagedorn and Dr. Moessler who utilized the new German hair-growing product and produced a reversal of alopecia androgenetica in 67% of men and 100% of women participating in their investigation. Also the two dermatologists carried out a second clinical study that demonstrated the regrowth of hair from the application of this thymus gland extract product from the calf for 43% of participating bald men and 94% of bald women.