There are many different kinds of baldness, but in most cases, it’s a condition over which a man has absolutely no control and for which there simply is no cure.

People say all kinds of things about baldness: It means a man IS getting old; or it means he’s unusually intelligent; or he’s unusually dull. But all baldness really means is that a man is losing his hair!

The kind of baldness we see most often is called pattern baldness. The hair begins to go at the temples, or there’s a bald spot at the top of the head, or the baldness appears in some other pattern. This is the most difficult type of baldness to do anything about because it’s inherited! The inheritance of pattern baldness is influenced by sex. It appears more in men than in women. Very often the woman carries the gene for this baldness and passes it on to her children. Once this type of baldness appears, about the best thing a man can do is get used to it!

Premature baldness may appear in men as early as the age of twenty-five or even earlier. One cause of this kind of baldness may be a failure to take proper care of the scalp, keep it clean, etc. Sometimes an imbalance of the sex hormones may bring on premature baldness. If proper scalp care is started at once, it may slow up the progress of this type of baldness.

Symptomatic baldness sometimes appears as a sign of infections or other conditions. When health is restored, the hair may grow back again in such cases. Sudden loss of hair can result from typhoid fever, Scarlet fever, pneumonia, influenza, and other serious infections.

When there is a gradual loss or thinning of hair, it may sometimes be due to poor nutrition or a disturbance in the glands, especially the pituitary and thyroid glands. And, of course, baldness may come from disorders in the scalp itself, such as scalp injuries or disease.