There are many reasons a person might be balding, and many different patterns of baldness. No matter what the reason it is a very distressing experience, and if it is happening to you then you should immediately look into the cause of it and any possible solutions.

When people start balding in large chunks until their entire head is bald, we first tend to think of chemotherapy. While chemotherapy does cause hair loss for many people there are other medications and ingredients in medication that will cause hair loss as a side effect. If you have the option, to stop taking or switching the medication is the best option. For many, like people undergoing cancer treatment, there is very little that can be done as balding is an uncompromising effect of the powerful medication. There has been some recent evidence to suggest that foreign contaminants other than medications can cause balding or at least exacerbate it. A study published by the University of London clearly showed both men and women living in industrial areas with high levels of pollution suffer from hair loss at much higher rates than those living in areas with cleaner air.

A type of balding most prevalent in women is something called traction alopecia. This is a condition where hair follicles are destroyed from hair being pulled. The main cause of this is buns and other hairstyles which are very tight and keep hair at a high tension. Because the follicles have been completely destroyed the treatment options for this are limited only to a hair transplant.

A much rarer type of balding is one called alopecia areata, which is also related to alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis. These are all what are known as auto-immune disorders because it is your own body's immune system attacking hair follicles. Alopecia areata is called spot baldness in layman's terms because it usually takes place in circular patterns on different parts of the head. There are few known treatments for it; but on a more positive note alopecia areata is most commonly transient, so it comes and goes. Alopecia totalis affects the entire head, and alopecia universalis affects the entire body. These last two types are less commonly transient.

If you are a man who has noticed balding in the form of a receding hairline and a thinning of hair on the scalp then you are most likely suffering from the most common type of hair loss; androgentic alopecia, or male pattern baldness. It is caused by a hormone called DHT (dihydrotestosterone) which when unused begins to build up in the hair follicles, slowly choking them off from needed nutrients in the blood stream until they thin and eventually fall out. When modern research into the causes of balding began it was immediately noticed that this was a far more prevalent condition in some families than it was in others. The treatment options available are pharmaceuticals which will alter hormone production, or natural supplements which stop DHT from binding to hair follicles. Obviously the latter is safer and has fewer side effects, but most of the time it is also cheaper as well. You would be wise to investigate natural supplements to stop balding and regain hair before using potentially harmful pharmaceuticals.