What Should You Know About Excessive Body Hair In Women?
One of the unhappiest women I know is a young lady with an excess amount of dark hair on her upper lip, her chin, and her chest. She is not alone. There are thousands of young women with the same cosmetic problem-superfluous hair-hair that doesn’t look sporty in the locker room, hair where nobody wants it.
Exactly what do we mean by excess hair? Not what most people believe. Excess hair does not mean an increase in the number of hairs. Everyone is born with a fixed number of hairs on his or her body. This is genetically determined (inherited).
Hair grows on every portion of the skin except the palms and soles and a few other small areas.
While excess hair may be due to many factors, for some groups of people it is the normal state of affairs. People from Southern Europe and Middle-Eastern cultures are much hairier than those from Northern Europe and Scandinavian countries; white people are hairier than black people; and Asians and American Indians are the least hairy of all.
Above and beyond this normal, constitutional hairy excess, there are those women who exhibit a far greater increase in the length and thickness of hair in certain areas which are usually reserved for the “peach-fuzz” variety: the upper lip, the chin, the sides of the face, the areas around the nipples, and the portion of the abdomen extending from the pubic region to the belly-button. (These are the areas normally associated with the male pattern hair growth.) This type of superfluous hair, or hypertrichosis, can be especially embarrassing to the young and otherwise confident woman, one of those “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”
The Causes Of Excessive Body Hair
The causes of excess hair are many-and varied. For those with a moderate degree of hairiness, the factors involved may be merely a part of normal growth and development.
The most common cause of excess hair growth in females is the aging process. Along about the time of menopause, women become deficient in the production of the female hormone estrogen. The decrease of this hormone gives rise to a relative increase in the male-type hormone (androgen), which is responsible for the slow, relentless proliferation of thick, dark hairs appearing on the upper lip, chin, and cheeks. And, at the same time, the beginning of the steady thinning of the scalp hair. These two processes seem to go hand in hand: more hair on the body, less on the scalp.
Stress and tension can also playa role in excess hair growth. The hair follicles are under the influence of various hormones and chemicals produced by the body. Emotional stress and tension often lead to a disturbance in the delicate balance of these hormones which, in turn, can result in a stimulation of the hair follicle leading to excess hair, not, however, on the head. These hormonal imbalances also can arise in connection with tumors and cysts of the ovaries, diseases of the adrenal glands, and abnormal functioning and tumors of other hormone-secreting glands, such as the thyroid or pituitary.
In addition, various drugs and medications can occasionally produce hypertrichosis when taken over a period of time. These include drugs for epilepsy (Dilantin), cortisone-like drugs, and a host of others.
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