Hair Loss News

Traction alopecia is a totally preventable type of hair loss that results from hair being under constant stress.

In this study conducted in South Africa, researchers wanted to see if there is a correlation between various skin disorders and hair styles in Africans.

They evaluated both boys and girls in this study which examined 1,042 school children.

The researchers found that traction alopecia (TA) was significantly more common with relaxed than natural hair.   This appears to be a result of girls who had relaxed their hair and had pulled it into ponytails which then caused the stress on the hair.

Additionally it was found that with the girls, the number affected by TA increased with age from 8.6% of girls who had TA in the first year of school, to 21.7% having it in the last year of high school.

Based on this study it’s clear that traction alopecia is a result of hair styling choices and thus TA is easily preventable by avoiding hairstyles that put the hair under stress.

Hairdressing is associated with scalp disease in African schoolchildren.

Br J Dermatol. 2007 Jun 6
Khumalo NP, Jessop S, Gumedze F, Ehrlich R.
Division of Dermatology, Groot Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, South Africa.

Background: Anecdotal reports suggest that certain disorders are common in African hair and may be associated with hairstyles.

Objectives: A cross-sectional study of 1042 schoolchildren was performed to test this hypothesis.

Methods: A questionnaire was administered and scalp examinations performed, after ethics approval.

Results: Participants included 45% boys and 55% girls. The majority of boys, 72.8%, kept natural hair with frequent haircuts (within 4 weeks). The prevalence of acne (folliculitis) keloidalis nuchae (AKN) was 0.67% in the whole group and highest (4.7%) in boys in the final year of high school, all of whom had frequent haircuts. The majority of girls (78.4%) had chemically relaxed hair, which was usually combed back or tied in ponytails, vs. 8.6% of boys. Traction alopecia (TA) was significantly more common with relaxed than natural hair, with an overall prevalence of 9.4% (98 of 1042) and of 17.1% in girls, in whom it increased with age from 8.6% in the first year of school to 21.7% in the last year of high school. The proportion with TA in participants with a history of braids on natural hair was lower (22.9%), but not significantly, than among those with a history of braids on relaxed hair (32.1%). No cases of central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia were identified.

Conclusions: We found associations between hairstyle and disease in our population of schoolchildren. AKN appears to be associated with frequently cut natural hair and TA with relaxed hair. These associations need further study for purposes of disease prevention.

PMID: 17553035