Researchers Explore Psychological Impact of Hair Loss

CNN Story Examines the Emotional Toll of Alopecia Areata

Sarah LeTrent of CNN has posted a story, "How it feels to be a bald woman," which offers some interesting perspecives and personal stories from women who live with alopecia areata. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune skin disease that results in the loss of hair on the scalp and elsewhere on the body. 

According to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, the condiction affects approximately two percent of the population overall, including more than 6.5 million people in the United States alone. Alopecia areata occurs in people who are apparently healthy and have no skin disorder.

What is often overlooked is the impact alopecia has on the spirit. As LeTrent's story points out, alopecia areata can exact a devastating emotional toll. Learning to manage the disease and not be defined by it is essential for surviving and even thriving with it. 

The CNN story quotes the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases as saying a big part of the coping process is about, "learning to value yourself for who you are, not for how much hair you have or don't have."

However, until recently, there was very little psychological research exploring the impacts of alopecia areata. That is changing, thanks to Sue McHale, a psychology lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University in England, whose co-researcher and husband, Nigel Hunt, has alopecia universalis, the rarest form of the disease, one that results in total loss of body hair. The two earlier co-authored the book, "Understanding Traumatic Stress - Growth Through Experience."

"It opened up a floodgate of responses and many said that they felt no one had been listening to them for years," she told LeTrent. It was no longer just a physical diagnosis.

McHale and Hunt co-authored the book, "Coping with Alopecia," after extensively researching the psychological toll of the disease. 

"Baldness, for whatever reason, is associated firstly with aging and secondly with illness. So society is automatically shocked or fearful of this," McHale told CNN.

Investigators from Columbia University Medical Center have identified eight genes that contribute to alopecia. Their paper, "Genome-wide association study in alopecia areata implicates both innate and adaptive immunity," published in Nature, found that many genes associated with alopecia are also linked to other autoimmune disorders. Researchers expect the findings to lead to new treatments for alopecia. Current treatments include steroid injections and creams, but there is no cure at this time.

Genetic testing also is expected to help doctors more accurately determine the path the disease will take. We will keep the community informed as science continue to advance on this matter.