There are many factors that contribute to hair loss, hormones, heredity, stress, illness, diet, and poor hair care can all help to cause hair loss. Diet, stress, and illness are the temporary conditions and once you either remove the stress or cure the illness, change the diet, things should in most cases go back to normal.

Hormones and heredity are a much more different matter. Heredity is a condition that is irreversible. Your parents pass certain physical traits along to there children and hair loss can often be one of these. With hormones, it is completely different and they will have effect people differently.

With men, the testosterone is abundant in the body. There is a substance produced from testosterone called DHT. This is well known to cause hair loss in men by shrinking the hair follicles. What happens is that the hair follicles shrink enough so that they are not able to product any hair. Then as the older hair dies off, no new hairs are produced to replace them.

In women, a hormone imbalance can cause hair loss. Childbirth, pregnancy, and menopause can all lead to significant changes in the levels of hormones in the body, leading to both mental and physical effects. You can also find that during this time these changes can cause temporary or permanent loss of hair.

Products to help with hair loss and re growth have existed for centuries. The American Indians, Mayans, Aztecs, and Egyptians used a verity of oil based and herbal remedies with varying degrees of effectiveness.

The modern medical era has primarily focused on ways to stimulate or re open the non-functioning hair follicles, so that normal growth can take place. A number of products are now available to help with this, some you may get over the counter while others you will need a prescription.

There is one ingredient in particular that many hair loss products include and that is minoxidil. It has been shown in research studies that this helps about 80% of the time to slow hair loss and in some actually helps to re grow hair. The most well known of these would have to be Rogaine.

Another product that contains minoxidil is Provillus, and studies have shown that it is effective. Provillus is different from other similar products in that it has an added ingredient, Azelaic Acid; this seems to enhance follicle repair in men and women.