Hair Loss

BEIJING -- Zhao Zhangguang has great hair, a thick, wavy mane that rises three inches above his forehead. It's a wonderful advertisement, and he knows it.Mr. Zhao, 50, is one of China's most prominent private entrepreneurs. His main business is hair -- or, more accurately, the lack of it.The apparent success of his line of "101 Formula" hair-growth lotions is evidence that, if you claim a cure for baldness, the world will beat a path to your door -- no matter where you are.Mr. Zhao says his potions prompt hair growth after a few months of daily use. He claims he's helped several million bald people all over the world, with a 90-percent success rate and no side effects.

Day after day, John Kreager looked in the mirror and saw his hair disappearing. A little bald spot at the crown. A little more across the front. Combing it sideways over the bare spots helped only so much."

Q: My wife is convinced that vitamins keep her healthy. She takes a fistful every morning. The kitchen table is littered with vitamin C, beta carotene, folic acid, zinc, vitamin E and goodness knows what else.I don't take a thing and feel great at 68. I eat healthy food and walk two miles every day. She keeps pushing her health food publications at me and wants me to take vitamins too. I think the whole thing is a waste of good money. Please tell her to ease up.A: Perhaps we can change your mind instead.

TOKYO -- Men the world over seem to worry about receding hairlines and thin hair. Men with certain characteristics may have to worry more about losing their hair if results from a recent survey by a major Japanese cosmetics company is any indication.The survey conducted by Shiseido Co. this summer showed that men who are pessimistic, methodical and irritable are more likely to have thin hair.That connection was made based on street-side interviews of men in various parts of Tokyo on Aug. 31 and Sept.

Q: Our 8-year-old daughter has gotten lots of compliments on her beautiful hair. Even the woman who cuts it has commented on how thick it is.During the past few weeks, I've noticed a thin spot appearing on her right temple. At first I though I was imagining it; but now that area is almost bare.I haven't mentioned it to her. I don't want to upset her. She's always teasing her father about being bald. What can be causing this in someone so young?A: There is a long list of possible causes of hair loss (alopecia)

When her hair started falling out, Morgan Fairchild knew she had to do something.Yes, that Morgan Fairchild. She of the big, blond hair, the nighttime soap operas and TV movies."

ORLANDO, Fla. Seeing is believing. So is feeling and smelling.Hair cleansed by the new Asti Clean Machine looks, feels and smells so good that it's hard not to believe its inventor's claims that the machine is a "breakthrough" invention in the beauty industry.The Clean Machine was developed by Margareta Loyd, founder of Asti (Advanced Salon Tectonics International), an Altamonte Springs, Fla., company that develops and manufactures hair-care products.Through a process knows as triatomic oxygenation, the machine introduces ozone gas into water.

OK, so you don't look like Telly Savalas -- yet -- but you have noticed some tell-tale thinning on the top of your head.And lately itseems like you've got a whole lot more forehead than you used to.Considering that your father, and his father before him, ended upwith a nice shiny dome by the time he reached middle age, chances are that you, too, are headed down the path to, well, baldness.Malepattern baldness, as the most common type of hair loss is called, affects at least 40 percent of the adult male population, said LawrenceR.

I received a question recently about hair loss due to medication. A reader said she had been losing her hair for the last year and half, and her personal physician and two dermatologists suggested it might be because of the medication she was taking. She had been taking verapamil (calan isoptin), then switched to Captopril (capoten).The answer to this question depends in part on the age and sex of the person, the rate and pattern of hair loss and what the scalp looks like.Immediately following menopause, for example, it's normal to have a mild generalized decrease in the number of scalp hairs.