Hair Shedding in Women: How Much Is Too Much?

April 2015 in “ British Journal of Dermatology ”

Rodney Sinclair

female pattern hair loss FPHL hair shedding visual analogue scale excessive shedding hair loss hair thinning

Studysummary This article discusses hair shedding in women and does not offer new research results; it highlights the need for objective criteria to define excessive hair shedding. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.

In the study titled "Hair shedding in women: how much is too much?" from 2015, R. Sinclair developed a visual analogue scale to measure hair shedding in women and differentiate between normal and excessive shedding. The scale was tested on 50 women with female pattern hair loss (FPHL) and showed strong correlation in scoring between two assessments. Women with short hair had difficulty using the scale, so further analysis was limited to those with long hair. In a larger study of 209 women with untreated FPHL and long hair, the mean age was 46.3 years, and the mean shedding score was 4.96, with 70% showing excessive shedding (grades 5 and 6). Additionally, 23 women (9.1%) with FPHL who did not report increased shedding were found to have excessive shedding using the scale. A control group of 100 schoolgirls with long hair had a mean shedding score of 2.68, significantly lower than the FPHL group. The study concluded that the hair shedding scale is an accurate tool for identifying abnormal hair shedding in women with long hair, with grades 5 and 6 indicating excessive shedding. This tool can help diagnose early FPHL, although it cannot quantify the exact number of hairs shed and has not been validated for women with short or shoulder-length hair.

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