Such stressful situation as divorce is very often linked to tons of emotional problems, heartache and tears. According to the findings of a new study, in addition to all these hardships, a divorcing woman is likely to have to deal with hair loss as well. A group of specialists carried out a research and found out that divorce or losing a husband as a result of accident or a sudden death are definitely the second strongest causes of hair loss in women (after genetic factors). The stresses linked to the mentioned problems are very strong and hard to cope with for many women.

“Most likely, stress is the aspect of a troubling divorce that appears to lead to hair loss among women,” one of the leaders of the research groups Dr. Bahman Guyuron, MD and the chairman of the department of plastic surgery at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, comments on the findings to HealthDay online magazine. His specialists carried out two studies on 84 pairs of identical female twins, monitoring their lifestyle, principal medical indexes and the condition of their hair. Involving identical twins in the study helped to rule out possible genetic factors because twins have the same set of genes.

Commenting on the results of the study, Dr. Doris Day, a leading dermatology specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York Citysays the following: “It’s not a shock to suggest that various kinds of stress can lead to hair loss. Or that men and women don’t experience stress in the same way, so that their hair loss patterns may be different.” Furthermore, the scientists continued the studies with male identical twins, and the factors like sun exposure, history of the increased risks of cancer, a habit of drinking coffee every morning or suffering from such problem as dandruff came out as the main issues that play a role in hair loss in men.

In addition to this, it turned out that such factors as smoking and alcohol abuse can substantially contribute to hair loss, both in men and women. Another important issue that was identified as a risk-factor is a lack of physical activities. Dr. Guyuron comments: “What we can say is that we identified factors that appear to both raise risk and lower risk, for both men and women, independent of genetic disposition.” The mentioned findings of these studies will be presented in a short while in Denver, at the annual meeting of American Society of Plastic Surgeons.