JUDGING by the number of advertisements for the treatment of balding and hair thinning in men, one might think that the problem is predominantly a male issue. As it turns out, women are just as susceptible.

'One of the most common complaints that I have been getting for some years now is the issue of women's hair thinning,' observes famed British trichologist Philip Kingsley who was recently in town.

'I like to term the problem as reduced hair volume as opposed to hair loss because its not necessarily a case of reduced hair in terms of numbers, your hair volume might also look reduced when each strand of hair gets thinner in diameter thus taking up less space. A secondary problem to that is that when hair is too thin, it stops growing.'

He adds that through research over the years, he's come up with some theories as to the most common causes of reduced hair volume and what can be done about it. Luckily for women, their reduced hair volume problems - hair loss or otherwise - are much easier to treat than men's.

'We send most of the women - especially the ones with reduced hair volume problems - who come to our clinics for blood tests and through that we've come up with some theories,' he reveals. 'What we've discovered, is that while many of these women come back with results, is that the optimum reference ranges for hair growth differs from the normal health reference ranges. There is always a reason for loss of women's hair volume.'

According to Dr Kingsley, the two most common reasons for a loss in hair volume in women are low iron levels and the susceptibility of a woman's hair follicles to androgen (male hormones). The former is treated with iron pills while the latter is treated with anti-androgen prescription drops to block the effect of the androgens in the hair follicle.

In particular, he has noticed that Asian women are more susceptible to reduced hair volume than Caucasian women, something he has been paying attention to for more than 15 years.

'The thing was, there were so many women from countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and India who were flying in to see me with that problem,' he recalls. 'Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that there were more of them but I started looking and observing and it gradually did occur to me that more Asian women had the problem as compared to Caucasian women. We are trying to study statistics and we have no definitive figures yet, except that it is certainly greater in Asian women of peri and post menopausal age.'

While Dr Kingsley admits that despite all his research, he has yet to come up with a definitive reason for this phenomenon, he does have a theory based on a landmark research paper that he helped to co-author in the late 1970s on a type of hormonal disorder called polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).

'In the 70s, I started to send women to a doctor friend of mine for blood tests and we noticed that of the 111 women with thinning hair problems, 36 per cent of them had PCOS, we published a paper on that and it was considered a landmark paper because it was the first paper published on the relationship between PCOS and hair thinning in females,' explains Dr Kingsley.

'I did a second study with another professor in London to see if we could verify the first and of the 89 women we studied, 66 per cent of them had PCOS and their only symptom was that they came to us with thinning hair problems. So while we haven't done enough testing on Asian women, it is possible that Asian women have a higher tendency of PCOS than Caucasian women which would explain the phenomenon.'

To pre-empt this problem, Dr Kingsley suggests visiting a trichologist once a year - as you would a dentist. After all, prevention is better than cure, although he does have a couple of simple home tips for healthy hair.

Two tips: First, hair is protein and breakfast and lunch are the two most important meals for protein intake, so do eat protein during breakfast and lunch for stronger hair. Second, shampoo your hair every day - not only does hair look best when it's freshly shampooed, the process of massaging your scalp while shampooing helps to stimulate it as well.

But, if women do have hair volume reduction, he maintains that they should quickly see a professional to have a blood test.

Dr Kingsley concludes: 'There has never been a case that I can remember where a woman has come to us without a slight problem in the results of her blood test from a hair viewpoint. They may all have normal results healthwise but never hairwise for optimum hair growth.'

For more information please visit Philip Kingsley Trichological Centre (www.philipkingsley.com.sg), #03-08/09 Palais Renaissance. A typical six month course of treatment for reduced hair volume costs around $4,000

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This article was first published in The Business Times.