In anagen effluvium, histopathologic evaluation of a punch biopsy of the scalp will exhibit a normal anagen-to-telogen ratio, which is less than 15% telogen hair follicles. If greater than 15% of the hair follicles are in the telogen phase, this more supports a diagnosis of telogen effluvium. Treatment
The management of anagen effluvium should be aimed at limiting the amount of time the patient has alopecia. To date, several agents have been studied; unfortunately, no treatment appears to be effective in preventing or stopping the hair loss. Although the results have not been impressive in stopping or preventing hair loss, it has been postulated that topical minoxidil is effective in reducing the period of baldness by an average of fifty days. Several studies have described limiting drug delivery to the scalp by using a scalp tourniquet during chemotherapy. If scalp or brain metastases are a possibility, this method should not be used to allow penetration of the chemotherapeutic agent. Another method that has shown success is inducing scalp hypothermia (by keeping ice over the scalp) to a scalp temperature of fewer than 24° Celsius during chemotherapy with daunorubicin, doxorubicin, paclitaxel, vincristine, vinblastine, mechlorethamine, actinomycin D, and epirubicin.As pharmacologic agents successful in treating and preventing anagen effluvium have not been found, patient education and aesthetic advice on managing hair loss are fundamental to managing androgen effluvium.
There are only a few notable scientific works that, in an attempt to explore the breadth and depth of the still vaguely-understood illness, have tried to identify which groups in society are most vulnerable to its onset. This includes a 2008 German study, which based its research on the widespread suspicion that the most nutritionally-informed, such as university nutrition students, are a potential high-risk group for eating disorders, due to a substantial accumulation of knowledge on food and its relationship to health; the idea being that the more one knows about health, the more likely an unhealthy fixation about being healthy can develop. This study also inferred that orthorexic tendencies may even fuel a desire to study the science, indicating that many within this field might suffer from the disorder before commencing the course. However the results found that the students in the study, upon initial embarkation of their degree, did not have higher orthorexic values than other non-nutrition university students, and thus the report concluded that further research is needed to clarify the relationship between food-education and the onset of ON.Similarly, in a Portuguese study on nutrition tertiary students, the participants orthorexic scores (according to the ORTO-15 diagnostic questionnaire) actually decreased as they progressed through their course, as well as the overall risk of developing an eating disorder being an insignificant 4.2 percent.