Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health
Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health

Dandruff

What is dandruff?

Symptoms of dandruff

Causes of dandruff

Triggers for dandruff

Prevention / remedies / treatment for dandruff

References

What is dandruff?

Dandruff is the shedding of small white flakes of skin from the scalp. Dandruff presents as a snow of small white skin flakes on the head, neck, and shoulders.

Normally, the skin on the scalp sheds continually about once per month, in flakes that are too small to notice. However, with dandruff the skin on the scalp can shed in as little as 2-7 days, in larger visible flakes of skin which you can easily see on the neck and clothes.

Dandruff affects up to half of all adults, and a lesser proportion of children.

It is caused by a fungal infection on the scalp, so it is like a mild form of seborrheic dermatitis. Do not confuse dandruff with a dry scalp (dry skin), which can also cause increased skin flaking.

Dandruff can be long lasting (chronic) or it can be caused by a number of triggers.

Symptoms of dandruff

Causes of dandruff

Triggers for dandruff

Prevention / remedies / treatment for dandruff

References

1. Ranganathan S, Mukhopadhyay T. Dandruff: The Most Commercially Exploited Skin Disease. 2010. Indian J Dermatol 55 (2): 130-134.