Science / Medicine : Relief for Hair-Pulling Women

A drug to treat depression provides short-term relief for women who are victims of a bizarre condition marked by an irresistible impulse to pull out one’s own hair, scientists reported last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The condition, trichotillomania, may afflict as many as 4 million American women, said National Institutes of Health researcher Susan Swedo who led the study, and is marked by women who pull out the hair on their head, eyebrows and eyelashes, and in some cases their pubic hair.

Psychotherapy, behavior modification and hypnosis have all been used to treat the condition, but with little long-term success. In the study, researchers found that the drug clomipramine, a new anti-depressant, was effective in 13 women with severe trichotillomania who were given the drug for five weeks. The women all reported a reduction in the frequency and intensity of the urge to pull their hair, and an increased ability to resist the urge during clomipramine treatment.

Swedo said trichotillomania was once thought to be a disturbance of impulse-control, like gambling or kleptomania, but now appears related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition that can lead to repetitive hand washing and other rituals.