Losing Hair from Illness

When you lose hair due to illness, do you lose hair from all over your scalp or just on top? Is the location of the hair loss different than it would be with genetic factors?

Stress such as an illness can produce hair loss. This is explained because illness requires that your body conserves its resources to fight off the illness. Hair is a high metabolic organ, consuming considerable amounts of nutrients, blood supply, cardiac output, etc.. The body diverts is support activities and abandons those organ systems of low importance. Hair qualifies for that sacrifice. I might expect hair loss to be a generalized loss over your entire scalp, possibly including some body hair as well. That being said, the illness or the stress may have set off a genetic “switch” that probably kick started male pattern hair loss process when the gene is carried by the patient.