Showing posts with label
National Alopecia Areata Foundation.
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Showing posts with label
National Alopecia Areata Foundation.
Show all posts
Kayla Martell garnered national attention last year when she was named Miss Delaware. This weekend she'll battle for another crown, and if she wins, she will become the country's first bald Miss America.
The 22-year old beauty suffers from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease in which the body's own defenses target the hair follicles, resulting in baldness. Alopecia can refer to different types of hair loss conditions. Kayla's condition, alopecia areata, affects only one area of her body - in this case, the scalp.
At this time, there is little known about this condition and effective treatments are not yet available.
Until we know more about this disease, Kayla is doing what she can to raise awareness for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. Whether or not Kayla is crowned Miss America on Saturday, I commend her for bringing this disease into the spotlight.
The Detroit Pistons' Charlie Villanueva has stirred debate about the limits of on the court trash-talking after alleging that Kevin Garnett (Boston Celtics' PF) made fun of his alopecia universalis condition by calling him a "cancer patient."
As a sports fan myself, I know that trash-talking is just a part of the game - but I hope Garnett's comments were misconstrued. Cancer patients should never be a part of any joke - but also neither should those who have the auto-immune disorder alopecia universalis, which produces hair loss on the scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes and other parts of the body.
For more about this condition, visit the website for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, of which Mr. Villanueva is a national spokesman.
