Facts and Fallacies about Hair Loss

Do hats cause hair loss? Will brushing your hair make it grow faster? Do blow-dryers make you bald? Let’s separate the hair loss myths from the facts.

We have all heard the old wives’ tales and stories about what causes hair loss and what you can do to stimulate hair growth. So much misinformation has been floating around for so long that it’s oftentimes difficult to distinguish the truth from the nonsense. Here we will address some of the most common myths about hair loss and thinning hair and uncover some of the facts about your hair.

Wearing hats causes hair loss

Myth: Unless your hat is extremely tight that it’s cutting off blood circulation to your follicles (and you’d be getting headaches in that case), wearing a hat isn’t going to cause you to go bald. So feel free to wear hats and caps for style reasons or to help disguise your hair loss.

Shaving your head will make hair grow back thicker

Myth: At first it will definitely appear thicker, but that is only because your hair is thicker at the base than it is at the ends. Once your hair grows back to its normal length, it won’t be any thicker than it was before you shaved it.

Shampooing your hair every day increases hair loss

Myth: Shampooing your hair too often (as well as the use of some other hair products) can cause damage to your hair shaft but not to your hair follicles. It’s probably in your best interest to shampoo every other day rather than every day for healthy hair.

Baldness comes from your mother’s side

Myth: Hair loss certainly can be caused by genetic factors, but don’t blame your mom! Those genes can come from both your mother and father. The more people who have hair loss issues (on either side of your family) the more likely that you will encounter baldness or hair loss.

Blow-drying your hair causes hair loss

Myth: Blow-dryers, flatirons, and curling irons can cause breakage and damage to your hair. So your hair may not be as healthy, shiny, or full, but blow-drying doesn’t directly cause hair loss, because it doesn’t influence your hair follicles.

Brushing your hair will make it grow faster

Myth: This old wives’ tale has been around for centuries. But perhaps surprisingly, brushing your hair 100 strokes a day won’t cause follicle stimulation to make it grow faster. In fact, brushing too often (particularly wet hair) can cause breakage and split ends.

Use a wide-tooth comb to detangle and style wet hair. On dry hair, use a flat, boar-bristle brush and try to keep the brushing to a minimum.

Lack of vitamins causes hair loss

Fact: Well, at least partially so.

Although healthy, well-nourished people can experience hair loss, malnourishment, unhealthy habits and certain vitamin deficiencies can exacerbate hair loss. Biotin and other B vitamins as well as vitamin E, vitamin C, and calcium are beneficial to your hair.

Try to eat a healthy diet of low-calorie, vitamin-rich foods consisting of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and “good” fats for your overall health.

Simple Tips to Have Healthy Hair from Roots to Tips

Many people always wonder how to obtain healthy hair growth. It has not one but many answers. If you want to improve your hair growth, then you have to follow some basic rules regularly. Having the right hair care regimen or techniques is a must to keep hair growing healthy hair. You need to follow a proper routine in order to have healthy hair.

You can follow some simple and practical ways to have your hair growing with luster, volume, and health. You can increase hair growth simply by taking care of it through natural ways. Here are some basic tips that can help you:

1. You need to wash your hair regularly. You need to use naturally formulated or organic-based shampoos—that is, shampoos that don’t have harmful chemicals. Those chemicals can weaken your hair.

2. Never comb your hair when wet. Combing wet hair will make them weak and they will not grow fast. Drying your hair by sitting under a fan is a good idea. You can then slowly detangle your hair and then comb with a soft-bristle brush.

3. Good blood circulation is required in your scalp to let your hair grow fast. Massage your scalp for ten minutes every day. By simply moving your fingertips in a circular motion on your scalp, circulation in the scalp may already be improved. The blood flow will make the cells healthy and will make the hair stronger.

4. Many people like to style their hair. This may make you look stylish but doing it too frequently can damage your hair too. The use of heating hairstyling tools (e.g., curlers, straighteners) can weaken the roots of the hair. Hair with a weak base can never grow fast.

5. Vitamins are needed for your hair to become healthy and strong. That will help it to grow fast. Fruits and green vegetables can be the source of vitamins that you need for fast growing hair. Add them to your daily diet plan.

6. To have beautiful and strong hair, you must use conditioners. There are many natural conditioning shampoos that are available in the market that can make your hair grow really fast. Look for conditioners that are formulated with rosemary and grape seed extracts.

Follow the mentioned tips properly and experience having healthy hair again.

Male Pattern Baldness: Understanding and Accepting the Condition

We are all suckers for our hair. It defines us. We groom and style it to communicate different messages to others. We color, twist, braid, clip, and even spike it. It is a sign of virility, youth and strength. Human beings love their hair. For most people, the fear of losing the hair or going bald ranks right up there with death and dismemberment.

“I’m bald.” For some men to say those words is like admitting alcoholism for the first time. Men will play around with ridiculous comb-overs, toupees, and scalp spray paint before looking at themselves in the mirror and saying “I’m bald.”

Sometimes it is easier for a man to digest he has cancer than he is losing his hair. Along his journey he has probably hemorrhaged money on magic hair growth potions and pills, laser combs and herbal shampoos. Men will part with thousands of dollars just for the hope of hanging on to a few follicles.

Infomercials have largely replaced the greasy mustached man from the back of the wagon, pulling into town with hair tonic to peddle to the local rubes. Hair loss treatments are hocked everywhere by otherwise reputable companies and con artists alike. They are all bunk. If doctors really did discover a cure for hair loss (as I’ve seen advertised), I suspect you’d see no bald doctors.

One could fill a museum with contraptions that have been sold to desperate men for their balding scalps. Vacuum helmets to suck new hair to the surface, vibrating bands to stimulate blood flow, scalp massagers and shampoos to detoxify the scalp hurt nothing but men’s wallets.

Some of the more sinister treatments contained arsenic, mercury, and who knows what else. But perhaps no greater hoax was pulled on mankind than convincing men that powdered wigs could be fashionable. Something tells me there was a group of profiting balding men somewhere behind this.

Ways to Recover a Full Head of Hair

Your parents might have full heads of hair, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will too.

If you’re finding hair in your sink, more hair on your brush, or your bathtub becomes clogged with hair, it could be a sign of hair loss or hair thinning. These symptoms can be caused by stress or aging, or they could be hereditary.

Hair loss and thinning may be inevitable, but the question is how to get it back healthy and full.

The following are ways to help stimulate and promote hair growth (and one way to fake it):

Finasteride

This prescription pill is designed to prevent hair loss by reducing the production of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in the scalp. DHT is a hormone that can shrink hair follicles and prevent them from producing visible hairs. Lowering DHT inhibits the shrinkage of hair follicles, hence stimulating hair growth.

Consult with your doctor to determine what’s best for you.

Minoxidil

Minoxidil is an over-the-counter solution that stimulates blood flow to hair follicles in the scalp to promote growth. The product should be applied twice a day, every day, for four months before results are noticed; gains are lost if treatment is discontinued.

Diet

Your diet not only affects your body weight and anatomical health, it also contributes to the health of your skin, nails and hair. Foods rich in the high-quality protein omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon and walnuts, can prevent dry hair and a dry scalp. Foods with vitamin A, such as carrots, also help keep the scalp healthy, creating a nutrient-optimal ground for hair follicles to regrow hair.

Extensions

When all else fails, salons and beauty stores offer synthetic- and human-hair extensions in a variety of lengths and colors.

Extensions can range from 8 to 23 inches or more and are available in a number of colors. Extensions also can be dyed to match your existing hair color.

Additional Tips

Don’t keep your hair too dry, stop using harsh chemicals and dyes and keep your hair trimmed to get rid of split ends.

Cut back on the use of harmful products and tools, such as hair dryers, curling irons, straighteners and hot rollers, or use a heat-protection product.

Avoid chlorine and salt water and unnecessary stresses on the hair, including tiny braids or coils.

A Healthy Lifestyle Leads to Having Healthy Locks

The next time you visit your hairstylist, you may find yourself on camera, or rather, your scalp may be centre screen. Hair professionals have gone high-tech in search of comprehensive diagnostics when it comes to hair health, which begins with the scalp, and extends to lifestyle, diet, and stress management.

Early assessment combined with small lifestyle changes goes a long way to prevent hair loss and scalp issues, which are more common than people think.

Most people never consider their scalp, and most people don’t care, though the scalp influences the hair condition and everyone wants great hair. An unhealthy scalp is one way that nature tells us we have an unbalanced lifestyle.

A daily regime for scalp care is the first step to healthy hair.

Men tend to have excessively oily hair, whereas women often suffer conditions involving a dry scalp. Asians in general are less likely to suffer from hair loss than Caucasians, who often have extremely dry hair.

Ways to Improve Scalp Health

There are simple ways to improve the health of the scalp, many of which can be achieved outside of a salon.

Maintaining a diet rich in proteins and folic acids is vital. Legumes are one of the best sources of nutrients for hair. Others include soy, fatty fish and leafy vegetables.

While changing eating habits can have a positive effect on the hair, dieting does not.

Nutrition is always great, but drastic dieting is a direct route to hair loss. In addition, excessive alcohol, smoking, sun exposure and heavy use of chemical products contribute to scalp issues. Wearing a hat every day or putting the hair up constantly is also detrimental. When it comes to hair, gentle is always best.

It isn’t necessary to invest a fortune into hair products, but there is a right and wrong way to wash and brush hair.

Your stylist can help you select a suitable shampoo. Hair should be washed as needed, and everyone’s different. Water temperature should be slightly warm, but never hot, and it’s best to let the shampoo sit on the hair for three to four minutes before rinsing thoroughly.

Letting the hair drip dry at night may lead to bacterial build-up.

Some people shower at night, towel-dry and go straight to bed, which is a bad idea. The best way to dry the hair is with a towel, followed by a drier that uses mostly cool air.

And not all hairbrushes are created equal, though technique is more important than an expensive hairbrush.

Choose a brush with wide spread, rounded teeth, and gently brush, massaging the scalp. Avoid brushing wet hair; this leads to breakage and puts stress on the scalp.

Salon scalp care generally involves camera diagnosis, a ‘scaling’ or scrubbing process, ampoule treatment, and scalp massages to improve blood circulation and unclog pores.

The most important thing is to remember that the body is a connected system. A healthy lifestyle leads to radiant hair.

Laser Therapy for Androgenic Alopecia

Androgenic alopecia is known to be one of the most common forms of hair loss in men of all ages. If you are suffering from this type of hair loss, you are not the only one who is noticing bald patches on your scalp. Of all the cases of male baldness, about 95% are attributed to androgenic alopecia.

Usually, ageing is associated with baldness, but occurrence of this pattern of hair loss in men younger in age has raised the concerns. An in-depth study of the root cause of male pattern baldness can help in its effective treatment. A range of hair loss products available in this category help in hair regrowth as well as improve texture of the hair. Let’s take a brief look on male pattern baldness and its treatment.

Male Pattern Baldness: An Inside Story

Based on genetic background, the occurrence of androgenic alopecia can vary from one population to another. The environmental factors can contribute this type of hair loss. Men suffering from this condition experience hair thinning at the temple and the crown. This is followed by a receding hairline on the lateral sides of the forehead and bald patches on the vertex. In order to get a better understanding of this hair condition, it is essential to get an idea about the normal hair growth cycle.

The three phases in the normal hair growth cycle include the growth phase, the resting phase, and the shedding phase. Firstly, in the growing phase, hair growth takes place for an average of three to four years. At an average, about 90% of follicles engage in this phase to grow hair. Secondly, in the resting phase, no hair growth takes place and its length remains the same. The average duration of this phase is about two to four months. Only about 5% of follicles engage in the resting phase. Lastly, the shedding phase is the shortest of all phases in which hairs shed in order to initiate new hair growth.

A lot of natural hair loss treatments tend to enhance the function of hair follicles to help in regrowth and quality of hair. But the problem starts when hair follicles present in the scalp area develop sensitivity to a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Usually, an enzyme 5-alpha reductase present in the scalp area converts testosterone (male sex hormone) into dihydrotestosterone. This over-sensitivity to DHT tends to shrink the follicles in their sizes. In this way, it directly affects their ability to sustain and even regrow new hair. To help these follicles regain their ability to grow new hair, it is necessary to inhibit the production of DHT.

Laser Treatment for Androgenic Alopecia

Laser therapy has been proven to be a boon for medical science. It helps in the treatment of a lot of health conditions. With the advent of laser comb devices, an effective treatment of hair condition such as androgenic alopecia is very much possible. This device emits low lever laser beams into the scalp area to help revitalise the hair follicles. In addition to this, a laser comb can also help in the growth of new hair with improved texture quality.

Hair Loss Due to Divorce and Death

A study finds that women lose hair when they lose their spouses

As may have been written before, many women have issues with their hair, especially at midlife. We may blame hormones or ageing. But in some cases, the problem could be marriage — or the loss of it. That is the conclusion of a study by a plastic surgeon.

In the study, nearly 200 male and female identical twins were recruited, and they were asked to fill out a questionnaire detailing their lives and health habits. Then the study team took pictures of their scalps to judge who had the most hair.

A big difference was found between men and women who had lost hair. For men, genetics was the most important factor. But a few other things helped men maintain hair: not smoking, wearing a hat when under the sun, exercising and avoiding heavy drinking.

These behaviours helped women keep hair as well, but even more important was the state of their marriages. Women in stables marriages were more likely to have a full head of hair than their twins who were widowed or divorced. Other factors that were associated with losing hair included having many children and higher blood pressure.

These results have not been reported in a peer-reviewed journal — which means that they haven’t been verified by an objective outside expert. But the results make sense. We all know that stress can have physiological effects such as hair loss, and smoking and heavy drinking damage the skin.

What’s interesting is the difference of the risk factors between men and women. That’s another example of why research needs to be more gender specific. We are just not the same and researchers need to consider gender differences when they are looking at how genes and environment interact.