Showing posts with label hair loss prevention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hair loss prevention. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 April 2009

What is Hair Loss

Hair loss
Hair growth in humans is always unstable which means while some of the hair grows that time remaining hairs remains in resting stage. For a person who is not losing his hairs, about 90% of the hairs on his head are in a 2-7 years growing phase. The remaining 10% are in a phase of experiencing a 2-4 month resting phase. As one hair sheds, a new one replaces it. This is a process which repeats itself over and over again for many years in most of the people.
Problem of hair loss occurs when this continues process becomes skewed. Instead of the increment in re-growth rate of hairs faster than the shed rate, it decreases, thus, in result to this shedding exceeds the rate of re-growth.
DHT (Dihydrotestosterone) is a kind of hormone. Presence of this hormone is directly linked with hair loss. DHT hormone is formed when testosterone and 5-alpha-reductase merge. This excess of DHT leads to follicles that grow back shorter and thinner. After some time, this DHT imbalance leads to baldness.
Reason behind DHT imbalance is believed to be caused by genetics or an underlying medical condition.
Some of the reasons behind hair loss are:
1. Improper Nutrition supply in body
2. Different Medications
3. Hair damaging products
4. Heavy medical treatments
5. Scalp Disease or Infection
6. Disease
Most of these can be treatable with a variety of products that are available at various shops according to prescription. It is advised to consult the doctor to help diagnose the problem.

Saturday, 16 February 2008

What Women Should Do About Hair loss?

Whether women really want to believe it or not, premature balding is a real problem. Many women choose to believe that men are the only ones to suffer from hair growth problems. However, many women today suffer from some sort of hair thinning, the only real difference might be how much hair they lose. While we may not want to face it, it is time to realize that we as women can also experience hair loss.

Female hair loss is definitely a problem. What's so bad about it is that most people can't understand how women could lose their hair. They just think that it's a male problem and they don't understand why a woman would lose their hair. They usually think that it's the woman's fault. That's usually not the case at all. Women suffer from hair growth problems just like men.

What Causes Hair Loss In Women
The real fact of the matter is that when it comes to those who suffer from premature baldness, at least 40% of those people are women. The cause however can vary from one woman to the next. The biggest cause of hair thinning in women is known as andogenetic alopecia. This is where the hair tends to thin across the entire scalp. This occurs when a women has more of the male hormone, androgens that the typical woman should. This could be the result of an underlying medical condition or prescription such as birth control, menopause, pregnancy, or ovarian cysts.

Another type of hair loss is telogen effluvium. This is generally the result of a traumatic experience. For example, a particularly hard birthing experience, extensive stress, major surgery, serious infection, or serious malnutrition can trigger this type of hair growth problems. There are many different causes of hair loss in women; the key is to understanding them and knowing what you can do about them.

What Are Some Common Myths Regarding Women and Hair Loss?

The first myth is that hair thinning only comes from the father. This is not true, while your father may have suffered from hair loss, both parents factor into this process with their genes. Another myth that many women believe is that abnormal bleeding during menstruation occurs from hair loss. This again is untrue, your menstrual cycle does not become affected by hair growth problems

The Facts

The hardcore facts about women and hair loss is something you should be looking into.

Fact #1 Women ages twelve to forty typically start to experience hair growth problems.
Fact #2 The only hair thinning in which genetics is a factor is androgenetic aglopecia.
Fact #3 Minoxidil is the only FDA approved drug to treat premature balding in women.

Secrets to Preventing Hair Loss

Being bald is not something people welcome. Unfortunately, the hair loss condition is very much a reality for most people today. The good thing about it, though, is that anyone can do something in preventing hair loss.

Knowing Your Hair Loss

Hair loss usually stem from the same causes. The most common type of hair loss is actually caused by genes and hormones. This is not the only type of hair loss though. These days, you can also lose your worries over stress, nutrient deficiency and tight hairstyles. The first step to preventing hair loss is to know exactly why your hair is falling. Once you know the cause, you can find the right treatment.

Diet and Exercise

If your
hair loss and baldness condition is hereditary or genetic, dieting and exercising may not do much. They can however, help in preventing hair loss due to nutrient deficiency. It is a known fact that the kinds of popular food available these days are loaded with fats and carry few nutrients. It is also a fact that having less of some nutrients like iron, magnesium, zinc and B complex vitamins can cause hair fall. The best solution to this is to eat a nutritious diet. Exercising regularly will also improve your blood circulation which is crucial for the efficient distribution of nutrients to your hair.

Relaxation

A type of
hair loss in which a person suddenly suffers profuse shedding is called Telogen effluvium. It is believed that one possible cause of this is stress. Preventing hair loss of this type may mean that you have to learn how to relax. Of course, what is relaxing for some may not be so for others. Generally though, basic relaxation techniques are also methods for preventing hair loss. You can learn basic breathing techniques or progressive muscle relaxation. Others may want to move on to higher meditation or yoga. Sometimes, a simple break from work or listening to soothing music may already be relaxing enough.

Letting Your Hair Rest

You might also lose some of your hair if you are too fond of tight hair styles like braids, pony tails and corn rolls. These hair styles can literally pull your hair strands out and may even cause scarring. Preventing
hair loss of this kind is easy. You simply have to alternate your hair styles or avoid tight styles altogether.

Styling and coloring may not really cause
hair loss. It is still better though not to overdo hair treatments. Using too many chemicals on your hair could cause dryness and damage. Preventing hair loss and damage simply means letting your hair rest.

Supplements

One other key to preventing
hair loss is to take nutrient supplementation for hair loss. Good products can help provide you with whatever nutrient your body is missing. Some supplements also contain natural DHT blockers for individuals who have hair loss due to the action of DHT.

Preventing
hair loss is not so difficult. You simply have to learn to be gentle to your hair and yourself. A clean, natural, stress free lifestyle is the right way to decrease hair loss.

Hair Loss Prevention - Five Main Methods

Hair loss can be of great concern to both men and women at some time in their lives. This concern mainly centers on fears of looking prematurely old, unattractive to the opposite sex, lack of self-esteem and, without any real justification, of being thought of as lacking virility and of even being regarded as impotent.

Here, we shall briefly outline three types of hair loss conditions of the Alopecia category. Then we shall outline five methods that are commonly used to address these conditions.

Alopecia Areata has clearly apparent bald patches, often round or oval in shape. Alopecia Areata can appear on the head, beard, and other hairy parts of the body. Even if the spots disappear within a year of treatment, it's common for Alopecia Areata to reoccur again. Alopecia Totalis means total baldness, all the hair on the scalp has disappeared. Alopecia Universalis is the condition where there is a complete loss of hair from all sections of the body. It sometimes occurs as an extension of generalized Alopecia Areata. The whole head and body of an individual becomes bald. Hair disappears from all regions, i.e., pubic, armpits, eyelashes, eyebrows, chest, legs, beard, and other areas.

Here are five methods to treat hair loss, and these exclude hair transplanting which is outside the scope of this article.

1 Laser or low level light therapy has been shown to be beneficial to hair in several studies. Both clinical treatment and hand held laser therapy are available. Also, larger laser models can be bought for use in salons and hair replacement studios.

2 Di-hydro testosterone (DHT) is the major cause of hair loss for both men and women. DHT inhibitor products can either interfere with the conversion of testosterone to DHT or help to block DHT from binding to the hair follicle.

3 In relation to this, hair vitamin products help to aid in growth of hair; either by inhibiting DHT and/or providing the vitamins and minerals that optimizes good quality hair growth.

4 There are only two FDA-approved treatments for hair loss and one of these, Minoxidil, is the only anti-baldness drug approved for women. Originally introduced as a medicine to treat high blood pressure, it was noticed that users began to grow extra hair.

5 Hair and scalp cleansing products can be optimized to give hair and the scalp the nutrients that are needed without adding harmful chemicals like sodium laureth sulfate, cocamide diethanolamine, or alcohols that are present in most shampoos. These harmful chemicals cause these shampoo to strip hair of the essential oils that hair needs. Proper hair and scalp hygiene and nutrition is the first step to healthier, thicker and fuller hair.

In conclusion, early steps can be taken to address hair loss, however it is strongly recommended that plenty of research is done first to ascertain the real cause of the condition, that may be unique to and thus different from individual to individual, before deciding what action to take.