HAIR LOSS SOLUTION

Tight braids can cause hair loss

August 30, 2007

Corn rows might look cool, but could leave those who braid their hair in dozens of tight plaits with permanent hair loss, doctors say.

The style is especially popular with people of African and West Indian origin. Celebrities such as David Beckham and Snoop Dogg have also sported it.

South African research published in the British Journal of Dermatology warns of a condition called traction alopecia, where too much pulling and pressure on hair causes it to fall out.

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Nearly 2,000 adults and children in South Africa were surveyed. One in seven schoolgirls and a third of women were suffering from traction alopecia.

And one in 10 men studied had a type of acne caused by razor-short haircuts. This could be explained by constant contact with the blades of the razors, the researchers said.

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Myths about dry vs oily hair

August 23, 2007

MANILA, Philippines—One of my major pet peeves is hearing people proclaim a shampoo too harsh (as in matapang) when it causes their hair to fall.

To say a shampoo is too harsh usually means it is too drying; so people who complain about dry hair go for mild baby shampoo or a moisturizing formula. This is a big mistake because there is a direct correlation between oily scalp and alarming hair loss or baldness.

Those who get bald most likely have inherited a parent’s greasy scalp as well. The grease blocks the hair opening or pore on the scalp, cutting oxygen supply to the hair follicle so it eventually suffocates and falls off.

Now, hair has a life span of about four years per strand; that’s why it is normal to lose about 75 to a hundred in a day as new strands push the old one out. If, however, you lose hair strands before their four years are up, you have to wait for a next cycle for new ones to grow; hence a bald spot emerges. Grease that blocks the hair pore may just doom all chances of hair ever growing back, leaving you bald for life.

All major shampoo launches are for color-treated hair. Or they promise to make your wavy hair stick straight by loading it down with tons of moisturizing properties. Guess what? Those of you who have oily scalps will go bald. Those with thick hair and normal to dry scalps are of course best suited for the amazing new products.

All these moisturizing shampoos being sent to my house is making me lose more hair. I tell suppliers I have oily scalp and to send me products to deal with that; but they insist my hair is dry because I have it highlighted. Nobody makes hair shampoos for oily hair over here. The few ones I have tried which are reasonably priced have been pulled out of the market due to lack of demand because all these ads tell us we have normal to dry hair, not paying attention to our scalp.

Fact: You should treat scalp, not hair, because that is literally the root of your hair problems. For dry ends, you should use a rich conditioner and limit it to that area, keeping it as far away from the scalp as possible so as not to suffocate the pores.

Fact: If you are stressed, your skin produces more oil. Ditto with the scalp. That is why we lose hair when we are anxious. Due to our humid weather and stressful daily situations, more Filipinos have oily scalps than they think. It’s true that the shampoo cannot remove stress, but it will control oil that stress produces, at least preventing excess hair loss which is one less thing to stress about.

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Fact: Hair-fall shampoos will only help if your problem is hair breakage, not hair loss. Inspect your strands, if there is no white bulb on the end, then that’s hair breakage; if there are white bulbs, then that is hair loss. Hair-fall shampoos will not help hair loss.

Products to use

Shampoo—You need not blow big bucks for this. I found Suave Men Shampoo Deep Cleaning at Rustan’s Fresh grocery or Shopwise; it’s only P121 for a huge 429-ml bottle. It works just as well, if not better, than expensive salon or specialty-shop shampoos for oily hair.

Also keep your eyes out for White Rain Clarifying or St. Ives Clarifying Formula usually found at groceries or drugstores. Those who really want branded shampoos, go for The Body Shop’s Nettle Shampoo (P475) or Kérastase Bain Prevention (P975).

Conditioners—Use whatever suits your hair strands, but keep it away from scalp. Pantene’s leave-on conditioner is great; so is Sunsilk’s.

If you already have a conditioner you are happy with, there is no need to buy new brands.

Treatment—This is the part that will cost you. Revlon Professional Inter Actives Line has anti-hair-loss patches that you stick on your back for 24-hour intervals; it’s a wonderful product. I got mine at Razzle Dazzle Salon, and one thing I noticed is that it cleared up my acne-prone areas such as face, back, and shoulders and, of course, it reduced my hair loss/fall by 50 percent. My face also became less oily to my delight as pictures showed with a lot less retouch with face powder. A pack of 30 costs about P3,800, and, according to an international hair expert, one needs a 60-day supply so you would need two boxes.

If your problem is merely oily hair, there are anti-sebum treatment vials to be used every other day. The method: Apply to scalp evenly but do not massage in as this will stimulate oil production. (There goes another myth about having hot oils and scalp massages when your hair is falling.)

Again, this only works if the problem is breakage and not hair loss. Breakage often occurs with damaged hair strands or very dry hair and scalp

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Hair oil only reduces dryness

August 18, 2007

Worldwide , August is celebrated as Hair Loss Awareness month. Here are some myths pertaining to hair and related problems.

Myth:

Don’t wash your scalp daily; it leads to more hair loss.

Fact:

This myth is probably one of the biggest factors which has increased hair problems. If you need to take a bath daily to keep your body clean, then why should the scalp not deserve the same level of hygiene? Not washing the scalp leads to scalp infections , especially if you have an oily scalp, which in fact worsens the condition and increases hair loss.

Myth:

Mild shampoos are better than strong ones as strong shampoos cause more hair loss and greying.

Fact:

Most shampoos have the same ingredients with minor variations. Even the most common brands of baby shampoos have about 10 per cent variation in their ingredients from the usual anti-dandruff brands. Don’t choose a shampoo on the basis of the company’s marketing skills, but pick them on the basis of your scalp type - like an oily scalp needs higher detergent-based shampoo and a dry scalp needs a moisturising shampoo. Read the ingredients of the shampoo on the back its bottle.

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Myth:

Oil your hair regularly; the more you oil, the better the hair growth.

Fact:

We never oil our eyebrows, moustache or beard but they still grow. Similarly, even scalp hair doesn’t need oil to grow. Hair growth depends on the nutrition derived through food. Oil is necessary only to reduce dryness and does absolutely nothing else for your hair or scalp.

Myth:

Men get bald and women experience hair thinning .

Fact:

Women can also lose hair just like men. They can inherit the male baldness gene from the parents and can go bald. In fact, women tend to develop hormonal disorders more often, many of which also contribute to male baldness. It seems that the price of taking up more and more men roles is having male baldness as well.

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Mike Judge’s Idiocracy Not So Idiotic

August 15, 2007

If you haven’t seen it already, go rent Idiocracy. Mike Judge’s follow-up to the cult fave Office Space takes a look at what the world will be like in 500 years. While the flick takes aim at everything from corporate branding to the end of survival of the fittest, Judge also pokes fun at the pharmaceutical industry and its obsession with finding magic pills for hair loss and erectile dysfunction.

Catching up on the stack of mags by my bed I happened upon a Business Week article from July 2nd that discusses this very obsession. “Lifestyle Drug Binge” takes a look at the increasing number of weight loss, hair gain, sleep aides, and boner drugs coming to market and just how popular they are despite the laundry lists of side effects, like Ambien’s ability to get you to drive your car while completely passed out.

While the article’s main point is that despite side effects, these lifestyle drugs are still selling like hot cakes, most likely because doctor’s just keep prescribing them without worrying about their patient’s safety, another small blip in the two-page article really caught my attention.

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Now, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) is preparing to enter the market for sexual dysfunction. For years it has been testing a drug called Dapoxetine, derived from common antidepressant medications, for premature ejaculation. The FDA declined to approve the drug in 2004, questioning whether the condition really required medical attention. To gain overseas approval, the company ran a number of additional trials, and the results have been so encouraging that J&J may approach the FDA a second time.

Now, I don’t want to be a whiney feminist (is that really a bad thing?), but why does the FDA not think that premature ejaculation is a condition that requires medical attention? If I remember correctly erecticle dysfunction required so much medical attention that presidential candidate Bob Dole not only helped test it, he later shilled for the little blue pill.

Apologies for looking at this from a hetero point of view, but isn’t that the only way our government body looks at things? Is PE not a big deal because it only really affects woman, while ED affects BOTH women AND med? I don’t want to make lightt of how PE must be psychologically damaging for a man, but maybe the FDA doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal because, hey at least the guy got his rocks off. Just a lot sooner than his mate would have wanted

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Bald Girls Do Lunch: Group seeks to educate public on ailment that leaves millions hairless

August 7, 2007

Late for her train, Thea Chassin scurried through Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
That’s when she was approached by a man soliciting commuters for prepaid salon services.
In a sassy mood that day, Chassin waited patiently as the salesman made his pitch. Then she nonchalantly peeled off her wig, revealing her white, bald head.
“I said, ‘I don’t think I’ll be needing the hair consultation part of it, do you?’ His mouth hung open, his jaw dropped. He was speechless,” she said. “And then I just plopped my wig back on and continued on my way to catch my train.”
Chassin, who isn’t wearing a wig now, laughs as she tells this story sitting at a table Sunday in the Market Street Grill in downtown Salt Lake City. She is bald. And she hopes the waiter, the bartender and the patrons sitting at the other tables notice.
Founder of Bald Girls Do Lunch, a nonprofit organization aimed at reaching out to women with alopecia areata, Chassin said it is her mission to educate people about the autoimmune disease - and get them used to seeing and appreciating bald women.
Baldness, she said, is largely considered acceptable for men, but not women.
“I’m passionate about bringing awareness to this condition so I can do my part to help break down that taboo,” she said.
A disease in which the body’s immune
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system mistakenly attacks a person’s hair follicles, alopecia areata causes hair to fall out in small, round patches. The disease affects men and women, as well as children.
In some cases, according to the National Institutes of Health, it can progress to cause a total loss of hair on the head (alopecia areata totalis) or complete loss of hair on the head, face and body (alopecia areata universalis). Chassin - who wouldn’t reveal her age - has the latter.
While alopecia areata isn’t contagious or life-threatening, Chassin said, it is life-altering.
“Your self-esteem drops enormously when you lose your looks, as our society is very much keyed in to feminine appearance, sexuality and all things tied in with that,” she said. “So, naturally, even if you’re married, women think, ‘Is my husband going to still find me attractive?’ If someone is young and out on the dating scene [they wonder] ‘Am I ever going to find a mate?’ ”

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Chassin said she had dark hair with blond and red highlights. She considered it her best physical asset.
“I had gorgeous hair. I loved my hair,” she said.
Over eight years, however, it gradually fell out. She wore hats, headbands, scarves - anything to conceal the thinning. Determined to not let her condition take control of her life, Chassin decided to wear wigs. And then, sometimes, to not wear any hat or wig at all.
Her bald head catches the glances of curious passersby and elicits sympathy from strangers who mistake her for a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy. Just the other day, she said, she frightened away a group of raucous 10-year-old boys at her hotel.
Chassin takes it in stride.
“Education and understanding are key,” she said. “They’re key for me because I want more of society to understand this is a condition a lot of women have.”
Women like Ashley Dumouchel, who brushed her long, thick red hair until she couldn’t feel the bristles in her brush anymore. That’s when she looked down and noticed it was full of hair. Three weeks later, the 20-year-old Salt Lake City Community College student was bald.
“I only cried once, actually,” she said. “I think it was easier that it fell out in three weeks” rather than gradually falling out over time.
Jennifer Izzat, 33, a Davis County special education administrator, said she, too, suddenly lost all of her hair in April. Ultimately, it was the love and reassurance of her 17-year-old brother, who also has the disease, that helped Izzat cope.
“At first I thought I will always wear a wig. I couldn’t imagine myself going without. But I do all of the time now,” she said. “I’m happy - happier now with the way I look than I have been for years.”
Chassin, who said she went three years before meeting another woman with alopecia areata, is hopeful she will be able to find other women around the country who have the disease, get them together at luncheons such as the one at the Market Street Grill and help them find camaraderie and support.
“They feel so much better when they talk to other women,” she said, “because it’s not something like high blood pressure or diabetes, where it’s common, a lot of people have it and a lot of people talk about it.”
Chassin, who founded Bald Girls Do Lunch two years ago, said she is now beginning to receive requests from as far away as Sydney, Australia, to host luncheons.
“Women can feel very alone with this and nobody need feel alone. Nobody,” she said. “We’re out there, we’re out there to reach other[s] and help each other.

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Drugs could prevent hearing loss

August 2, 2007

Ted Ax knows he should wear earplugs when he leans into the noisy engine compartment of an MG sports car. He’s been working among clanging metal and whirring power tools in garages for the past 15 years and has already developed tinnitus, a ringing in the ears that is one of the most common symptoms of hearing loss caused by excessive noise.

But between the need to pinpoint troubled engine sounds and listen for the phone — and with his fingers forever covered in grease — the Denver man’s earplugs go unused.

“I have yet to come up with a real-world scenario where I can have hearing protection and do my job,” says the 42-year-old foreign-car mechanic.

Ax might soon have a more amenable option — a pill he could take before work that would help protect his ears from noise.

Ax is one of an estimated 30 million Americans who are exposed to hazardous levels of noise daily at work or at leisure, be it from the buzz of leaf-blowers and landscape equipment, the jangling of construction tools, the cacophony of a concert or the roar of a motorcycle engine. Until now, hearing protection for such people has consisted of using barrier devices such as earplugs or earmuffs and limiting the time a worker spends exposed to loud noises.

Recently, however, several groups have started testing various chemicals for their safety and effectiveness at preventing noise-induced hearing loss in people. If the tests go well and the drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, they would be the first of their kind.

Noise damages hearing by stressing out the inner-ear cells that convert sound waves into electrical signals that travel to the brain. These hair cells vibrate in response to sound and can be both physically and chemically destroyed by noise.

Most commonly, noise causes levels of toxic chemicals called free radicals inside the hair cell to rise beyond manageable levels, and the cell dies. Once a hair cell dies, the body cannot replace it.

Damage can occur from repeated exposure to noise at or above 85 decibels — the loudness of a busy city street or a vacuum cleaner — or from a short burst of a very intense noise such as gunfire.

If too many hair cells die, the inner ear can no longer detect sounds from certain frequencies — particularly, high-pitched sounds. Eventually, that hearing loss obscures conversation, dropping out sounds such as “ess” and “ch.”

“I compare it sometimes to playing Wheel of Fortune, when the vowels are up and you have to guess the word without the consonant sounds,” says Kathleen Campbell, director of audiology research at Southern Illinois University in Springfield.

So too can come an aggravating tinnitus, in which a person experiences a ringing, hissing or roaring in the ears, even when no external sound is present.

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About 10 million Americans suffer from noise-induced hearing loss, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The problem is particularly rampant in the military: In 2006, the Department of Veteran Affairs paid $1 billion in compensation to veterans for service-related hearing disabilities, the vast majority of which are noise-related.

“The military is really loud, for long periods of time,” says Cmdr. Ben Balough, chairman of otolaryngology at the Navy Medical Center in San Diego. Explosions and jet engine noise are so jarring that even wearing hearing protection is not always enough.

So it’s not surprising that three of the potentially protective chemicals — D-methionine, ebselen and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) — will be tested on military personnel first. All three give a boost to a natural antioxidant, glutathione, that’s found in hair cells and battles chemical stress. All three can be taken orally as pills or dissolved in water. And each has been shown to be relatively safe in preliminary human studies.

The developers of these drugs say a drug for noise-induced hearing loss will likely be approved in the next five to 10 years.

Whether these drugs will be picked up by other occupations or for recreational noise exposures such as hunting and concerts remains up in the air.

“Clearly there’s a tremendous need in the military, but I really doubt people are going to be swigging this stuff before going to a nightclub,” says William Martin, a hearing scientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. Drugs, he says, usually come with expensive price tags and possible side effects.

But Jonathan Kil, chief executive of Seattle-based Sound Pharmaceuticals, which is developing ebselen, predicts that people would take a pill before mowing the lawn or heading out for a night on the town if it were available as a safe and effective way to save their hearing.

Ax, the Colorado mechanic, says he would have taken a drug if it could have safely prevented his hearing loss and the ringing sensation he now lives with daily.

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Will The Rogaine Time Clock Work For You?

July 26, 2007

Rogaine is an option for treatment for hair loss in men and women. It is one of the most popular hair loss products on the market today, one of only two that have been legally approved by the FDA to treat the symptoms of hair loss. The Rogaine time clock is different than the time clock of other hair loss treatment products.

The product should be used twice daily for at least four months to be truly effective. In some cases, Rogaine requires continual use to keep up the progress the treatment has made. Many people do not mind, and will work on whatever time clock Rogaine has established in order to get their hair back to normal, or as normal as possible. On the other hand, Rogaine does have side effects on some people, such as rashes, acne, or inflammation, which can make continual, long-term use of Rogaine a bad idea for some people.

Before you select Rogaine for your hair loss treatment needs, consider whether or not the Rogaine time clock is suitable for you and your needs. If you are looking for a quick, permanent solution to your thinning hair, Rogaine may not be right for you. There are other options; many of them have not proven to be as effective but different things work for different people and hair loss treatments are no exception.

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If your hair is just starting to thin, you may be able to intercept the problem before it becomes that serious. There are several lines of hair loss prevention cream out there that are designed to treat hair loss before it becomes a problem. If the Rogaine time clock doesn’t suit you, do not despair. There are other options!

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Celebrity Health News

July 25, 2007

Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank will soon be seen in action spearheading a charity campaign that aims at supporting women who have lost their hair as a result of cancer treatment.

The Pantene Beautiful Lengths drive encourages people to grow their locks, get it cut, and donate it for making wigs for women who have lost their hair during cancer treatment.

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Swank, who joins the campaign from 2008, will donate her own hair too.

“I have lost multiple family members to cancer and witnessed their struggle first hand,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying.

“I’ve never heard of anything quite like Pantene Beautiful Lengths, and I’m proud to be asked to promote the goals of such a unique and heartfelt program,” she added.

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Hilary Swank is Face of Pantene Cancer Campaign

July 21, 2007

Hilary Swank will be the face of a new charity campaign by hair experts Pantene.

Beautiful Lengths aims to support and encourage women who have lost their hair during cancer treatment.

A recent study revealed that 58 percent of women consider hair loss to be the most dreaded side effect they face when undergoing chemotherapy.

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Eight percent of these women are at risk of avoiding potentially life-saving treatment.

Pantene has partnered with the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) to launch Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a campaign that encourages people to grow, cut and donate their hair to create real-hair wigs for women who’ve lost their hair due to cancer.

In addition to providing real-hair wigs for free to women in need, Pantene has also made a $1 million donation to the EIF’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund.

Hilary will front the campaign from next year.

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Some facts about hair loss

July 17, 2007

Loss of hair does worry people. Hair loss may be a normal temporary response to something you have experienced, such as an operation or a fever, in which case there is nothing to worry about. The loss may also be an inherited trait, so you must do the best you can to compensate for the loss. Or, it may be warning you that there is a medical or nutritional imbalance. Therefore, the sooner you seek help, the better

Hair is mostly composed of proteins. It grows about 1 centimetre per month, which, compared to other tissues of the body, is very fast. However, it is slow if you are waiting for your hair to re-grow . Scalp hair has a life of about four years and grows within indentations in the skin known as hair follicles . There are about 1,20,000 follicles on the scalp. The production centre for the hair is the hair bulb, where cells are constantly dividing, and hence, pushing the cells above in an upward direction. Below the hair bulb is the papilla which serves as the communication link between the hair and the rest of the body. The body’s blood supply circulates through the papilla and provides the nourishment necessary to keep the hair growing. Blood is the means by which many things are transported through the body. Because the blood transports things to and from the hair papilla, the hair itself is influenced by various factors. Indeed, the hair is so sensitive - due to its high rate of growth - that hair loss may be the first sign that something is wrong with you internally.

Hair, then, can provide clues for the diagnosis of certain internal body problems. The manner in which hair is lost can also give important clues as to the cause of the loss. This would provide important information as to why the loss is occurring, how long it will last, and what should be done about it.

The hair cycle

While you have a full head of hair, each hair grows for about four years. This growing period (anagen) is followed by a short transitional phase, and then a resting period (telogen) of about two or three months, after which the hair is lost from the scalp and new hair takes its place within the same follicle. Of course, your hairs are not all synchronised to grow and fall together. If this were the case, you would temporarily lose all your hair at one time. Instead, hairs grow and fall in a random fashion so that your normal daily loss of hair goes unnoticed.

What is excessive hair loss?

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Excessive hair loss simply means losing more hair than you’re normally supposed to lose. For some people, the daily loss is about 50 hairs. Whereas, for others, the daily loss may be about 100. Usually, you lose a few more hairs when you shampoo - due to the agitation of the hairs by your fingers - and fewer hairs during the time following the shampoo. The hairs you lose during shampooing or combing etc are in the resting stage. In other words, they are ready to fall out. Therefore, whether you shampoo daily or once a week, your total weekly loss will be exactly the same. People with excessive hair loss should not cut down on their frequency of shampooing

Trichologists can accurately calculate your rate of loss of hair by examining microscopically several hairs that have been epilated from the scalp. A person with excessive hair loss must find out the reason for this loss.

Hair is a thermometer of health

Excessive hair loss from the entire scalp is termed diffuse hair loss or telogen effluvium. It results as a reaction to a disturbance within the body. The disturbance may have been a temporary one, to which the body quickly adjusts, or it may be a more serious one which the body has quickly coming to terms with. Whichever is the case, diffuse hair loss is an important sign that your body recently went out of balance and may still be out of balance .

The good news is that, with diffuse hair loss, the lost hair is always replaced and the excessive loss will either correct itself or will slow to normal once the underlying cause has been pinpointed and corrected.

The magic three months

With diffuse hair loss, the cause of hair loss can be noticed about two or three months before the actual hair loss. This is because an internal imbalance, such as a high fever or anemia , causes many of the growing hairs to pass prematurely to the resting ‘telogen’ phase. The hair remains in this phase for about two or three months and then falls out. Diffuse hair loss can be divided into two areas depending upon whether the problem will correct itself: temporary selfcorrecting diffuse hair loss is caused by such events as food poisoning, whereas permanent diffuse hair loss is associated with medical or nutritional imbalances which must be treated before the hair loss recovers. Temporary self correcting hair loss will begin two or three months after the event causing the hair loss and no treatment will stop the hair loss. It will start after two-three months and return to normal after six months. Permanent diffuse hair loss will not correct unless the causative factor is corrected. Remember, the hair is very sensitive to any body imbalance due to its fast rate of growth, so hair loss can follow the slightest body imbalance. Also, what causes diffuse hair loss in one person may not cause it in another person.

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