Reversing Your Hair Loss - A Practical Scientific Guide

Robert J. Hall

• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• eBook ISBN: 9781456620165
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

It is a sad fact that we will all lose our hair at some stage, even if only through old age. The real problem is when it happens to us before then. Very few people have any clear idea why premature thinning and loss occurs, but collectively we spend an extraordinary amount to try and reverse it. The hair restoration industry is worth more than ten billion US dollars per year. Yet, the alarming truth is that there is little to no regulation of the industry and most of the 'cures' simply do not work. If you are concerned about your hair loss (and it does not matter whether you are young or old, male or female, completely bald or just thinning) then this book will almost certainly help you.The first few chapters deal with hair itself; what it is and how it grows. Armed with the facts you can immediately start sorting truth from fiction regarding products and services.The second section deals with actual hair-loss. From what we read and what we are told, we are generally led to believe that hair-loss is a single, time-driven, linear process that is as inevitable as it is simple. The truth is, though, that it most certainly none of these. Again, some parts may surprise you, whilst others may even shock you. The last part deals with restoring your hair. Outlined in these chapters are therapies and supplements that can replace the current drug treatments on offer. Other therapies are highlighted that, if added to your existing routine, could make significant improvements to your overall strategy. Lastly, some of the therapies suggested have success rates touching over ninety percent just by themselves.The very last chapter of the book highlights companies offering treatments that will be available in the very near future. These treatments promise complete regeneration of your hair, however long you may have been bald.

Section Three

Chapter Fourteen

Regrowth

So far, you have learnt what your hair is and what makes it socially important. If you have been uneasily aware of the fact that you are losing your hair, you might also have been subconsciously berating yourself over your unseemly vanity. This would probably be true whether you are male or female. Hopefully, this inner psychological tension has been resolved somewhat. You should now be aware of why it has very little to do with just personal vanity, but everything to do with social-signalling at a fundamental level.

This is the third section of the book and the content here concerns itself with what you yourself can do about your hair-loss. Going bald might not have been your choice, but staying bald is. Apart from anything else, it includes information on a variety of supplements and therapies that may help, and hopefully reverse the situation.

Whatever course of action you decide to undertake, however, the very first thing to look at is your diet. The point here is that if your nutrition is anything less than optimal then every other effort you make will probably be wasted to a greater or less degree. The nutritional aspect of hair-loss is so important, so utterly basic in fact, that it has been given a separate chapter by itself rather than being scattered amongst all the other approaches outlined in this book.

The same goes for stress. No type or level of therapy can make up for a lack of essential nutrients (the key word, of course, being ‘essential’). Likewise, a healthy diet cannot fully make up for chronically-elevated cortisol levels. So, attend to your diet and stress levels first. Make sure you eat enough protein and take a good quality vitamin pill every day. It is important that, for women, this vitamin pill contains iron. For men, their need of this mineral is slightly less, but they have a greater need for zinc. It would help if the formulation also contained a balanced amount of copper. (This point is discussed in the next chapter).

If you think stress is a problem, then a separate high-strength magnesium supplement can help in resolving it. Take one fish oil capsule a day, too. For the cost involved, you might want to take an extra vitamin B3. Take this particular supplement twice a week, no more. By choosing a supplement supplier carefully, the cost of all these supplements could be obtained for pennies a day.

After this, your next course of action will depend upon your personal preferences. Rather than list these options in any particular order that may be construed as being an order of effectiveness, the options have been examined in such a way as to simply flow with the narrative.

Anything with a large degree of effectiveness has had this noted within each option's section, as have any problematic side effects.

Chapter Fifteen

Diet

The hair acts as a mirror when it comes to a person’s nutritional status. This is no secret. A long-term poor diet will soon become readily visible in the condition of the hair. A sporadic diet will also be reflected, as will one deficient in even just one particular mineral or amino acid. The diet will also show in the state of one’s skin and nails and all three; hair, skin and nails, have been used for centuries to determine the cause of diverse health problems. The reason for this is that the hair (as well as the skin and nails) are very active, metabolically speaking, and will show up deficiencies much more quickly than other tissues and organs. The fact that all three are also highly visible simply adds to that fact.

A very general cause of poor hair, especially amongst teenage females, is simple malnourishment. It may be hard to believe, but this occurs regularly even in advanced Western nations. The underlying cause is generally always the same; a poorly thought-out diet. These diets are generally one of three sorts.

The first is one largely composed of factory-processed ‘junk foods’. Such diets will tend to be very high in sugars and fats, adequate in minerals, generally poor in vitamins and extremely poor with regard to essential fatty acids.

The second sort of diet is one that is mistakenly regarded as being generally healthy. Ironically it is a diet that very often gets chosen precisely to avoid the vices of the first. This is a vegetarian, or worse, a vegan diet. Worse still is any sort of fruitarian diet. The problem with these diets is that, even if they are rich in oils and adequate in most vitamins, chronic deficiencies can and do occur with monotonous regularity with regard to specific vitamins, minerals and particular amino acids.

The third type of diet is the most seriously flawed and has far-reaching health implications going well beyond any issue with poor hair. This last type is simply one that is calorie-deficient. Strictly speaking this is not malnourishment like the other two diets, but rather just simple undernourishment. Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, as well as prolonged ‘crash-dieting’, will take an immense toll on hair, skin and nails as well as all the other organs of the body within a very short period of time.

Each of these diets’ shortcomings will be examined individually. Suffice to say, for the moment, that the good news is once addressed these deficiency-driven losses generally reverse themselves with little or no further problems. Likewise, any diffuse hair-loss caused by stress, shock or infection will also generally resolve itself within a few months. The point of intervention with these types of loss is to simply speed up the recovery, nothing more.

Now, it is not just that a person’s nutritional intake has a direct impact upon the quality of the hair and scalp, but also the case that less than optimal systems within the body will show up in the hair too. Particular dietary components can be in low supply, not because of their absence in the foodstuffs, but because the co-factors required for their assimilation are missing. In this regard, the most usual cause of poor quality, thinning hair is the lack of certain key minerals.

For example, vegetarian diets are notoriously low in assimilable iron. An iron deficiency that continues for any length of time will almost certainly lead to thinning hair and its eventual loss. It is not the case that iron forms a particular or necessary component of the hair structure itself though. Rather, it is essential for haemoglobin production, amongst other things. This is the protein that the body uses to transport oxygen systemically around the body. A shortfall in oxygen supply due to an iron deficiency is called anaemia. This condition results in sub-clinical oxygen starvation in the less well-served areas of the body. The nails of the fingers, for instance, will eventually take on a clubbed or ‘curled-over’ appearance, whilst hair growth can slow down dramatically. In severe cases the hair will stop growing altogether and eventually just fall out.

Another mineral deficiency that will quickly affect hair growth is zinc. This mineral is involved in the manufacture of keratin, which, as previously noted, is the major component of hair, skin and nails.

In addition although it is generally recognised that zinc is essential for normal wound healing, not many people connect this with their hair-loss. However, the two conditions are parallel in many respects. It is a basic fact that zinc is also required for the formation of collagen, the protein that forms the connective tissue that ‘glues’ the body’s various structures together. This is why it is necessary for wound healing. It is collagen that stitches the skin back together again. In the same way this protein also anchors the hair bulb to the follicle and also forms part of the hair shaft itself. Limited collagen production means that hair will simply stop growing and start falling out.

Do not underestimate the importance of collagen. It is a key component in skin, cartilage, tendons, ligaments and bones and forms about one third of the body’s dry weight. Since hair is not necessary for life in the same way that muscles are, the body prioritises the supply and any shortfall will mean that your hair will probably suffer first.

Zinc is also necessary for cell division; and since hair is one of the faster growing tissues in the body, any deficiency will show up here more clearly and much more quickly than in other places. Lastly zinc levels in the body are known to be dependent upon vitamins A and D and any deficiency in either of these two vitamins will cause a corresponding zinc deficiency.

Beware, however, of taking too much zinc (via supplementation for instance) however. This warning is given because zinc and copper compete for uptake by the body. Copper, ironically, is also essential for hair growth and skin repair. Taking too much zinc means that it becomes entirely possible to obtain too little copper. The ratio between the two should be in the region of 7:1 and if you intend taking some sort of mineral or multi-vitamin and mineral supplement then it is always worth checking that this sort of balance has, in fact, been struck between the two.

Iodine is essential for the thyroid gland and the output of the thyroid hormones. These control your entire metabolism at a fundamental level. With the wrong levels of these hormones hair growth will automatically slow down, become very thin and dry and even possibly completely fall out. Even just a simple, sub-clinical iodine deficiency, one that is sufficient for life to continue but below a level which is optimal, will show up as thinning hair, amongst other things. This relationship is so well-established, in fact, that the mere presence of thinned-out hair (especially in a young woman) will immediately and almost automatically alert any examining doctor to a potential thyroid problem.

As already noted, any deficiency in vitamins A and D will interfere with hair growth. They are not the only vitamin deficiencies that will affect it, however. Vitamin C also plays an important role in the possession of a healthy head of hair. This vitamin is required for the proper uptake and utilisation of iron, amongst other things. As already explained, iron is a key component of the red blood cells, which deliver oxygen to the hair follicles. If either an iron or vitamin C shortage prevails, then this will lead to a slow-down in the growth of the hair, which will eventually lead to at least partial hair-loss.

Vitamin C is also intimately connected with the production of collagen. Scurvy, the medical condition brought about by a diet lacking in vitamin C, is characterised by old wounds reopening, blood leaking from capillaries and hair and teeth falling out. These symptoms are all caused by collagen ceasing to be made by the body.

Hair health and optimal hair growth is also greatly influenced by the B group vitamins, all of which are indispensable for healthy hair growth. One of the many signs of deficiency of one or all of these vitamins is hair-loss and/or brittle or dull hair. As an example, let us take biotin, vitamin B7. It is required by the body in very, very small amounts, so small that it is measured in micrograms, not milligrams, in fact. It is generally manufactured by the gut’s intestinal flora and, because of this, some countries (Australia, for instance) have declined to make any recommendations at all regarding recommended intake.

However, a specialised diet like that of a vegan’s, the use of antibiotics or the habitual consumption of raw egg whites, could easily lead to a deficiency. Such a deficiency will show itself through such symptoms as weak, flaking nails and progressive hair-loss, one which will eventually progress to the loss of eyebrows and eyelashes as well.

A lack of either vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) or vitamin B2 (riboflavin) will also affect hair growth. They may also be a cause of persistent dandruff.

A lack of vitamin E will allow auto-oxidation of the body’s lipids to occur. This does not just mean that your entire store of body fat is in danger of going rancid (which it is) but, worse, it also means that the cell walls of your whole body will also be affected. In essence, they rupture much more easily. One of the signs of vitamin E deficiency is anaemia precisely because the red blood cells become too damaged by oxidation to function properly. Furthermore the leaking haemoglobin will add further fuel to the fire since its iron content is also a potent free-radical (oxidation) promoter.

Any deficiency also means that the quality of the skin’s sebum secretion will be affected. On the scalp the partially rancid sebum will not protect the scalp against ultraviolet or oxidative damage. The upshot of this is that the body will secrete more in order to achieve the correct levels of protection. In other words, your scalp becomes greasy. This encourages overgrowth of surface micro-organisms which, in turn, lead to further irritation. Under the influence of the malassezia yeast the keratinised layer of the skin’s surface starts to fall away in visible clumps; dandruff again.

Another nutrient-deficiency that will influence the state of the hair is one that is probably the least recognised. Any lack of ess...

Table of contents

• eBook Cover
• Title Page
• Disclaimer
• Introduction
• Section One
• Section Two
• Section Three