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You shouldn’t have to choose between losing weight and losing hair but if you’ve embraced intermittent fasting, that might be precisely the situation you’re in. That, at least, is the conclusion of a paper published this week in the journal Cell. And while the scientists researching this did plenty of work with mice to explore this phenomenon, a clinical trial shows that it also applies to humans. The researchers behind the paper discovered that, as they phrased it, “intermittent fasting regimens inhibit hair follicle regeneration by selectively inducing apoptosis in activated hair follicle stem cells…..Continue reading…
By: Tobias Carroll
Source: InsideHook
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Symptoms of hair loss include hair loss in patches usually in circular patterns, dandruff, skin lesions, and scarring. Alopecia areata (mild – medium level) usually shows in unusual hair loss areas, e.g., eyebrows, backside of the head or above the ears, areas the male pattern baldness usually does not affect. In male-pattern hair loss, loss and thinning begin at the temples and the crown and hair either thins out or falls out. Female-pattern hair loss occurs at the frontal and parietal.
People have between 100,000 and 150,000 hairs on their head. The number of strands normally lost in a day varies but on average is 100. In order to maintain a normal volume, hair must be replaced at the same rate at which it is lost. The first signs of hair thinning that people will often notice are more hairs than usual left in the hairbrush after brushing or in the basin after shampooing. Styling can also reveal areas of thinning, such as a wider parting or a thinning crown.
A substantially blemished face, back and limbs could point to cystic acne. The most severe form of the condition, cystic acne, arises from the same hormonal imbalances that cause hair loss and is associated with dihydrotestosterone production. The psychology of hair thinning is a complex issue. Hair is considered an essential part of overall identity: especially for women, for whom it often represents femininity and attractiveness.
Men typically associate a full head of hair with youth and vigor. People experiencing hair thinning often find themselves in a situation where their physical appearance is at odds with their own self-image and commonly worry that they appear older than they are or less attractive to others. Psychological problems due to baldness, if present, are typically most severe at the onset of symptoms.
Hair loss induced by cancer chemotherapy has been reported to cause changes in self-concept and body image. Body image does not return to the previous state after regrowth of hair for a majority of patients. In such cases, patients have difficulties expressing their feelings (alexithymia) and may be more prone to avoiding family conflicts. Family therapy can help families to cope with these psychological problems if they arise.
Temporary or permanent hair loss can be caused by several medications, including those for blood pressure problems, diabetes, heart disease and cholesterol. Any that affect the body’s hormone balance can have a pronounced effect: these include the contraceptive pill, hormone replacement therapy, steroids and acne medications.Some treatments used to cure mycotic infections can cause massive hair loss.Medications (side effects from drugs, including chemotherapy, anabolic steroids, and birth control pills ).
Traction alopecia is most commonly found in people with ponytails or cornrows who pull on their hair with excessive force. In addition, rigorous brushing and heat styling, rough scalp massage can damage the cuticle, the hard outer casing of the hair. This causes individual strands to become weak and break off, reducing overall hair volume.
Frictional alopecia is hair loss caused by rubbing of the hair or follicles, most infamously around the ankles of men from socks, where even if socks are no longer worn, the hair often will not grow back. Trichotillomania is the loss of hair caused by compulsive pulling and bending of the hairs. Onset of this disorder tends to begin around the onset of puberty and usually continues through adulthood. Due to the constant extraction of the hair roots, permanent hair loss can occur.
Traumas such as childbirth, major surgery, poisoning, and severe stress may cause a hair loss condition known as telogen effluvium, in which a large number of hairs enter the resting phase at the same time, causing shedding and subsequent thinning. The condition also presents as a side effect of chemotherapy – while targeting dividing cancer cells, this treatment also affects hair’s growth phase with the result that almost 90% of hairs fall out soon after chemotherapy starts.
Radiation to the scalp, as when radiotherapy is applied to the head for the treatment of certain cancers there, can cause baldness of the irradiated areas.Hair loss often follows childbirth in the postpartum period without causing baldness. During pregnancy, the hair is thicker owing to increased circulating estrogens. Approximately three months after giving birth (typically between 2 and 5 months), estrogen levels drop and hair loss occurs, often particularly noticeably around the hairline and temple area.
Hair typically grows back normally and treatment is not indicated. A similar situation occurs in women taking the fertility-stimulating drug clomiphene. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disorder also known as “spot baldness” that can result in hair loss ranging from just one location (Alopecia areata monolocularis) to every hair on the entire body (Alopecia areata universalis).
Although thought to be caused by hair follicles becoming dormant, what triggers alopecia areata is not known. In most cases the condition corrects itself, but it can also spread to the entire scalp (alopecia totalis) or to the entire body (alopecia universalis). Localized or diffuse hair loss may also occur in cicatricial alopecia (lupus erythematosus, lichen plano pilaris, folliculitis decalvans, central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia, postmenopausal frontal fibrosing alopecia, etc.).
Tumours and skin outgrowths also induce localized baldness (sebaceous nevus, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma). Tumor alopecia is the hair loss in the immediate vicinity of either benign or malignant tumors of the scalp. Hypothyroidism (an under-active thyroid) and the side effects of its related medications can cause hair loss, typically frontal, which is particularly associated with thinning of the outer third of the eyebrows (also seen with syphilis).
Hyperthyroidism (an over-active thyroid) can also cause hair loss, which is parietal rather than frontal. Temporary loss of hair can occur in areas where sebaceous cysts are present for considerable duration (normally one to several weeks). Congenital triangular alopecia – It is a triangular, or oval in some cases, shaped patch of hair loss in the temple area of the scalp that occurs mostly in young children. The affected area mainly contains vellus hair follicles or no hair follicles at all, but it does not expand.
Its causes are unknown, and although it is a permanent condition, it does not have any other effect on the affected individuals. Gradual thinning of hair with age is a natural condition known as involutional alopecia. This is caused by an increasing number of hair follicles switching from the growth, or anagen, phase into a resting phase, or telogen phase, so that remaining hairs become shorter and fewer in number.
An unhealthy scalp environment can play a significant role in hair thinning by contributing to miniaturization or causing damage. Obesity-induced stress, such as that induced by a high-fat diet (HFD), targets hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) to accelerate hair thinning in mice. It is likely that similar molecular mechanism play a role in human hair loss.
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