Hair Care
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Hair, its color, length, thickness, and style, is an important part of almost everyone’s personal identity throughout the life span. Hair can be defined as cylindrical, often pigmented filaments growing from the epidermis. Proactive hair care, good nutrition, and grooming, can make a significant difference in enhancing hair health.
Aging As people age, the texture and quality of hair changes. Hair shafts begin to weather as they emerge from the scalp. Hair strands become smaller and hair that was once thick and coarse becomes thin and fine. Additional factors contributing to the weathering process include chemical treatments such as bleaching, coloring, perming, straightening, blow‐drying, or brushing hair when it is wet. These processes can cause hair cuticles to raise and soften, leaving hair more vulnerable to abrasion from combing, brushing, and curling. Graying of hair is genetically determined. By 40, approximately 40% of all people have some gray scalp hair. Body and facial hair also turn gray, but usually later than scalp hair.
Hair Loss Many hair follicles in women and men stop producing new hairs within the mid to late stages of the life cycle. Approximately 25% of men experience signs of baldness by 30 and two thirds are bald or exhibit balding patterns by 60. Most women experience female‐ pattern‐baldness as they age. This pattern occurs when hair becomes less dense all over, making the scalp more visible. Other disorders such as Thi pili annulati, a congenital hair shaft disorder in which air‐filled spaces occur at regular intervals within the shafts, can increase hair fragility among both men and women. Negative psychological effects of balding have been studied primarily in men. In the United States balding amongst men has been associated with lower self‐esteem, perception of physical unattractiveness, anxiety, emotional distress, depression, greater self‐consciousness, and psychological maladjustment. Dissatisfaction with appearance, preoccupation with hair loss, worry about #
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
others reactions, and fear of social tension as a result of hair loss have also been reported. With regard to nutrition and hair loss, both iron and essential amino acid L‐Lysine appear to promote hair loss in individuals who are deficient in these two elements. Outside of this, in individuals who are otherwise healthy, nutrition appears to play a very minor role in hair health. One exception to this includes individuals who selectively avoid eating certain foods. This process can lead to impairment of both skin and hair quality. Some hair care recommendations for persons challenged by hair loss include use of topically applied minoxidil, oral finasteride, and hair transplant treatments. Minoxidil stimulates hair growth, although its mechanism of action on hair follicles is not well understood. In both males and females a rapid increase in hair growth has been clinically observed which becomes readily apparent at 6 weeks peaking between 12 and 16 weeks. Treatment success with minoxidi
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