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Survey – Kiwi Men Worried About Their Looks

27.05.2010 in HAIR LOSS HEALTH NEWS

Kiwi Men 

By Fleur Revell, Survey – Kiwi Men Worried About Their Looks – a new study has revealed hair loss, dandruff and gaining weight are the biggest concerns for Kiwi males.

Kiwi men are worried about their looks with hair loss, dandruff and weight gain their three biggest concerns according to a new trans-Tasman study.
 
The Head & Shoulders Hair Retain Survey showed that more than a quarter of men (29%) said they were worried about having dandruff and just over a quarter (26%) were concerned about losing their hair.
 
The results also show that New Zealand males were anxious about their waistlines as well as their hairlines! Just under two thirds of Kiwi men (63%) were concerned about putting on weight, compared to just less than half of their Australian counterparts.
 
Auckland psychologist Sara Chatwin says having hair is closely aligned with many masculine characteristics so when men lose their hair, their self-esteem often plummets.
 
“Many men define themselves by the way they wear their hair. This may be due to traditional beliefs that suggest hair is associated with virility, social status, strength and youth,” says Chatwin.
 
“When their hair diminishes or gets dandruff (that is perceived as dirty) men may feel less virile, weak, older and generally less attractive,” she says.
 
Chatwin says with this in mind men will often go “the extra distance” to ensure their hair is full, dandruff flake free and healthy looking.
 
“These days men are taking more time to look after their personal grooming habits and hair maintenance is part of that package,” she says.
 
This may be the case for Kiwi men but when it comes to appearances it seems Australian men aren’t nearly as alarmed about certain aspects of their appearance!  Only 13% of Australian men worried about dandruff and just 18% said they were apprehensive about hair loss.
 
Kiwi respondents said that when it came to wrinkles they were not overly concerned, with only 17% saying it was an issue for them; excess hair was even less of a worry with 13% of Kiwi men saying being overly hairy upset them.
 
Interestingly Kiwi women were also more concerned about men’s hair than any other appearance issues. Eight out of 10 Kiwi women said dandruff on a man’s shoulders was more of a turn-off than thinning hair! Six out of 10 women surveyed also said that unkempt hair on men was a sign of laziness.
 
Nearly half (47%) of Kiwi women thought men with a full head of hair are generally more attractive compared to 44% of Australian women.
 
When it came to males Kiwi women were generally less concerned withbaldness just 15% said bald patches were the first thing they noticed about a man, compared to 22% of Australian women.
 
Similarly hair was not considered a strong predictor of success with just 12% and 13% of Kiwi and Australian women respectively saying men with a full head of hair tend to be more successful.
 
The survey was commissioned by Head & Shoulders to launch its new Hair Retain for Men shampoo. The specially formulated product works to reduce dandruff flakes from the first wash but also smoothes the scalp, slows down hair fall due to breakage and provides hair care and protection.

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Thyroid Gland Triggers Post-Delivery Hair Loss

26.05.2010 in HAIR LOSS FACTS, HAIR LOSS HEALTH NEWS

Healthcare researchers have found that the cause behind women suffering hair loss after the delivery of their children is the presence of a tiny butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the throat. This gland is responsible for the majority of metabolism in the body.

Thyroid-Gland

When this gland gets twisted, it gives way to a number of problems. In case of severe hair fall post-delivery, hyperthyroidism occurs within the body of a female, which is resultant of excessive pressure imposed on the glands in producing the hormones, which in turn speeds up the metabolism.

According to Dr. Roland Chieng, a consultant at Roland Chieng Fertility and Women Care, hyperthyroidism is caused by Graves’ disease in 95% of the women. The disease weakens the defence system of the body. The defence system attacks the thyroid, forcing it to secrete excessive hormones.

These conditions lead to complications, including heart attacks.

On the other end of band of thyroid dysfunction lies hypothyroidism, which takes place when the thyroid doesn’t secrete sufficient hormones and a sloth hits the metabolism.

Dr. Chia Su-Ynn, a consultant endocrinologist and physician at The Endocrine Clinic, said that there is a lack of awareness on the types of thyroid disorders.

“The symptoms may be mistaken for a lot of other conditions like obesity, depression, anxiety or other stress-related symptoms,” she said.

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Stress increases risk of hair loss

05.05.2010 in HAIR LOSS HEALTH NEWS

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Poor lifestyle choices can impact hormone release, flaring genetic disposition for balding

By Jonathan Yousefzadeh

Although hair loss is attributed to genetics, health professionals believe stress can exacerbate hair loss by triggering the release of certain hormones in the body which can damage hair follicles.

“Your DNA basically decides if and when you’re going to lose your hair. The primary cause of hair loss is genetic,” said Dr. Gary Perrault, a hair restoration specialist in Beverly Hills.

There are about 100,000 hairs on our heads, and we normally lose 100 to 150 strands a day, said Ted Robles, a health psychology professor who studies the different effects stress has on the body.

Natural hair loss may not be noticeable, but certain hair loss diseases, which young adults are genetically predisposed to, can be aggravated by stress and can cause baldness, said Dr. Cristina Kim, a dermatologist at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Robles said that although current research does not suggest hair loss is completely attributed to stress, it plays a role in how much hair is lost.

Some studies show that certain hormones our body release in response to stress can communicate with hair molecules, and stress certainly communicates with cells throughout the body, Robles said.

“The mechanism for which stress might influence hair loss is plausible and exists,” she added.

Certain hormones released while in times of stress, like dihydrotestosterone, can shorten the life of hair follicles, Perrault said.

These hormonal imbalances are not only affected by stress, but also by the poor lifestyle choices students make, Perrault added. In addition to stress, lack of sleep or a nutritious diet can affect the genetic process in our bodies, he said. During stress especially, the immune system responds differently than normal. As a result, a type of cellular death called apoptosis can occur more often, sometimes killing off cells that would not otherwise be killed, he said.

There are several types of stress most attributed to hair loss, Kim said. One is emotional stress, the type of stress students may have due to exams, work or relationship problems. The other type is medical stress, which patients experience after having surgery or after being in a car accident, she added.

The most common stress-related hair loss problem is telogen effluviam, which is the shedding of hair throughout the head rather than balding in certain spots. There is currently no treatment for telogen effluviam; however, this particular hair loss problem is temporary. Kim said that hair growth is cyclical, and that hair takes, on average, six months to regrow.

Other types of hair loss due to stress include alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks hair follicles and causes round patches of baldness on the head. Stress can flare this otherwise latent disease in college students, Kim said.

Stress-related hair loss like alopecia areata is treatable with prescription creams and medications, but there is currently no oral medication for stress-induced hair loss, she said.

Robles said he believes that lowering stress levels can not only help decrease the risk of hair loss in students, but it could help other aspects of students’ lives as well.

He added that some studies show the ill effects of stress on students’ immune systems. The experimenters in one study punctured wounds into students’ skin during finals week in order to measure how long it would take for the wound to heal. On average, it took three days longer for the same-sized wound to heal, he said.

“Regardless of the impact stress has to hair loss, I think everybody can benefit from being aware of the stress that they experience,” Robles said.

“We can’t avoid stress, we have to take exams, we have to write papers, but we can certainly change how we deal with stress,” he said. Robles advises students to talk friends or professionals about their problems to alleviate stress.

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Ask the Doctor: Could statins be making my hair fall out?

23.04.2010 in HAIR LOSS HEALTH NEWS

Dr Martin Scurr has been treating patients for more than 30 years and is one of the country’s leading GPs. Here he offers advice to a patient suffering from a heart condition.

Three months ago, I realised that the simvastatin I’d been taking was probably causing my hair loss. I have stopped taking this drug (my hair is now in much better health), but as my family has had heart problems in the past, I feel I am in danger without it.

My last blood test, a few weeks ago, showed that my cholesterol level had risen from 5.2 to 6.4 in the three months since I had stopped taking simvastatin.

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Could you suggest an alternative cholesterol drug, and why would this have happened?

Mrs Sylvia Turner, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.
What are the alternatives to cholesterol drug simvastatin, which often causes hair loss?

Hair loss in a woman, at any stage in life, is a particularly distressing symptom; and once you realise it’s happening, it’s easy to panic and assume that it will progressively worsen until you’re bald.

Fortunately, you realised the pills you were taking were probably the cause, and the hair loss has now stopped. But, understandably, you’d like to know why it occurred in the first place.

Simvastatin is one of the five members of a family of medicines that treats high cholesterol.

They are remarkably effective and generally trouble-free – indeed, when these became available in 1992, our ability to lower cholesterol levels safely was revolutionised.

Any side-effects are extremely rare and tend to revolve around muscle pain and stiffness – not hair loss. And despite there being anecdotes all over the internet linking the two, no major study can confirm this.

Indeed, I checked with one of the leading experts on the science of the hair follicle, Dr Hugh Rushton, and he, like myself, has not heard of statins having that effect.

What’s more likely is that you are simply one of the unlucky few for whom it has occurred. Almost any drug – from acne medication to antidepressants – might, quite possibly, cause hair loss in some people and we have no idea why.

If it was going to happen, it would tend to occur about four or five weeks after starting the incriminating drug. Essentially, it triggers what’s known as ‘exogen’, the fourth phase of the growth and life cycle of a hair, and you start to shed.

But while simvastatin had this rare effect on you, this certainly doesn’t mean you cannot try another statin.

For although they all suppress the manufacture of cholesterol in the liver, there are differences in the way the body deals with them. And, therefore, there may well be differences in the way your body reacts.
What’s most important is that these drugs are the most effective and best tolerated medicines for treating high cholesterol levels, and you need to do all you can to reduce your risk factors for coronary heart disease, given your family history.

So my advice is as follows. Buy a supplement called Florisene from a chemist – no prescription is needed and it is not expensive.

This supplies nutrients such as iron for growing hairs and will give your scalp the best conditions for hair growth. Take it daily for the next few months, and at the same time ask your GP to let you to try a different statin, such as atorvastatin, for three or four months.

Your cholesterol levels will drop again, which is essential – but you’ll also be able to assess what happens in terms of the hair. If you suffer great loss again, continue the Florisene while your scalp recovers and then we have to accept that, in your case, it is likely that all statins will affect you in this way.

If this happens, you could try a non-statin alternative – medicines called the fibrates. Another option is high dose niacin, one of the B group of vitamins – but be aware of the unpleasant side-effect of hot flushing (though that often wears off after a few weeks).

Meanwhile, please make sure you eat a diet as low as possible in animal fats. Even though only about 10 per cent of people with high cholesterol can improve the picture by dietary restriction, that is not a reason not to try – your GP or practice nurse may be able to help you with a suitable sheet of recommendations.

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Scientists see gene trigger for rare childhood baldness

15.04.2010 in HAIR LOSS HEALTH NEWS

Scientists said on Wednesday they had uncovered a gene that causes a rare but distressing form of childhood baldness, a finding that could help the quest to treat hair loss.

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Scientists see gene trigger for rare childhood baldness

Mutation in a gene called APCDD1 plays a key role in a disease called hereditary hypotrichosis simplex (HHS), which causes progressive hair loss starting in childhood.

Hair follicles start to shrink or narrow, causing the thick hair on the scalp to be replaced by “peach fuzz” of thin, fine hair.

APCDD1, which is located on Chromosome 18, was found thanks to a trawl through the genome of several families from Pakistan and Italy where HHS goes back generations.

Lead author Angela Christiano, a professor of dermatology at Columbia University Medical Center, New York, dampened expectations for bald men hoping that a drug for hair regrowth now lies in sight.

Male pattern baldness also entails follicular shrinkage, but the process is more complex and not directly comparable to HHS, she said.

Even so, the new finding is “highly significant” in terms of fundamental research, said Christiano.

Among people with HSS, a flawed version of APCDD1 disrupts a signalling pathway in which genes instruct proteins to turn hair growth on or off.

This so-called Wnt pathway has been extensively explored in lab mice, so finding that it also exists among humans is an important step forward in figuring out the causes of baldness.

“Furthermore, these findings suggest that manipulating the Wnt pathway may have an effect on hair follicle growth — for the first time, in humans,” said Christiano.

“And unlike commonly available treatments for hair loss that involve blocking hormonal pathways, treatments involving the Wnt pathway would be non-hormonal.”

The paper appears in the British science journal Nature.

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