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When you add up all the different things able to affect your hair, it gets to be a slightly scary list. Although most people know all about the genetic influence of parents and grandparents and the role of hormones, we then get on to stress, poor diet and hair loss as a side effect of some of the drugs we take. Curiously, the most common of the environmental causes is probably poor diet. Think how many times you eat on the run, grabbing a burger or sandwich as you pass a stall. No matter we all know the theory of eating a balanced meal at the same times every day, it never seems to work out that way. So what’s the problem?

Well, without getting too technical about it, a hair is made up of protein fibers – it’s a little bit like a rope with filaments of keratin bound together to give the final structure strength and flexibility. Under normal circumstances, hair draws what it needs for healthy growth from the food we eat. This is a mixture of proteins, vitamins, and minerals. If there’s a shortage, the usual shine of the hair disappears and it can go limp. Should this continue, the longer hairs can break and some will fall out. Put another way, you will keep more hair if you eat a balanced diet.

As a reminder, we are designed to lose about 100 hairs a day. In the cycle of growth, resting, shedding and regrowth, our hairs should shed evenly over the scalp and then regrow. This gives complete coverage without any thin or bald patches. If hair does come out in clumps this is a symptom of several possible problems like a fungal infection. A doctor will be able to tell you what the problem is. There are treatments for all the main causes and you should see healthy hair return. It’s the same when you are not eating a healthy diet. Only a few changes are needed to bring the look of your hair back up to its shiny best.

Apart from a hectic lifestyle, what else can affect diet? The most common is crash dieting to lose weight. The more protein you cut out, the worse the damage to your hair. If you keep it up for any length of time, hair fall will increase. So what should you eat? We start with all kinds of meat, fish and eggs. As a vegetarian, you should either find alternative foods including wholegrain products, dairy products and fresh nuts, or take supplements. Generally, everyone needs vitamins B and C and trace metals like iron and zinc. (more…)

If you ask younger men why they worry about losing their hair, they will all give some great-sounding reasons about how society judges them and discriminates against them, but it really all comes down to sex. Younger men like to think they are attractive to women. Even when they have talked their way into a steady relationship, they remain confident about their ability to find another partner should this one fail to live up to expectations. The problem is a simple one. Our culture thinks men look older if they are losing their hair. This is not unreasonable. All men lose their hair as they get older. But if a man is forced back on to the singles market, hair loss is going to slow down the recruitment of his next partner. Unless he happens to be rich, that is. Can’t think why but, somehow, rich men never seem to have a problem in finding willing women no matter how much hair they have. Since the majority of men do not have the odd million or so as pocket change, keeping up appearances becomes very important. How else is a man to ensure his genes get carried forward into the next generation unless he keeps his hair?

At this point, we should mention the other problem. The standard treatment for male pattern baldness has been through extensive clinical trials. That’s why we can say, with the usual certainty, that the drug is effective. It works by preventing the change of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone, i.e. it changes the way in which the male hormone system works. It’s a sad fact of life that if you mess with the hormones, it can affect the sex. So, for better or worse, here come a few distressing statistics. Just over 1% of men going through the trials suffered erectile dysfunction, but up to 7% experienced some problems with ejaculation. In some, this was a volume thing, i.e. less came out which is not so bad if you don’t want children. Think of it as being a kind of male birth control pill. In others, there was some muscular discomfort. Only one or two men had any real pain during sex or in their testicles while “at rest”. (more…)