Chances are your mother has a lock of your baby hair. The odds you've asked for a lock of her hair? Slim. (We hope.) With age, hair loses its luster, not to mention its strength, color, and density. We asked Nicole Rogers, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, how to minimize the damage.
What happens to hair as we age? "The majority of people will notice allover thinning as early as their 40s because of an age-related decline in the overall diameter of the hair shaft. Pattern hair loss can happen at any age; thin, wispy hairs replace the thick growth on the crown. This affects roughly 40 to 50 percent of women. Topical minoxidil [a.k.a. Rogaine] can help both."
Why does the texture start to change? "Each shaft of hair is surrounded by a cuticle, which under a microscope looks like overlapping shingles on a roof. This is what gives hair strength and shine. When you're young, the cuticle remains intact, but eventually, gaps start to open up between the shingles. That leaves hair vulnerable to sun, heat, and other damage that weakens the fibers and frays the ends."
What can we do to protect our hair? "I tell patients to wear a hat every time they're in the sun, especially if they exposed for more than 30 minutes. If you can't wear a hat, there are great leave-in products that coat the hair shaft with silicone or dimethiconeâ€"the same things you use with curling irons and hair-dryers."
True or false: If you pluck a gray hair, two will grow back. "False! Gray hair runs in families, so if your grandmothers had white hair, you'll probably get it, too, and at about the same age. At first, the follicle stops absorbing pigment, for reasons we don't understand, and then the pigment-producing cells shut down entirely. There's no pill or herbal supplement to reverse this process, but you can protect yourself from another cause of graying. You know our presidents go rapidly gray during their time in the White House? That's because of oxidative stress, and there's some evidence that eating antioxidant foodsâ€"melons, blueberries, things like thatâ€"can mop up the free radicals that may speed up graying. There's also evidence that smokers can face early graying, likely due to the same free-radical formation."
Why do pregnant women have such lush hair? "Our hair develops in three stages: growing, transitioning, and resting, i.e., shedding. In pregnancy, the hair goes into a prolonged transitioning phase. Instead of shedding, the hairs stay put on the head. Now, this all comes to a crashing end three or four months after childbirth, when the hair starts to fall out dramatically. But that's nothing to worry aboutâ€"your hair will return to normal in six months to a year. If it doesn't, there may be an underlying medical problem, like thyroid disease or female pattern hair loss, which can be treated."
What happens during menopause? "Normal estrogen production drops off and unmasks the underlying androgens, or male hormones. Unmitigated, these androgens then wreak havoc on the hair follicles of the face and scalp. Have you ever seen those little old ladies with hairs on their chins? That's what can happen, as well as general hair loss and thinning. The same medicines we use for female pattern hair lossâ€"topical minoxidil and spironolactone, a diuretic used off-labelâ€"are helpful for these."
Any new treatments on the horizon? "The next medical therapy is Latisse, which is currently approved for eyelash thickening but is now in clinical trials for regrowing hair on the head. And hair-growth lasers. For a long time, the marketing was ahead of the data, but we're getting more evidence on a microscopic level that low-level light can grow hair. And more women are being put on Propecia with good results, although I doubt it will be approved by the FDA because of the risk of birth defects."
PHOTO: STOCKSY
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