Hair-skin

Monday, October 5, 2015

Natural & Home made Hair Growth Supplements

Here in this article we list various natural hair growth supplements. Many of these hair growth supplements can be easily found at home or your local grocery store. These supplements have been proven to improve hair and scalp health and growth. As a side benefit, you can also expect improvements to your skin overall. If you take just 10-15% of these natural hair growth supplements, you are golden!

Take multivitamins and vitamin supplements to increase your vitamin intake for healthy hair growth.

Folic acid pills, taken once or twice daily (almost 400 micrograms), assist in the synthesis of amino acids and aid in cell division to make your hair grow faster.It is naturally present in fenugreek, spinach, flax seeds, black beans, pinto beans, broccoli, cucumber, tomato, milk, yogurt, brewer’s yeast, peanuts, strawberries, papaya, kiwi, orange juice, and so on.

FDA approved biotin pills, preferably taken orally along with other B vitamins, facilitates hair growth.

Take sea kelp supplements to speed up hair growth and reduce breakage. It is particularly good for individuals suffering from iodine deficiency. To apply it topically on the scalp, dilute one part of pure sea kelp extract in three parts of distilled water.

Consume fish-oil supplements. They are rich in omega-3 fatty acids acids that provide nutrients to the hair follicles. Gelatin capsules, too, are considered effective for faster hair and nail growth. Vegans, however, may have to look for other alternatives.

Flaxseed oil pills are also effective in making hair grow faster. You may include flaxseed oil in your diet by adding it in salad dressings, smoothies, etc.However, flax oil may not work for some people because it requires enough enzymes that can convert its ALA (alpha linolenic acid linolenic acid) into DHA and EPA that further break down into prostaglandins.

Taking nettle tablets (500 mg per day) works as a great remedy to stop hair loss. Needless to say, before taking any supplement, consult your doctor. If not interested in taking pills, drink stinging nettle tea three times in a day.

Propecia (finasteride) is another effective hair loss remedy. It has side effects, though. In addition, it is not recommended for women.

Saw Palmetto berry extract improves skin and scalp conditions, and helps reverse hair loss or Androgenic Alopecia. This herbal remedy can either be taken as a dietary supplement (320 to 480 mg) or used topically.You can take this supplement twice daily. When applying it on the scalp, combine the extract with some oil and then leave it on your hair for at least one or two hours.

Besides, you may use a Saw Palmetto shampoo. It is advised to consult your physician before trying this method of hair growth. Plus, consider talking to an alternative medicine expert for suitable dosage.

Sulfur assists in metabolizing B vitamins, which in turn help grow your hair. Moreover, it provides strength to the hair. You can take sulfur supplements in the form of MSM (methylsulfonylmethane)capsules and apply sulfur mixes (sublimed sulfur powder) after mixing them in your hair oil.

Topically applying liquid melatonin on the scalp once daily has shown positive results in increasing hair growth and re-growth in women. However, further research is required to determine the long-terms effects of this treatment.

Ginseng is a popular Chinese herb that promotes hair growth and helps repair damaged hair cells.

Chinese angelica root or dong quai is another Chinese herb that works a natural cure for hair loss.

Ginkgo Biloba extract also works as an alternative medicine to boost hair growth.

Evening primrose oil can be taken internally (total 1,000 mg, three times per day) as well as applied externally on the scalp to stimulate hair growth. It is a good source of potent prostaglandins and omega-6 fatty acids.Plus, it has GLA (Gamma-Linolenic Acid) that prevents hair loss. As this oil tends to go rancid soon, you may consider taking it in capsule form.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Human hairlessness

The general hairlessness of humans in comparison to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) in the human lineage about 240,000 years ago. On an individual basis, mutations in the gene HR can lead to complete hair loss, though this is not typical in humans. Humans may also lose their hair as a result of hormonal imbalance due to drugs or pregnancy.

In order to comprehend why humans are essentially hairless, it is essential to understand that mammalian body hair is not merely an aesthetic characteristic; it protects the skin from wounds, bites, heat, cold, and UV radiation. Additionally, it can be used as a communication tool and as a camouflage To this end, it can be concluded that benefits stemming from the loss of human body hair must be great enough to outweigh the loss of these protective functions by nakedness.

Humans are the only primate species that have undergone significant hair loss and of the approximately 5000 extant species of mammal, only a handful are effectively hairless. This list includes elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, walruses, pigs, whales and other cetaceans, and naked mole rats. Most mammals have light skin that is covered by fur, and biologists believe that early human ancestors started out this way also. Dark skin probably evolved after humans lost their body fur, because the naked skin was vulnerable to the strong UV radiation as explained in the Out of Africa hypothesis. Therefore, evidence of the time when human skin darkened has been used to date the loss of human body hair, assuming that the dark skin was needed after the fur was gone.^{[citation needed]}

It was expected that dating the split of the ancestral human louse into two species, the head louse and the pubic louse, would date the loss of body hair in human ancestors. However, it turned out that the human pubic louse does not descend from the ancestral human louse, but from the gorilla louse, diverging 3.3 million years ago. This suggests that humans had lost body hair (but retained head hair) and developed thick pubic hair prior to this date, were living in or close to the forest where gorillas lived, and acquired pubic lice from butchering gorillas or sleeping in their nests. The evolution of the body louse from the head louse, on the other hand, places the date of clothing much later, some 100,000 years ago.

The process of balding, where terminal hair switches to vellus hair, usually occurs at around thirty to forty years of age. In prehistoric times, most individuals did not survive to adulthood, let alone reaching their fourth decade^] and therefore balding tends to act as a signal of maturity. In women survival to such an advanced age is usually coupled with a decrease in fertility (see menopause), but in men fertility is retained beyond middle-age. The persistence (but non-ubiquity) of balding in men, coupled with its general absence in women, suggests that there was a selection pressure against balding in women, but variations in hair patterns among men did not prevent their reproductive success leading to stable polymorphisms (perhaps representing different mating strategies); for example some men could have benefitted from baldness by signalling advanced maturity and social status; while other men simulated the appearance of youth and vigor by retaining their hair.^{[citation needed]}

Most species evolved as the climate in Africa changed, to adjust their thermoregulation to the intense UV and sunlight at the equator, mostly by panting. Early hominids likely possessed fur similar to other large apes, but about 2.5 million years ago they developed a greater distribution of sweat glands

that enabled them to perspire over most of the body. It is not clear whether the change in body hair appearance occurred before or after the development of sweat glands. Humans have eccrine sweat glands all over their bodies.Aside from the mammary glands that produce a specialized sweat called milk, most mammals just have apocrine sweat glands on their armpits and loin. The rest of their body is covered ineccrine glands. There is a trend in primates to have increased eccrine sweat glands over the general surface of the body. It is unclear to what degree other primates sweat in response to heat, however.

The sweat glands in humans could have evolved to spread from the hands and feet as the body hair changed, or the hair change could have occurred to facilitate sweating. Horses and humans are two of the few animals capable of sweating on most of their body, yet horses are larger and still have fully developed fur. In humans, the skin hairs lie flat in hot conditions, as the arrector pili muscles relax, preventing heat from being trapped by a layer of still air between the hairs, and increasing heat loss by convection.

Historically, some ideas have been advanced to explain the apparent hairlessness of humans, as compared to other species.

Several hypotheses explained hairlessness as a thermoregulatory adaptation to hot and dry savanna. The most known thermoregulatory hypothesis in modern paleoanthropology was proposed by Peter Wheeler (1984, 1985). He suggests that a need for decreased body hair originated as a response to climate change that began approximately 3 million years ago.^] At this time, the earth entered a period of global cooling that had a dehumidifying effect on the main early human habitats in East and Central Africa. Lush, wooded forests gave way to dry, grassland savannah; because of this, early humans were required to travel farther in search of food and water. As early humans diverged from their 'pre-chimpanzee like', rather the ancestral lineage shared with chimpanzees, they also became omnivorous in order to maximize calorie intake, an important distinction in a nutrient-scarce environment. Prey, however, are moving targets, and though early humans changed the traditionally ape-like appearance of the australopithecines and adapted long, strong legs to facilitate sustained running, dense, hairy coats still posed a potentially fatal risk of causing overheating during the chase.^[30] It is posited that thick hair got in the way of the sweat evaporating, so humans evolved a sparser coat of fur. Although hair provides protection against harmful UV radiation, since our hominin ancestors were bipedal, only our heads were exposed to the noonday sun. Humans kept the hair on our head which reflects harmful UV rays, but our body hair was reduced. The rise in eccrine glands occurred on the genes that determine the fate of epidermal stem cells in human embryonic development.

Another hypothesis for the thick body hair on humans proposes that Fisherian runaway sexual selection played a role (as well as in the selection of long head hair), (see types of hair and vellus hair), as well as a much larger role of testosterone in men. Sexual selection is the only theory thus far that explains the sexual dimorphism seen in the hair patterns of men and women. On average, men have more body hair than women. Males have more terminal hair, especially on the face, chest, abdomen, and back, and females have more vellus hair, which is less visible. The halting of hair development at a juvenile stage, vellus hair, would also be consistent with the neoteny evident in humans, especially in females, and thus they could have occurred at the same time. This theory, however, has significant holdings in today's cultural norms. There is no evidence that sexual selection would proceed to such a drastic extent over a million years ago when a full, lush coat of hair would most likely indicate health and would therefore be more likely to be selected for, not against, and not all human populations today have sexual dimorphism in body hair.

A further hypothesis is that human hair was reduced in response to ectoparasites. The "ectoparasite" explanation of modern human nakedness is based on the principle that a hairless primate would harbor fewer parasites. When our ancestors adopted group-dwelling social arrangements roughly 1.8 mya, ectoparasite loads increased dramatically. Early humans became the only one of the 193 primate species to have fleas, which can be attributed to the close living arrangements of large groups of individuals. While primate species have communal sleeping arrangements, these groups are always on the move and thus are less likely to harbor ectoparasites. Because of this, selection pressure for early humans would favor decreasing body hair because those with thick coats would have more lethal-disease-carrying ectoparasites and would thereby have lower fitness. However, early humans were able to compensate for the loss of warmth and protection provided by body hair with clothing, and no other mammal lost body hair to reduce parasite loads.

Another view is proposed by James Giles, who attempts to explain hairlessness as evolved from the relationship between mother and child, and as a consequence of bipedalism. Giles also connects romantic love to hairlessness.

Human hairlessness

The general hairlessness of humans in comparison to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) in the human lineage about 240,000 years ago. On an individual basis, mutations in the gene HR can lead to complete hair loss, though this is not typical in humans. Humans may also lose their hair as a result of hormonal imbalance due to drugs or pregnancy.

In order to comprehend why humans are essentially hairless, it is essential to understand that mammalian body hair is not merely an aesthetic characteristic; it protects the skin from wounds, bites, heat, cold, and UV radiation. Additionally, it can be used as a communication tool and as a camouflage To this end, it can be concluded that benefits stemming from the loss of human body hair must be great enough to outweigh the loss of these protective functions by nakedness.

Humans are the only primate species that have undergone significant hair loss and of the approximately 5000 extant species of mammal, only a handful are effectively hairless. This list includes elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, walruses, pigs, whales and other cetaceans, and naked mole rats. Most mammals have light skin that is covered by fur, and biologists believe that early human ancestors started out this way also. Dark skin probably evolved after humans lost their body fur, because the naked skin was vulnerable to the strong UV radiation as explained in the Out of Africa hypothesis. Therefore, evidence of the time when human skin darkened has been used to date the loss of human body hair, assuming that the dark skin was needed after the fur was gone.^{[citation needed]}

It was expected that dating the split of the ancestral human louse into two species, the head louse and the pubic louse, would date the loss of body hair in human ancestors. However, it turned out that the human pubic louse does not descend from the ancestral human louse, but from the gorilla louse, diverging 3.3 million years ago. This suggests that humans had lost body hair (but retained head hair) and developed thick pubic hair prior to this date, were living in or close to the forest where gorillas lived, and acquired pubic lice from butchering gorillas or sleeping in their nests. The evolution of the body louse from the head louse, on the other hand, places the date of clothing much later, some 100,000 years ago.

The process of balding, where terminal hair switches to vellus hair, usually occurs at around thirty to forty years of age. In prehistoric times, most individuals did not survive to adulthood, let alone reaching their fourth decade^] and therefore balding tends to act as a signal of maturity. In women survival to such an advanced age is usually coupled with a decrease in fertility (see menopause), but in men fertility is retained beyond middle-age. The persistence (but non-ubiquity) of balding in men, coupled with its general absence in women, suggests that there was a selection pressure against balding in women, but variations in hair patterns among men did not prevent their reproductive success leading to stable polymorphisms (perhaps representing different mating strategies); for example some men could have benefitted from baldness by signalling advanced maturity and social status; while other men simulated the appearance of youth and vigor by retaining their hair.^{[citation needed]}

Most species evolved as the climate in Africa changed, to adjust their thermoregulation to the intense UV and sunlight at the equator, mostly by panting. Early hominids likely possessed fur similar to other large apes, but about 2.5 million years ago they developed a greater distribution of sweat glands

that enabled them to perspire over most of the body. It is not clear whether the change in body hair appearance occurred before or after the development of sweat glands. Humans have eccrine sweat glands all over their bodies.Aside from the mammary glands that produce a specialized sweat called milk, most mammals just have apocrine sweat glands on their armpits and loin. The rest of their body is covered ineccrine glands. There is a trend in primates to have increased eccrine sweat glands over the general surface of the body. It is unclear to what degree other primates sweat in response to heat, however.

The sweat glands in humans could have evolved to spread from the hands and feet as the body hair changed, or the hair change could have occurred to facilitate sweating. Horses and humans are two of the few animals capable of sweating on most of their body, yet horses are larger and still have fully developed fur. In humans, the skin hairs lie flat in hot conditions, as the arrector pili muscles relax, preventing heat from being trapped by a layer of still air between the hairs, and increasing heat loss by convection.

Historically, some ideas have been advanced to explain the apparent hairlessness of humans, as compared to other species.

Several hypotheses explained hairlessness as a thermoregulatory adaptation to hot and dry savanna. The most known thermoregulatory hypothesis in modern paleoanthropology was proposed by Peter Wheeler (1984, 1985). He suggests that a need for decreased body hair originated as a response to climate change that began approximately 3 million years ago.^] At this time, the earth entered a period of global cooling that had a dehumidifying effect on the main early human habitats in East and Central Africa. Lush, wooded forests gave way to dry, grassland savannah; because of this, early humans were required to travel farther in search of food and water. As early humans diverged from their 'pre-chimpanzee like', rather the ancestral lineage shared with chimpanzees, they also became omnivorous in order to maximize calorie intake, an important distinction in a nutrient-scarce environment. Prey, however, are moving targets, and though early humans changed the traditionally ape-like appearance of the australopithecines and adapted long, strong legs to facilitate sustained running, dense, hairy coats still posed a potentially fatal risk of causing overheating during the chase.^[30] It is posited that thick hair got in the way of the sweat evaporating, so humans evolved a sparser coat of fur. Although hair provides protection against harmful UV radiation, since our hominin ancestors were bipedal, only our heads were exposed to the noonday sun. Humans kept the hair on our head which reflects harmful UV rays, but our body hair was reduced. The rise in eccrine glands occurred on the genes that determine the fate of epidermal stem cells in human embryonic development.

Another hypothesis for the thick body hair on humans proposes that Fisherian runaway sexual selection played a role (as well as in the selection of long head hair), (see types of hair and vellus hair), as well as a much larger role of testosterone in men. Sexual selection is the only theory thus far that explains the sexual dimorphism seen in the hair patterns of men and women. On average, men have more body hair than women. Males have more terminal hair, especially on the face, chest, abdomen, and back, and females have more vellus hair, which is less visible. The halting of hair development at a juvenile stage, vellus hair, would also be consistent with the neoteny evident in humans, especially in females, and thus they could have occurred at the same time. This theory, however, has significant holdings in today's cultural norms. There is no evidence that sexual selection would proceed to such a drastic extent over a million years ago when a full, lush coat of hair would most likely indicate health and would therefore be more likely to be selected for, not against, and not all human populations today have sexual dimorphism in body hair.

A further hypothesis is that human hair was reduced in response to ectoparasites. The "ectoparasite" explanation of modern human nakedness is based on the principle that a hairless primate would harbor fewer parasites. When our ancestors adopted group-dwelling social arrangements roughly 1.8 mya, ectoparasite loads increased dramatically. Early humans became the only one of the 193 primate species to have fleas, which can be attributed to the close living arrangements of large groups of individuals. While primate species have communal sleeping arrangements, these groups are always on the move and thus are less likely to harbor ectoparasites. Because of this, selection pressure for early humans would favor decreasing body hair because those with thick coats would have more lethal-disease-carrying ectoparasites and would thereby have lower fitness. However, early humans were able to compensate for the loss of warmth and protection provided by body hair with clothing, and no other mammal lost body hair to reduce parasite loads.

Another view is proposed by James Giles, who attempts to explain hairlessness as evolved from the relationship between mother and child, and as a consequence of bipedalism. Giles also connects romantic love to hairlessness.

Human hair growth

Main article: Human hair growth

Hair grows everywhere on the external body except for mucus membranes and glabrous skin, such as that found on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, and on the lips.

Hair follows a specific growth cycle with three distinct and concurrent phases: anagen,catagen, and telogen phases. Each has specific characteristics that determine the length of the hair. All three occur simultaneously; one strand of hair may be in the anagen phase, while another is in the telogen phase.

The body has different types of hair, including vellus hair and androgenic hair, each with its own type of cellular construction. The different construction gives the hair unique characteristics, serving specific purposes, mainly warmth and protection.