Guest Post

by C. Gray

Concerning the aspect of health, taking care of your hair is essential. If individual attention is not provided your hair will soon become damaged and quite possibly you may start experiencing hair loss. While hair loss is a problem for both men and women, more women have been reporting some sort of hair thinning or hair loss than ever before.

There are many aspects that can actually impact how hair grows, and whether it grows at all. Genetics, hormones, medications or drugs, the environment, and nutritional deficiencies are some of the main factors contributing to hair loss. Also, women’s hair styles, perms, highlights, and hot oil treatments can cause sufficient damage. Poor hygiene can even play a significant role in experiencing an unnatural amount of hair thinning and/or hair loss.

Let’s start by discussing what factors can cause damage to hair follicles. There are several different kinds of factors that contribute to hair loss and damage They include, but aren’t limited to, women’s hair style, perms, highlights, hot oil treatments, and poor hygiene. Each factor can devastate your hair and may result in irreversible damage. Hot oil treatments, for example, are beneficial for women who are plagued with dry hair and scalp but the hot oil used can cause the hair follicle to become inflamed. This can then lead to scarring and permanent hair loss. Also, the pigtails you put your child’s hair up into is actually pulling their hair too tight to the point of hair loss. It can cause scarring of the scalp and thus leave the hair follicles permanently damaged. This damage will then block the hair from growing forever.

The brushes that are used may also be a big contributor to hair damage. That is because not everyone has the same texture of hair. So when a flair styler brush is used it very well may leave your hair frizzy, cause tangles, or even possibly allow for split ends. The use of a cushion brush you will find that when used on healthy hair you will not notice static or frizz. If you are not constantly battling with split ends, the vent brush is a good one to use. However, if split ends are a problem it is possible to cause even more damage to your hair. Usually involving frizz and unmanageable hair. Also, with hair that is not too damaged, combs are a good choice. Now let’s examine additional causes that are involved with hair loss:

1. Genetics

With advances in genetic research, scientists have gained new tools with which to learn about the genetics of hair loss. Heredity plays a big role when it comes to hair growth problems. If your direct relatives experience thinning or balding hair, you can expect to have the same experience. The good news is that if you recognize your genetics and plan for inevitable hair loss by devising a treatment plan, you can help prevent hair loss by retaining and re-growing your hair. There are many treatment options available these days for you to consider.

2. Hormones

Hormones are also a factor on why people lose their hair. It’s not necessarily hormones themselves but more fluctuations in hormone levels. Like when women are pregnant, their hair is thicker, healthier, and more beautiful than it ever will be. But after childbirth, their hair will usually begin to fall out in large amounts. This hair loss is normal due to their hormones. Eventually the hair thinning will cease once the hormonal balance is brought back into alignment. Checking and adjusting fluctuations hormone levels is sometimes all a person needs to aid in preventing hair loss. The best thing you can do for yourself is to talk with your doctor about your hair loss. Extensive blood work can be performed to rule out any possible reasons for your hair loss. And if there is a medical reason for the problem, the proper treatment will more often than not correct the problems being experienced.

3. Medication or Drugs

Although illegal drugs will definitely do damage to your hair, including sudden hair loss, a number of legal prescription drugs may also cause sudden hair loss in some women. Research has denoted certain drugs that tend to cause sudden women’s hair loss (where the hair falls out in clumps or patches), which include nexium, accutane for acne, most anti-coagulants containing warfarin, most anti-convulsants (typically given for epilepsy), and most anti-depressants. This reaction is rare, but experiencing abnormal hair loss or thinning while on one of these types of medications, you may want to contact your doctor. Your doctor will decide whether to reduce your dose or change your prescribed medication entirely if they believe it has a direct link to the hair loss you are experiencing.

4. Environment

Environmental pollution is a prominent factor in the production of estrogen in the body. Until you decide to leave the big city and settle out in the green countryside, you will need to improve your body’s capability of neutralizing pollution in which to prevent it from causing the production of estrogen. Ultimately you will need to detoxify your liver in which to achieve this. It is very much recommended to do a liver cleanse regularly and there are plenty of cleaners in which to choose from at many health food stores.

5. Nutritional Deficiencies

Being nutritionally deficient also has some people losing their hair. For example, hair loss is one of the symptoms of anorexia and bulimia because of the excessive lack of nutrients. However your deficiency isn’t defined by severity, for you will still notice a difference in your hair with just a slight case of nutritional deficiency. Supplements have been designed just for hair health based entirely on nutritional deficiencies. Feeling like you aren’t deficient in any nutrients doesn’t mean you can’t do more. These supplements are available to provide additional help in accelerating growth and increasing the strength of your hair. The kinds of food you are eating must also be taken into consideration.

Foods these days have plenty of unhealthy chemicals that can cause estrogen production. This negative production can have an impact on whether or not you notice a case of excessive hair loss. Making sure to involve a low carbohydrate/high protein diet ,for this will help combat hair loss.

A consistent liver detox will also aid in subsiding the chemicals found in food, but a much better way is to start eating more organic foods. This will rule out artificial chemicals completely. For taking care of your hair you probably will need to use a natural approach, rather than a medical one, to keep from having follicle inflammation or damaged hair and scalp. For example lemons can be used for hair highlights, olive oil for moisture, aloe vera for a conditioner. You will be able to locate all the other pure natural products available at health food stores.

Of course, if you think your hair is thinning a little more than it has in the past, or you are beginning to see abnormal hair loss, a doctor visit should be the very first thing you do. You will need to make sure that your hair thinning, or loss, is not the result of a medical condition. This is also the perfect time for you to discuss the best treatment option for your individual case. There are plenty of ways to aid in reversing your hair loss. These options include the use of natural supplements, topical formulas, doctor-prescribed medication, hair transplant and much more.

About the Author:

Experiencing female hair loss ? Research possible factors causing yours and treat it the right way.

Source: Factors Revealed As To Why Women Experience Hair Loss

If you thought that your smile only has aesthetic importance to life, then think twice. Your teeth can be an indicator of your overall health. Oral care is as important as caring for the rest of the body. Speaking of oral care, the first thing that comes to our minds is toothpaste. Yes, toothpaste, when combined with regular oral hygiene is an effective part of oral care but it can only give you superficial protection. This means that it can protect you externally against problems like plague or bacteria. But in order to ensure that your teeth last as long as you would want and you keep that million dollar smile going, it is extremely important that you follow a healthy diet plan.

Most people do not know that mechanical digestion begins in the mouth and the teeth have a very important role to play in it. The saliva, the tongue and the teeth come together to start the digestion process. So if you have been facing problems with indigestion and haven’t been able to attribute it to any other cause, then maybe here’s the answer. Hence, it is recommended by most dentists that you consume foods that boost the health of your teeth and gums.

And if you cannot consume such foods on a regular basis, then you need to have a regular intake of health supplements that promote dental health. There are probably a million health supplements of chemical origin but why would you want to opt for them when you have a much safer natural alternative? I am talking about Aloe Vera, the plant that has been commonly dubbed as the skin-cure plant.

Aloeride® and dental care The mouth is a cavity that is loaded with soft and fragile tissues. These tissues have a constant supply of food materials which make it an ideal breeding ground for bacteria. The bacterial thriving in the mouth also attack the teeth and cause dental problems like stomatitis, bad breath, gingivitis and peridontitis.

Aloe Vera is a natural anti-fungal and anti-bacterial plant. It can work wonders for dental health and protect the sensitive fragile tissues of the mouth when consumed internally. But you simply cannot pluck an aloe Vera leaf and chew it. You will probably spit it before you blink an eye. It certainly isn’t the tastiest thing that you would have even tasted.

But you have a much safer and easier alternative with Aloeride®. Aloeride® is an Aloe Vera supplement created by a naturopath and a Chartered Physiotherapist, Registered Acupuncturist and Naturopath Dr. Han van de Braak. Well versed with the healing powers of Aloe Vera, he was on the lookout for an Aloe Vera supplement to cure his daughter of eczema. But he noticed that most of the products in the market were not up to the snuff. They were manufactured using substandard methods and were not lab tested. Even the best selling Aloe Vera products couldn’t offer half of what a liter of Aloe Vera juice could offer. CLICK HERE INSTEAD So he created Aloeride®, which is the most powerful Aloe Vera supplement on earth today. It has been manufactured according to pharmaceutical standards and is more potent than any other similar supplement.

Why you need Aloeride® You cannot carry a complete dental care set everywhere with you, can you? But you certainly can carry a pill in your pocket. That’s what Aloeride® is all about. It is a complete dental care system in your pocket. What is even better is that you are consuming a product that will improve your overall health. It improves the quality of the skin, it palpates your gut lining and heals any potential bowel problems and it also boosts your immune system. What more can you ask for?

While you may experience the misery of hot flashes and mood swings as you enter menopause, one thing you can’t blame on the "change" is memory loss. In the latest study that exonerates menopause as a cause of impairing the ability to recall, Taiwanese researchers compared the memory of hundreds of women before they had any menopausal symptoms to their memory as they entered menopause. They found the women who were going through the menopausal process scored as well or nearly as well on five different cognitive function tests. Results of the study are to be presented Oct. 4 at the American Neurological Association annual meeting in Toronto. "When women go into peri-menopause, they don’t need to worry about cognitive decline," said Dr. Jong-Ling Fuh, an attending physician at Taipei Veterans General Hospital and an associate professor of Yang-Ming University School of Medicine.

The researchers said the myth of memory loss during menopause is a perception some women have because as they go through the process called menopause, they feel their memory isn’t as sharp as it has been before. Studies suggesting that hormone replacement therapy might protect against dementia strengthened that belief. However, a large study later found that in older women, hormone replacement therapy not only didn’t help protect women from dementia, but could actually increase the risk.

To try to answer the question of whether menopause did have any effect on memory , Fuh and her colleagues studied nearly 700 pre-menopausal women living on a group of rural islands between Taiwan and China. The Taiwanese government restricted access to these islands until the 1990s, so the authors report that the study’s population was nearly homogeneous, which would help rule out other potentially causative factors of memory loss .

The women were between the ages of 40 and 54. None of them had had a hysterectomy, and none took hormone replacement therapy during the study. All took five cognitive tests designed to assess their memory and cognitive skills at the start of the study, and then again 18 months later. During the study period, 23 percent of the women began to have symptoms of menopause.

The researchers then compared the memory of the women who had entered menopause to those who had not, and found very little difference. In four of the five tests, there were no statistically significant differences in the two groups of women. Only on one test was the difference statistically significant, and that difference, said Fuh, was very slight. This test was designed to assess verbal memory and involved showing the women 70 nonsensical figures. Some of the figures were repeated during the test, while most were not. The women were asked whether they had seen the figure earlier.

"For women, menopause does not mean you’ll develop memory loss," said Dr. Raina Ernstoff, an attending neurologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich. As you’re going through peri-menopause and experiencing symptoms like hot flashes, she said, you may feel lousy and have trouble sleeping , which might temporarily affect your cognitive skills. "I don’t think declining estrogen levels are what causes memory loss," said Dr. Steven Goldstein, an obstetrician/gynecologist at New York University Medical Center in New York City. "It’s not like your memory is bopping along, doing fine and then takes this big dive during menopause, like bone density can."

Both Ernstoff and Goldstein said they weren’t aware of many women who believed that menopause might cause significant memory loss. They also both felt that results from this group of women who were so homogeneous might not apply to different groups of women, such as those living in more industrialized society. And they both said that other factors that weren’t studied could play a role in memory loss, such as hypertension, which can contribute to vascular dementia.

Ernstoff also pointed out that the education backgrounds can play a large role in memory loss. Fuh acknowledged the researchers did attempt to control the data for educational differences.

SOURCES: Jong-Ling Fuh, M.D., attending physician, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, and associate professor, Yang-Ming University School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan; Steven Goldstein, M.D., obstetrician/gynecologist, New York University Medical Center, and professor, obstetrics/gynecology, New York University School of Medicine, New York City; Raina Ernstoff, M.D., attending neurologist, William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Mich., and member, Alzheimer’s Board of Detroit; Oct. 4, 2004, presentation, American Neurological Association, Toronto. For more information visit: www.menozac.com