Hair

How often you should wash your hair, according to science .

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Wash your hair every day? You’re doing it wrong.

You’ve probably wondered how often you need to wash that (sometimes greasy, sometimes not) hair of yours. The question is a vexing one. It’s so common, in fact, that it’s the third suggestion that pops up when typing “how often” into Google (following queries about showering and pooping).

Outside the shower, our scalps gradually get shinier, darker, and more oily. So why does it happen, and how often should you wash to keep the grease at bay?

The root of the issue

Your hair gets greasy for the same reason your face gets oily: glands in the skin produce an oily substance called sebum. Sebum is what moistens hair and keeps it from drying out. The glands that produce sebum (called sebaceous glands) are located next to hair roots in the layer of skin called the dermis. Channels from the sebaceous glands lead to the hair follicle – that’s how sebum gets out of the skin and onto your scalp. Take a look:

hair follicleCredit: Helix84/Wikimedia Commons

The key thing about sebum is this: Each of us produces a different amount. Everything from genetics and hormones affects how much sebum we produce at a given time, Kaiser Permanente dermatologist Paradi Mirmirani told Business Insider in an email. The hormones responsible for extra sebum production spike during puberty, which is what causes so many of us to have extra greasy hair and acne during those lovely years.

How much washing is right for you?

While the answer is different for everyone, no one should need to wash his or her hair every day, says Mirmani. Washing too often, in fact, can do more harm than good, dermatologist and director of Boston Medical Centre’s hair clinicLynne Goldberg told Business Insider. “It’s paradoxical, but people who wash their hair a lot to get rid of oil are drying out their scalp and producing more oil,” Goldberg said.

Besides avoiding washing every day, there are other things to keep in mind when trying to determine the right amount of washing for you. Here are the three main important factors:

1. Skin type

If your skin and hair are anywhere from normal (not super oily and not super dry) to dry, you probably only need to wash it once or twice a week, according to a Columbia University health column. If you have a greasy scalp, you probably need to wash your hair more often.

2. Hair texture

Texture matters because it affects how quickly sebum works its way from your roots through the length of your hair. Coarse or curly hair slows down sebum’s spread, so if you have hair like this you may only need to shampoo once a week,say the experts at Columbia. On the other hand, people with fine, straight hair will likely need to shampoo twice a week or more.

Personally, I go about two days without washing my curly hair. In between shampoos, I rinse my hair, massage my scalp, and apply conditioner to the ends of my hair.

3. Styling

Another thing to consider is the paces you put your hair through styling and treating it. If your hair is processed or damaged by styling, you should wash it less frequently, says Mirmirani. But that’s something you’ll have to find out for yourself. I’ve figured out what works for my hair purely by experimentation. So don’t be afraid to go a couple days without shampooing and see if you like what happens.

Coconut Oil for Hair: Use this Food for a New Level of Luster.

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Story at-a-glance

  • In a comparison study evaluating mineral oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil as possible products for nurturing and conditioning hair, coconut oil was the only oil that reduced protein loss for both damaged and undamaged hair. More porous types of hair may find coconut oil particularly beneficial, such as African and chemically treated hair
  • Researchers have compared the effectiveness of a coconut oil and anise spray versus the commonly prescribed permethrin lotion for the treatment of head lice. The coconut oil/anise spray was significantly more effective at treating head lice, successfully curing 82 percent of cases, compared to the 42 percent cure rate of permethrin lotion
  • Coconut oil can also help improve the appearance of skin with its inherent anti-aging benefits. When absorbed into your skin and connective tissues, it helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by helping to keep your connective tissues strong and supple.
  • Coconut Oil for Hair

Did you know one of the best personal care products you’ll ever find may be sitting in your kitchen cupboard right now?

I’m talking about coconut oil, which is equally beneficial externally as it is taken internally, and can be used for both skin and hair.

The featured coconutoil.com article written by Brian and Marianita Shilhavy discusses several of the lesser-known benefits of coconut oil for your hair.

According to one study, which compared mineral oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil as possible products for nurturing and conditioning hair, coconut oil was the only oil that reduced protein loss for both damaged and undamaged hair.1

These findings were true when used as either a pre-wash or post-wash grooming product, but coconut oil achieved the greatest results when used as a pre-wash treatment.

Part of the reason for this is because coconut oil is hydrophobic, meaning it repels water.

So when applied as a pre-wash conditioner, it inhibits the penetration of water into each strand, which would otherwise cause the cuticle, or surface of the hair shaft, to rise, making it prone to damage and breakage.

Furthermore, when applied as a pre-wash treatment, a small amount of the coconut oil is able to penetrate deeper into the hair shaft during the wash, when the hair fiber swells slightly.

This can also explain why so many rave about the oil’s ability to prevent “the frizzies” in humid weather—this is another feature of its hydrophobic activity.

According to the study, which was published in the Journal of Cosmetic Science:2

“The findings clearly indicate the strong impact that coconut oil application has to hair as compared to application of both sunflower and mineral oils. …

Both sunflower and mineral oils do not help at all in reducing the protein loss from hair. This difference in results could arise from the composition of each of these oils. Coconut oil, being a triglyceride of lauric acid (principal fatty acid), has a high affinity for hair proteins and, because of its low molecular weight and straight linear chain, is able to penetrate inside the hair shaft.

Mineral oil, being a hydrocarbon, has no affinity for proteins and therefore is not able to penetrate and yield better results. In the case of sunflower oil, although it is a triglyceride of linoleic acid, because of its bulky structure due to the presence of double bonds, it does not penetrate the fiber, consequently resulting in no favorable impact on protein loss.”

More porous types of hair may find coconut oil particularly beneficial, such as African- and chemically treated hair. The featured article on coconutoil.com includes a couple of videos demonstrating how some people are using coconut oil for hair care.

Can Coconut Oil Successfully Treat Head Lice?

Another interesting study relating to the use of coconut oil on hair was published in the European Journal of Pediatrics two years ago.3 Here, the researchers compared the effectiveness of a coconut oil and anise spray versus the commonly prescribed permethrin lotion for the treatment of head lice.

According to the authors:

“We designed a randomized, controlled, parallel group trial involving 100 participants with active head louse infestation to investigate the activity of a coconut and anise spray and to see whether permethrin lotion is still effective, using two applications of product 9 days apart. The spray was significantly more successful (41/50, 82.0%) cures compared with permethrin (21/50, 42.0%…). Per-protocol success was 83.3% and 44.7%, respectively. Thirty-three people reported irritant reactions following alcohol contact with excoriated skin. We concluded that, although permethrin lotion is still effective for some people, the coconut and anise spray can be a significantly more effective alternative treatment.” [Emphasis mine]

Isn’t it wonderful to see how nature provides us with the answers to so many of our ills? And does so in a way that is oftentimes more effective than our chemical drug concoctions!

Another anecdotal Hawaiian head lice treatment from a woman named Linda (quoted in the featured article by Brian and Marianita Shilhavy4) is to first soak your hair in vinegar and leave it in to dry (don’t rinse). Next coat your hair with coconut oil over night. I’d recommend sleeping with a shower cap to protect your bedding. The following day the nits reportedly comb out easily.

Yet another anecdotal head lice treatment was received from one of my own readers, several years ago, named Patty. She suggests just using a nit comb in lieu of toxic chemical treatments like Kwell and Nix. However, in order to be really effective it’s best if you can pull the comb through your or your child’s hair quickly and smoothly. To address tangles, she suggests using two tablespoons of baking soda in a quart of water. Rinse your hair with the solution after shampooing and leave in, which reportedly leaves your hair silky smooth and easy to comb through.

Coconut Oil as a Skin Moisturizer

One of the core principles to remember when it comes to skin care is that whatever you slather onto your skin will absorb into your body and enter your bloodstream. This is why it’s so important to avoid personal care products containing questionable chemicals! Your skin is an excellent drug delivery system, so you should be just as careful with what you put on your skin as you are with what you eat, if not more so, as your gut actually helps protect you against some of the toxins you ingest by filtering them out…

I’ve long advocated using plain organic coconut oil for your skin care needs.

It’s been used for decades by professional massage therapists to knead away tight stressed muscles, and coconut oil is well-known for its skin care benefits. It helps protect your skin from the aging effects of free radicals, and can help improve the appearance of skin with its anti-aging benefits.

In fact, physiologist and biochemist Ray Peat, Ph.D. considers coconut oil an antioxidant,5 due to its stability and resistance to oxidation and free radical formation. Plus, he believes it reduces our need for the antioxidant protection of vitamin E. Like Dr. Peat, many believe coconut oil may help restore more youthful-looking skin. When absorbed into your skin and connective tissues, it helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by helping to keep your connective tissues strong and supple. It also aids in exfoliating the outer layer of dead skin cells, making your skin smoother.

Part of the “secret” that makes coconut oil such a healthful oil is its high lauric acid content—about 50 percent of coconut oil is lauric acid. This fat is quite rare in nature, and has a unique set of health promoting properties. For example, your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, which has anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-protozoa properties,12 which may also help explain its potent healing powers when used topically for skin and scalp issues. Capric acid, another coconut fatty acid present in smaller amounts, has also been found to have antimicrobial activity.

Monolaurin (converted from the lauric acid in your body) is potent enough to destroy lipid-coated viruses such as:

  • HIV, herpes
  • Measles
  • Influenza virus
  • Various pathogenic bacteria
  • Protozoa such as giardia lamblia.

Feeding Your Skin from the Inside Out

Ideally, you’ll want to avoid toxins and feed your body with proper nutrition both inside and out. If your diet and overall lifestyle is poor, it tends to be reflected in your skin and hair.

For example, if the skin on the top of your hand is not smooth as a baby’s behind, it’s a strong indication that your body is deficient in omega-3 fats. I believe most people need to be taking a high quality omega-3 supplement as omega-3 deficiency is as rampant as vitamin D deficiency. My favorite is krill oil, as its overall health benefits surpass that of regular fish oil, largely because it is far more bioavailable, better protected with antioxidants and therefore not rancid, and far more sustainable than fish oil.

Krill oil also naturally contains another excellent skin benefactor, namely astaxanthin—a potent antioxidant that has been identified as being beneficial for your complexion. Not only can astaxanthin give your skin an attractive glow, it may also help prevent wrinkles from the inside out, and can help protect your skin against a variety of radiation, both from medical scans and harmful UVA sun rays. Yes, it actually works like an internal sunscreen.

One of the most profoundly effective ways to improve your complexion is by consuming vegetables and fruits that are high in carotenoids. Carotenoids give red, orange and yellow fruits their color, and also occur in green vegetables. Astaxanthin, which is also part of the carotenoids family, is produced only by the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis. It is what gives shrimp and flamingos their pink color, courtesy of the astaxanthin in the algae that is part of their staple diet.

Studies have shown that eating foods with these deeply colored pigments can help make your face actually look healthier than being tanned. In one study, the more red and yellow tones found in the person’s skin, the more attractive they were found to be.13 The redder tones are caused when people are flushed with blood, particularly if the blood has lots of oxygen in it. Dr. Stephan found that, given the choice between skin color caused by suntan and skin color caused by carotenoids, people preferred the carotenoid skin color, so if you want a healthier and more attractive skin color, you are better off eating a healthy diet.

I’m also convinced that astaxanthin can be a profoundly beneficial supplement for most people, much like omega-3 fat, because of its multi-varied health benefits.

Not only is it a potent antioxidant, but it is probably the most potent natural anti-inflammatory we know of, and it is likely to help prevent cataracts and macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in the US. While krill oil contains astaxanthin naturally, it does not contain what is now believed to be therapeutic amounts, so I recommend taking a separate astaxanthin supplement for most people. Studies suggest the ideal dose is around 10-12 mg per day for clinically relevant benefits.

Baldness cure a ‘step closer’

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Scientists say they have moved a step closer to banishing bald spots and reversing receding hairlines after human hair was grown in the laboratory.

Bald man combing scalp

A joint UK and US team was able to create new hairs from tissue samples.

Far more research is needed, but the group said its technique had the “potential to transform” the treatment of hair loss.

The study results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

There are baldness therapies including drugs to slow the loss of hairs, and transplants, which move hair from the back of the head to cover bald spots.

“Yeah I think it [baldness] will eventually be treatable, absolutely.”

Prof Colin Jahoda, Durham University

The scientists at the University of Durham, in the UK, and Columbia University Medical Centre, in the US, were trying to actually grow new hairs.

Their plan was to start with material taken from the base of a hair and use it to grow many new hairs.

Tricky feat

But human hair has been tricky to grow despite successes in animal studies.

Whenever human tissue was taken from the dermal papillae, the cells which form the base of each hair follicle, the cells would transform into skin instead of growing new hairs.

However, the group found that by clumping the cells together in “3D spheroids” they would keep their hairy identity.

Tissue was taken from seven people and grown in 3D spheroids. These were then transplanted into human skin which had been grafted on to the backs of mice.

Hair follicle
Cells were taken from the base of a follicle and used to grow new hairs

After six weeks, new hair follicles formed in five out of the seven cases and some new tiny hairs began to form.

Prof Colin Jahoda, from Durham University, told the BBC a cure for baldness was possible but it was too soon for men to be hanging up the toupee.

“It’s closer, but it’s still some way away because in terms of what people want cosmetically they’re looking for re-growth of hair that’s the same shape, the same size, as long as before, the same angle. Some of these are almost engineering solutions.

“Yeah I think it [baldness] will eventually be treatable, absolutely.”

He added: “It’s hard to say exactly how long that would take, but the fact that we’ve done it now should reawaken interest.”

Any future therapy would involve transplanting cells which have been grown in the laboratory so safety is a concern.

There would be a risk of infection and the cells could become abnormal, or even cancerous, while being grown.

Baldness cures may not be the first application of the research. Prof Jahoda believes the findings will be used to improve the quality of skin grafts used after severe burns.

Prof Angela Christiano, from Columbia University, said: “This approach has the potential to transform the medical treatment of hair loss.

“Current hair-loss medications tend to slow the loss of hair follicles or potentially stimulate the growth of existing hairs, but they do not create new hair follicles.

“Our method, in contrast, has the potential to actually grow new follicles using a patient’s own cells.”

A Possible Cure for Baldness, in 3D.

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Set the ball rolling. Human skin cells grown on a flat culture remain dispersed and unable to induce the formation of hair follicles (left). But in a 3D culture, the cells form spheres that can coax new hair follicle growth (right).

Christiano lab, Columbia University

Set the ball rolling. Human skin cells grown on a flat culture remain dispersed and unable to induce the formation of hair follicles (left). But in a 3D culture, the cells form spheres that can coax new hair follicle growth (right).

Scientists have successfully grown new hair follicles from the skin cells of balding men. While the research team hasn’t yet shown whether the structures, which produce strands of hair on our bodies, are fully functional and usable for transplants onto a scalp, experts say the discovery is a significant step toward finding new treatments for hair loss.

“Their work is very elegant and extremely rigorous,” says Radhika Atit, a skin biologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not involved in the new study. “This is a big technical advance.”

Balding occurs when hair follicles stop producing new strands of hair in any area of the body. Now, taking drugs that prevent or slow the hair loss or transplanting hair follicles from one area of the body to another are the only viable treatments. Producing new hair follicles in the lab has not been an option—at least for human patients. In mice, researchers have shown that if they isolate dermal papilla cells, which surround hair follicles in the skin, grow them in petri dishes to produce new cells, and then put the cells back in the mouse, new hair follicles will develop. But when dermal papilla cells from humans are put into dishes in the lab, they lose their ability to induce the formation of new follicles.

Angela Christiano, a skin researcher at Columbia University who has discovered genes related to hair loss, recently brainstormed potential solutions to the problem with her colleagues. They noticed that while the dermal papilla cells from mice naturally formed large clumps in culture, the human cells didn’t. “We began thinking that maybe if we could get the human cells to aggregate like the mouse cells, that might be a step toward getting them to form new follicles,” Christiano says.

Her team decided to try a cell-growing approach, called 3D cultures, that’s been successful for other types of cells that need to form complex structures as they grow. The researchers collected dermal papilla cells from seven volunteers who had been diagnosed with male-pattern baldness. Rather than stick the isolated cells on a flat culture dish, they mixed the cells with liquid, then let the mixture hang in tiny droplets from a plastic lid, like condensation on the roof of a container. Because the cells inside the droplets are free-floating, the technique allows them to contact each other in every direction, as they would in the human body, rather than only touch side to side as they do in a flat dish. In the droplets, the cells behaved differently; as they divided to form new cells, they clumped into what the researchers call “spheroids”—balls of about 3000 cells.

To test whether the new spheroids were a better mimic for functional dermal papilla cells than those that had been grown in typical dishes, Christiano and her team determined what genes were turned on and off in different sets of dermal papilla cells. In cells grown on flat culture dishes, the expression of thousands of genes didn’t match up with their normal patterns, explaining why the cells from those dishes had been unable to generate new hair follicles. But in the 3D cultures, 22% of those genes had been restored to their correct on or off state.

The researchers then took 10 to 15 of the spheroids that had formed from each donor and sandwiched them between two layers of human skin that were grafted onto mice. Six weeks later,spheroids from five of the seven donors had coaxed the skin cells around them to start rearranging, forming the telltale shape of a hair follicle, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In two cases, hairs were even seen beginning to extend from the follicles, though the researchers didn’t continue the initial experiment for long enough to test whether the hairs were fully normal in terms of their ability to regrow.

Using one’s own cells to generate new follicles is useful because hair color and thickness will match perfectly with the rest of someone’s head of hair, Christiano notes. And with the new tissue culture technique, clinicians would be able to take just a few dermal papilla cells from a balding patient and expand the number of hair follicles available for transplant, rather than only be able to move follicles around. “Using this technique could change the number of people who would be eligible for hair transplants,” Christiano says.

The success of the approach is exciting, but the real breakthrough for other researchers in the field is the new data on gene expression in dermal papilla cells, says George Cotsarelis, a dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania. The full readout of what genes are on and off in dermal papilla cells has never been collected before, so researchers now have a new list of thousands of genes to study further that may play key roles in hair follicle development. “It could have implications for not just hair, but treating wounds and scarring,” he says.

The spheroids capable of producing hair follicles could also be used as a new way to test drugs for their ability to restore follicle function, Atit says. “This is a better model system to use for drug testing than a two-dimensional plate.”

Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Scalp Cooling in the Prevention of Chemotherapy-Induced Alopecia.

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Abstract

Introduction. The success of scalp cooling in preventing or reducing chemotherapy-induced alopecia (CIA) is highly variable between patients and chemotherapy regimens. The outcome of hair preservation is often unpredictable and depends on various factors.

Methods. We performed a structured search of literature published from 1970 to February 2012 for articles that reported on factors influencing the effectiveness of scalp cooling to prevent CIA in patients with cancer.

Results. The literature search identified 192 reports, of which 32 studies were considered relevant. Randomized studies on scalp cooling are scarce and there is little information on the determinants of the result. The effectiveness of scalp cooling for hair preservation depends on dose and type of chemotherapy, with less favorable results at higher doses. Temperature seems to be an important determinant. Various studies suggest that a subcutaneous scalp temperature less than 22°C is required for hair preservation.

Conclusions. The effectiveness of scalp cooling for hair preservation varies by chemotherapy type and dose, and probably by the degree and duration of cooling.

Do your hair and fingernails grow after death?

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The gruesome sight features in literature and horror films, but is it true? To find out, we need to look into the world of organ transplants.

nail

 

Your hearts stops, your blood goes cold and your limbs stiffen. Yet amidst the signs that you are no more, your fingernails continue to lengthen and your hair grows – or so we’re told.

The young narrator in Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet of the Western Front imagines the nails of a friend who has died of gangrene continuing to grow into corkscrews as the hair on his decaying skull lengthens “like grass in good soil”. It’s an idea that’s not pleasant, yet seems to endure. Is it true, though?

Not surprisingly there haven’t been many systematic studies measuring daily changes in fingernail and hair length in the dead. For hints we can turn to historical anecdotes and descriptions provided by medical students working with cadavers. Transplant surgeons are also experienced in calculating the length of time the different kinds of cells continue to function beyond death.

Different cells die at different rates. After the heart stops beating, oxygen supply to the brain is cut off. With no glucose store to rely on, nerve cells die within three to seven minutes.

Transplant surgeons must remove kidneys, livers and hearts from donors within thirty minutes of death and get them into recipients inside six hours. Skin cells, meanwhile, are longer lived. Grafts can still be successful if taken 12 hours after death.

In order for fingernails to grow, new cells need to be produced and this can’t happen without glucose. Fingernails grow by an average of 0.1mm per day, a rate which slows as we age. A layer of tissue beneath the base of the nail called the germinal matrix is responsible for producing the vast majority of the cells which form the newest-growing part of the fingernail. The new cells push the older ones forwards, making the nail appear to lengthen from the tip. Death puts a stop to the supply of glucose, and therefore to fingernail growth.

A similar process occurs for hair. Each hair sits within a follicle that drives its growth. At the base of the follicle is the hair matrix, a group of cells that divide to produce the new cells that make hair strands longer. These cells divide very rapidly, but only when supplied with energy. This comes from the burning of glucose, which requires the presence of oxygen. Once the heart stops pumping oxygen round the body in the blood, the energy supply dries up, and so does the cell division that drives hair growth.

So why do myths persist about stubble growing on dead men’s chins and fingernails lengthening? While such observations are false, they do have a biological basis. It is not that the fingernails are growing, but that the skin around them retracts as it becomes dehydrated, making them appear longer. When preparing a body, funeral directors will sometimes moisturise the fingertips to counteract this.

The skin on a dead man’s chin also dries out. As it does so it pulls back towards the skull, making stubble appear more prominent. Goosebumps caused by the contraction of the hair muscles can add to the effect.

So if your mind is plagued by images of graveyards scattered with lids pushed from their coffins by the flowing locks and grotesquely long and twisted fingernails skeletons, you can rest easy. Such scenes may feature in literature and in horror films, but not in the real world.

Source: BBC