Hair Foundation Blog

In a recent Oprah Magazine article, Your Biggest Hair Problems – Solved!, one of the topics discussed was thinning hair. Within the article, the Hair Foundation’s Dr. Jerry Shapiro, a member of the Scientific Advisory Council and an adjunct professor of dermatology at New York University, was quoted in a passage about hair supplements as an alternative to help thinning hair.

Called, The Truth About Hair Growth Supplements, Shapiro said:

“I have never seen a study that proves vitamin supplements work to make hair grow longer or thicker. If you’re losing hair, supplements can help stop or slow the shedding—but only if you have a deficiency in certain vitamins.”

Shapiro further suggested supplements for those whose blood tests have shown they are low in vitamin D, zinc, or iron, according to Oprah.com. He noted that he doesn’t test for deficiency in biotin, a vitamin most commonly found in supplements promoted to help hair growth.  Shapiro added,

“If you were truly biotin deficient—which is extremely rare in this country—you would be too sick to make it into my office.”

In a second section to the story it discusses, Illusions of Thickness. Two products are suggested for thinning hair and one of them, Toppik, is made by a Hair Foundation partner, Spencer Forrest.

And readers on oprah.com rave about two products for concealing thinning hair: Toppik ($22; toppik.com), a shake-on powder made of tiny keratin fibers that cling to your existing hair to fill in sparse patches.

And in one final section for the article, it discusses areas of research for thinning hair. Currently conducting clinical trials by the drug company Allergan, is a topical hair-loss treatment that contains bimatoprost. This is the active ingredient in Latisse, which grows eyelashes.

Allergan is currently seeking FDA approval. The treatment could be available in 2014, according to Oprah.com.

While not cited in this article, a few of the Hair Foundation’s doctors are involved in the clinical trials. They include Hair Foundation Chairman and President Dr. Matt Leavitt, D.O. and Treasurer Dr. Dow B. Stough, IV, MD, FAAD.

Stay tuned for more information about the trials as we will post updates in this blog.

It’s a tough time of year to think about our diets and working out with so many holiday distractions. With New Year’s quickly approaching, many of us are already thinking about resolutions. I know I have but I haven’t written them down yet.

One of the most popular ones is to lose weight and a lot of people choose to do that by dieting.

In a recent Telegraph article, the question was posed by a reader whether there’s a link between diet and hair loss. After a few months on a low-carb, high-protein diet (think Atkins diet), the woman noticed thinner hair. She asked if there was anything else she could do to help with the hair loss through either diet or treatments.

The question was answered by three different experts: a general practioner, a nutritional therapist and a registered dietician.

Here’s their responses.

GP (Rupal Shah)

In this video from New York’s PIX11 , Dr. Ken Washenik, Hair Foundation’s vice chairman, discusses causes of hair loss and offers treatment suggestions. He mentions Hair Foundation’s partner, Lexington Intl, which recently received FDA clearance for its HairMax Laser Comb.

To learn more about women and hair loss as well as treatments, please visit the Hair Foundation’s new physician video series.

In an online article in Good Housekeeping, Hair Foundation’s board of trustee Zoe Diana Draelos, M.D. and clinical associate professor of dermatology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, offers some tips for women with thinning hair.

Draelos explains that as we age, our once thick ponytail begins to look thinner because ”the diameter of the hair shaft diminishes as we get older.” There’s no need to panic that you’re going to have hair loss but our hair grows more slowly and thins as we age. 

Our thinner hair now makes us look like we have less hair volume. 

By menopause, around 40 percent of women will experience hair loss. If you see yourself losing more than the common 100 strands a day, it could be a problem such as declining estrogen levels, stress or an iron deficiency.

So what are some easy things you can do to boost your hair’s volume? Here’s a few tips from Dr. Draelos as noted in the article:

• Use a volumizing shampoo with rice or wheat proteins
• Stop using stiff, maximum-hold hairsprays
• Avoid too-tight ponytails
• Disguise sparse areas with CRC Concealing Color
• When doing touch-ups at home, keep the dye close to your roots 

August is National Hair Loss Awareness Month. Don’t you owe it to yourself to face the issue “head on” once and for all? If you are like the millions of men and women who suffer from hair loss, it can be a difficult issue for you to discuss. Hair loss could be your body’s way of telling you there is a larger issue or illness you should address. Once you have been evaluated by a physician and concluded you indeed have hair loss that is not associated with a temporary condition such as pregnancy, stress, diet, or hormones, you have several options for restoring your hair, slowing the rate of hair loss or camouflaging your hair loss. Many individuals accept and embrace their new appearance or temporarily try to disguise their hair loss. However, depending on the severity or type of hair loss and your lifestyle, there are many medical and non-medical treatments and solutions that may be right for you.

Dr. Zoe Draelos, a Trustee of the Hair Foundation, discusses myths about hair loss at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/27956.php

Non-Surgical Hair Loss Treatment: As long as people have been concerned about hair loss, there have been products that claim to stop or cure it. Until scientific research discovered the cause of androgenic alopecia (hair loss), medical treatments for hair loss were hit-or-miss. Many people, who suffer from hair loss, first try laser hair therapy, hair systems or wigs, spray on hair, thickeners or powders that effectively camouflage thinning hair or stimulate hair growth.

Today there are products on the market that claim to reverse hair loss, but only two medications have FDA-recognized effectiveness – minoxidil and finasteride.

There are also, surgical treatments for hair loss. All four of the surgical treatments for hair loss involve moving active, hair producing follicles from one site on the scalp to another. Moving hair from an area where hair is more plentiful and less likely to be lost to areas where hair is thinning or missing. While all of these surgical treatments have shown proven success, achieving natural-appearing results has made Transplantation the most widely used surgical procedure for diminishing the appearance (or is the treatment of the condition of hair loss) of hair loss.

Hair Transplant: Gone are the days of the “plugs.” Hair transplantation today achieves a natural look and is made possible by better understanding of the scalp and hair biology, refined surgical techniques and ever-improving surgical instruments.

Scalp Reduction: Scalp (Alopecia) reduction surgically removes bald scalp skin in areas of hair loss and pulls adjoining hair-bearing scalp skin together to eliminate the bald spot.

Scalp Expansion: Scalp expansion is a modification of alopecia reduction. A balloon-type device is placed under the scalp and slowly inflated and expanded over a period of several weeks to create a “dome” or “bubble” of stretched scalp skin. A series of surgical procedures reduces the area of hair loss by alopecia reduction surgery, removes the scalp expansion device, and completes closure of hair-bearing scalp to achieve complete alopecia reduction.

Scalp Flap Transfer: Flap procedures are used in both cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. In the treatment of hair loss, a flap of hair-bearing scalp tissue is surgically raised from underlying tissue and transferred to a prepared scalp site with hair loss.

To learn more about Hair Loss Causes and Treatments, please visit: http://www.hairfoundation.org/hair-loss.htm

And most people think it only happens to men but it also affects women: thinning hair. Whether it occurs on a temporary or permanent basis, it’s not a subject women commonly discuss, but for many, it can be a cause for concern. 

In a recent Oprah Magazine article The Truth About Hair Loss, it discussed thinning hair and mentioned a new option to make hair thicker by using Lasers. The article also included some content about the evolution of hair transplantation for women.

The article quotes the Hair Foundation’s  trustee Dr. Marc Avram. In the section about lasers, Dr. Avram, who conducted a small trial on the HairMax Laser Comb in his office, says the following about the device’s ensuing treatment,  ”After about six months it can grow some hair in about 25 percent of cases.”

Take a look at this article to learn more about options with thinning hair.  Have you ever had hair loss? Do you know anyone who has? If so, what did they do?