hair skin and nails vitamins and supplements plus male pattern balding

• HAIR

Did you know that our hair is not there just for looks, it actually serves a purpose, a simple one at that, it helps to keep us warm by preserving the heat in our bodies. The hair that we grow around areas such as the eye's, ears and nose serve the purpose of keeping out the dust and dirt in those sensitive areas. Our eyebrows and eyelashes serve the purpose of decreasing the amount of light that shines into our eyes, thus keeping our eyes protected.The hair on the rest of our bodies also the same as the hair on our heads, serves the purpose of keeping the heat and warmth in our bodies. And believe it or not, hair can actually soften the impact of injuries to our bodies, pretty cool right?

Some people (a majority being men), find that they have premature balding on the head and can start as early as the late teens and is a genetic cause known as, Androgenic Alopecia, also known as "male pattern baldness". It typically begins just above the temples on either side of the head and steadily works its way up to the crown of the head, therfore forming the male pattern baldness. The pattern of the hair loss in women is different to men, with women the hair becomes thinner and does not recede like the male, and women do not get a total hair loss like men.

Genetic variety plays the role in the genetic loss of hair, causing the Anrogenic Alopecia, research is currently being performed on this subject. It had been determined that a hormone called Androgens is related to the hairloss in particular one known as DIHYDROTESTOSTERONE or DHT (if abbreviated), Androgens are an important factor in the male sexual development before birth and during the puberty years, they also regulate the sex drive in men and women.

The male pattern baldness is caused by sensitivity of the hair folicles to DHT, causing them to shrink when they are exposed to it. It shortens the life of the folicles and therefore unable to be producing the hair normally.

Nails grow deep out of the folds in the skin of our fingers and toes. When the epidermal cells underneath the roots of the move up to the skins surface, they increase in number, and the ones that are closest to the root of the nail become flattened and get tightly pressed together. Each individual cell is then transformed into a thin plate, the plates are then built in layers to then form the nail. As with your hair, nails are formed by the process that is called keratinization. When the nail cells have finally accumulated they then push the nail forward and it grows.

The skin that is underneath the nail is formally known as the matrix (pretty cool name). The bigger part of the nail, known as the nail plate, looks pink because of the network of the small accumulation of blood vessels in the underneath dermis (skin as it is commonly known). The whitish half moon shaped area at the base of the nail is called the LUNULA, think of it like this, the half shaped luna moon at the base of the nail is lun-ula, just a quirky way to remember it.

Your fingernails grow about three to four times as quickly as your toenails. As with hair, nails grow faster in summer than they tend to do in winter. If your nail is torn off, it will regrow if the matrix isn't severely damaged. White spots on the nail are sometimes due to temporary changes in growth rate of the nails.