How Does Hair Grow?

Introduction

Everyone loves to have long, lustrous, shiny hair that is envied by all. Most of us are blessed with such hair when young. But various reasons including a bad diet, air and water pollution, medications and stressful living makes one lose hair in course of time.

History

Hair grows in three stages, they are anagen, catagen and telegon. The first anagen phase lasts up to eight years. During this phase the cells divide, the hair gets keratinized and is pushed into the pore. The length of a person’s hair depends on the duration of this phase. A person who has a long anagen phase can grow long hair when compared to a person whose anagen phase last for two or three years only. When left uncut hair grow ½ an inch every month.

The catagen phase that follows the anagen phase is for a very short duration and lasts between two to four weeks. This is the renewal period and hair stops growing during this time. The hair does not fall but the hair follicles shrink. It is reduced to 1/6 of its normal length and the follicle eventually disintegrates.

The last phase, called the telogen phase is between two to four months and is also called the resting phase. The hair is still attached to the follicle but there is no hair grow. About 1/6 of the hair is in this phase at a time.

This phase completes the cycle and the anagen phase starts and when new hair grow the old ones fall off. Normally 50-100 hairs fall daily and new hairs replace them. The number of hair a person has varies. While blondes have more than average number of hairs, brunettes have slightly more than average and redheads have less than the average number.

Features

Hair fallout is a normal occurrence and if a person has lustrous hair it will not be noticeable. There is visible hair loss once a person reaches middle age and there is heavy hair loss and even baldness as a person reaches sixty years of age. This varies from person to person. In these days of hectic living, improper and irregular eating habits and pollution, more and more people are experiencing hair loss from a young age.

The market is flooded with products of all kinds to prevent hair loss and to make hair grow. There are chemical based products that promise quick remedies and perfect treatment, but these can cause more harm than good.

There are also many natural products that are free of all chemicals and prepared with natural ingredients. It can however be confusing to know the best products that will prevent hair fall and help hair grow. The various online reviews, testimonials, blogs and social networking sites provide information on hair products.

 

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