Hair loss is a common trouble for many people all over the world. Although hair loss is not a lethal disease, nor is threatening one's life, its psychological effects are very unpleasant. While there are many advanced ways to treat hair loss, at least to the extent this is possible, a general postulate of modern medicine is that it is much better to prevent a condition or a disease, than to have to treat it. So, what can one do in order to prevent hair loss?
First, it must be clear that very often hair loss is hereditary and it is difficult, or even impossible, to prevent it. If it is in your genes, then you can hardly do much to stop it. Still, even in families, in which the majority of men go bald after a certain age, there are guys and girls who enjoy perfect hair, so if hair loss is common among your relatives, this does not necessarily mean that you will go bald as well. You just have the predisposition to lose your hair but you can always hope that the hair gene will not be very active. However, even if you don't lose your hair, you still carry the gene in you and chances are that it will be transmitted to your children and to your children's children as well. This does not sound very encouraging but unfortunately is a fact.
Still, there are quite a lot of measures one can take to prevent (at least partially) hair loss. One of the exceptions of the hereditary curse are eunuchs. Well, hardly a lot of men will voluntarily get castrated in order to save their hair but it has been known since ancient times that men, who are castrated, don't go bald. The reason is that they don't produce testosterone, which is the main culprit for hair loss. There are modern pills that help decrease the levels of testosterone in one's body but still it is your doctor who should decide whether you can have them or not. Playing with hormones involves many potential risks for one's health, so even if you have the desire to decrease your levels of testosterone to keep you hair from falling, this could lead to more serious conditions that do threaten your health.
Although hereditary reasons and high levels of testosterone are the two main reasons for hair loss, there are also some other factors that cause hair loss and if you know how to avoid them, hair loss can be prevented. For instance, let's take stress and diseases as a hair loss cause. Yes, it is possible to go completely bald because of stress. Fortunately this baldness is very often temporary and when you eliminate the stress factor that caused hair loss, chances are that your hair will be back. Also, if you have ever experienced hair loss due to stress, you will know for the rest of your life that you must avoid getting into stressful situations.
The case with diseases as a hair loss cause is similar to stress, though there are diseases that are certainly more difficult to cure than to eliminate a stress factor. For instance, it is known that many diseases like cancer, diabetes, problems with the prostate, etc. cause hair loss. Well, it is certainly not your choice to get cancer but indirectly you can prevent hair loss, if you regularly have exams to diagnose diseases early. Regular medical exams are good – not only for your hair – but they can even save your life, so if you haven't had an exam in decades, just go and do it!
Another preventable cause of hair loss is diet. This does not mean only slimming diets. Rather, it includes everything you eat and drink. There are many foods and drinks that have a negative effects on your hair and which you should limit or throw out of your diet at all. Alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, sugar, excessive quantities of salt, etc. are considered bad for your health. One interesting fact in this relation is that in Japan before World War II baldness was less common, then after that. The same applies to many other societies. For instance, Asian and African men, when moving to live in the States, started experiencing hair loss more frequently than in comparison to their counterparts in their native countries. Certainly, there are other reasons in addition to diet (for instance stress) that also contributed to this unfavorable change but this does not make less important the fact that fat food is bad for one's health.
An approach to hair loss prevention that has been used very successfully is massage. Massage and aromatherapy slow down the process of losing hair and in some cases of minor hair loss have even helped the hair to regrow. It is no wonder that massage helps because it stimulates the blood circulation at the scalp and this is turn is a way to stimulate hair growth.
Herbs like rosemary and sage are also often used externally with success to prevent hair loss. Enzymes and vitamins are also allies in the fight with hair loss. As you see, there are many ways to prevent hair loss, or at least to minimize the damage.
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