Archive for August, 2011

The Role Of Nutrients In Hair Growth

The Role Of Nutrients In Hair Growth ImageHormones and Vitamins play an important role in the Hair growth. Hair consists of a pigment called “Melanin” which also occurs in the skin of human beings. This pigment is responsible for the dark nature of the skin and hair. In Young people, hair has large number of melanin pigments which leads to Dark nature of the hair and with the increase of the age, the no. of melanin pigments decreases, leading to whitening of the hair in old People. In older poeple, the follicles produce thin and long hair, and also sometimes also do not produce any hair. This is the cause for the Baldness in old people.

Alcohol effects hair growth, i.e. Alcoholics have poor hair growth or they experience hair loss due to malnutrition.
The Essential mineral for the growth hair is – Zinc (Zn) which is responsible for hair growth and also prevents hair from becoming Greyish in nature. Hormones and vitamins also have an essential role in hair growth -
Androgens are helpful in hair growth and also helps in Strengthening of Hair Shaft but are present in different ratio in men and women.

The Female hormones called Oestrogens decreases the growth of hair during the growth of the induvidual. During Pregnancy there is difference in hair growth as blood cntains more amount of Oestrogens at that time.

The effect of Androgens in male is different in many people, that is the reason some people do not get beard and hair on the chest upto a certain age of above 25 and a few get at an age of near 20.
Vitamin B – Panthenol Helps in maintaing the growth of hair and also contributes to the elastic nature and strength of the hair. Steroids taken by Asthma patients through inhalation does not effect the hair growth, but if taken orally, will slow down the hair growth.

Finally, Hormones are genetically produced and are determined and they help in growth of the hair.

A-Z of Fats

A Z of Fats ImageWith the low carbohydrate craze, many people have turned their attention to fats. They eat more of it and think its fine. Depending on what kind of fat you are consuming and how much of it you take in, fats can be beneficial or detrimental to your health.

There are three main types of fat. They are saturated, unsaturated and trans fats. Saturated fats come mainly from animal sources such as meat and dairy. At room temperature, saturated fats are solid. Unsaturated fats come mainly from plant sources such as olives and nuts and contain no cholesterol. They are liquid (oil) at room temperature. Unsaturated fats are broken down further in monounsaturated (one double bond) and polyunsaturated (more than one double bond).

You might be asking yourself what a fat is saturated or unsaturated with. A fat molecule (without getting into too much chemistry) is made up of carbon atoms that have hydrogen atoms attached to them.

In saturated fats, all carbon atoms have a single bond to another carbon atom and are also bonded to hydrogen atoms. In unsaturated fats, not all carbons are saturated with hydrogens so double bonds form between carbons. Depending on what carbon the double bond is formed determines the fat’s properties.

Trans fat is man made fat. It is made by taking an unsaturated fat and putting hydrogen through it in a process called hydrogenation. Trans fat is very bad for your health. Whole saturated fat increases LDL (bad) cholesterol and very slightly increases HDL (good) cholesterol, trans fat increases LDL cholesterol and decreases HDL cholesterol.