Shedding and terminal length-A theory.

[Bagginslover]

OK, I know we all shed constantly, due to hairs coming to the end of their growth cycles, and it seems to be heavier seasonally, but what the odd times we have really long, heavy shed, seemingly for no reason?

I have a theory.

When I was born, I had a full head of hair. I was born mid september, so I'd estimate this hair began growing around mid august. This year I began a VERY heavy shed at the end of august, which is onnly just now tapering off. I had a similar heavy shed approximately 8 years ago, both then and now, there is no health, or emotional reason for it.

My theory is that we shed particularly heavily at a regular interval (each persons interval is different), based upon when our hair first grew in as a baby, and on the length of the growing phase of our hair.

If this interval can be recorded, and our average growth per month also recorded, it should be easy to then calculate a persons approximate terminal length.

Thoughts?

[vindo]

Hm...tbh science would not support your theory. Biologically there also is no connection to your first hair growth that has been recorded.

Here is what I think is likely:
During the last Winter you could have dealt with a Vitamin D deficiency that once your levels got low enough caused some hair to go into the resting phase by spring, and then shed about three months later in August. Time frame wise it would certainly fit perfectly. The same could have happened when you were eight. For babies it is normal to shed hair at a certain age and regrow a fuller head of hair ;)

Terminal length can be calculated another way though. I came up with a way that takes taper and shedding into consideration and gives you and idea what the terminal length would be eith your current amount of taper and shedding. It was pretty acurate for some of my forum members and certainly fun :D

[Bagginslover]

Taper would only work for people who don't trim though surely? Also my hair is artificially tapered with layers.

Barring health factors, the gap from one huge shed to another (and I mean huge, I'm talking about a quarter of my volume each time) ought to be an indicator of how long my hair will grow for. I actually spent MORE time outside last winter than previous years, as I had to walk to work in the heavy snows ;) Perhaps I was reaching a little with the baby hais, but again, there ought to be a correlation to the time our first 'adult hairs' grew in as a child.

[vindo]

Taper would only work for people who don't trim though surely? Also my hair is artificially tapered with layers.


It will work for non trimmers also, you still get taper because taper also has to do with your terminal length (many hairs won't make it to terminal length and shed before, others are short, which results in taper)
Layers can definitely skew the result a bit, BUT that is why I noted that it only gives you an idea of your terminal length if your hair was left in it's current state. So if your layers were just left basically.




Barring health factors, the gap from one huge shed to another (and I mean huge, I'm talking about a quarter of my volume each time) ought to be an indicator of how long my hair will grow for. I actually spent MORE time outside last winter than previous years, as I had to walk to work in the heavy snows ;) Perhaps I was reaching a little with the baby hais, but again, there ought to be a correlation to the time our first 'adult hairs' grew in as a child.

I'm not sure I understand this, maybe you could rephrase? :confused::o
As far as being outside goes - that is not the cure it all for Vitamin D deficiency. There could be a malabsorption at play, you could have lacked other nutrients that are vital for Vitamin D production. It is not only about how much day light you get ;)

Infant hair growth always follows the same pattern within approximately the same time frame.


When I was born, I had a full head of hair. I was born mid september, so I'd estimate this hair began growing around mid august.
Fetal hair starts growing around 15 weeks gestation in the womb btw. Not shortly before birth!
-Eight to twelve weeks after birth, hair goes through its final phase, often resulting in nearly complete hair loss.
At birth and up to about 8 weeks after, isolated areas of baldness are normal.

-At birth, infants have vellus hair which is very thin and silky and very lightly colored. Between 3 to 7 months, intermediate hair develops. Finally, by 2 years, terminal hair develops which is like grown-up hair.

-Infant hair growth varies a lot between infants. But, for each infant, the hair length for the entire head should be pretty consistent .

"Seasonal Sheds" are common, but not natural. One should not shed at a certain time during the year if in perfect health and balance. Of course something can always happen, like stress, lacking a certain nutrient. But bottom line is nature did not plan for you to shed at a certain time of the year. This and the growth phases of infant hair makes the theory that current sheds might be related to infant hair loss very unlikely. :shrug:

[vanillabones]

I don't agree... I was born in late December and my heavy shed also only happens around the end of summer/August.

[jeanniet]

Emichee is right, most (if not all) babies shed their newborn hair somewhere around 4-6 months. Both my sons were born with a reasonable amount of hair and were pretty bald at about six months. The shed on their heads coincided with losing the excess bit of hair they had growing on their ears, btw (babies often have extra hair growing on the ears, shoulders, etc.). In any case, I was born in August and my seasonal shed is in the late spring/early summer.

[Naiadryade]

During the last Winter you could have dealt with a Vitamin D deficiency that once your levels got low enough caused some hair to go into the resting phase by spring, and then shed about three months later in August. Time frame wise it would certainly fit perfectly.

Terminal length can be calculated another way though. I came up with a way that takes taper and shedding into consideration and gives you and idea what the terminal length would be eith your current amount of taper and shedding. It was pretty acurate for some of my forum members and certainly fun :D

:agape: that makes so much sense! I bet that happens to lots of people. It's so easy to get vitamin D deficient in the winter.

Would you please share your method of calculating terminal? It sounds intriguing!


I actually spent MORE time outside last winter than previous years, as I had to walk to work in the heavy snows ;)

As far as being outside goes - that is not the cure it all for Vitamin D deficiency. There could be a malabsorption at play, you could have lacked other nutrients that are vital for Vitamin D production. It is not only about how much day light you get ;)

Additionally there is simply where you live to consider. Once you get above a certain latitude, you cannot produce vitamin D in your body from sunlight, because the sunlight is not strong enough. It is coming in at a low angle through the atmosphere, and is the UVB is filtered out too much.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2839537 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2839537:):"Human skin ... exposed to sunlight on cloudless days in Boston (42.2 degrees N) from November through February produced no previtamin D3. In Edmonton (52 degrees N) this ineffective winter period extended from October through March. Further south (34 degrees N and 18 degrees N), sunlight effectively photoconverted 7-dehydrocholesterol to previtamin D3 in the middle of winter."

Also see http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/time-for-more-vitamin-d.htm

[ravenreed]

I have posted about my horrible sheds after each of my sons were born and how I get a 7 year anniversary shed from that. First time it happened I couldn't figure out why, but the second time I started counting backwards and figured it out. Neither of my sons had a post-birth shed because they were both bald eggs when they were born. They didn't have any hair at all until they were nearly 2.

[prettyinpink]

Wow, that makes sense! So you think your terminal time is 8yrs???

[EdG]

I have never experienced seasonal shedding, but there appears to be a lot of evidence on LHC that such a phenomenon exists. It is conceivable that the growth cycles of individual hair follicles are not completely unsynchronized, but rather that humans retain some remnants of moulting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moult) in our DNA.

I expect that such effects would be minimal. It may be hard to distinguish extremely low levels of moulting from shedding due to diet or stress.
Ed

[Crumpet]

There is a lot of forensic science on hair growth, shedding, phases, etc. For example: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27802197

Endlessly fascinating reading for those of us who want some of the science behind hair. I love that our hair keeps track of our lives so well. Birthing cycles, health, etc can all be tracked in our strands.

[vindo]

I have never experienced seasonal shedding, but there appears to be a lot of evidence on LHC that such a phenomenon exists. It is conceivable that the growth cycles of individual hair follicles are not completely unsynchronized, but rather that humans retain some remnants of moulting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moult) in our DNA.

I expect that such effects would be minimal. It may be hard to distinguish extremely low levels of moulting from shedding due to diet or stress.
Ed

Me thinks that maybe a way to distinguish could be "regrowth", if one has a whole patch of regrowth, lots of short hairs growing back at once I would assume the reason could be some sort of "shock" to the body rather than moulting...which I believe would be more gradual. By "shock" I mean a sudden deficiency, hormonal imbalance, malnutrition, stress, trauma etc.

I found this interesting in the article you linked to:


While humans do not strictly moult, an important part of the skin's defense against fungi is stratum corneum turnover that removes the microbes by shedding the old skin surface. This is increased by the immune system detection of dermatophytes (skin living fungi) such as Trichophyton rubrum.[12]

Fungi, yeast, candida...maybe there is a possibility that some people suffer from seasonal bacterial overgrowth, rather than just shedding because a certain time of the year comes around.
Yeast survives best under certain conditions, so maybe when conditions change, it increases or decreases causing the hair to shed more or less. Yeast can suffocate hair follicles. Not all yeast is detectable (until it reaches a clinical level = not good), but I wonder if dandruffy people are more likely to shed/ be seasonal shedders.
Me for example, I don't shed seasonally and I never had problems with dandruff in my adult life (but recently had a case of yeast on my scalp and face and shed facial peach fuzz as well as head hair thanks to it :()
Just an idea.

[vindo]

:agape: that makes so much sense! I bet that happens to lots of people. It's so easy to get vitamin D deficient in the winter.

Would you please share your method of calculating terminal? It sounds intriguing!

I will send you a PM soon! It will take me a bit to retrieve the old thread (2008) on my forums archives, but I need to move some things to the new board anyway. :)
I have been wanting to share it, but I need to also translate it from German to English.



Additionally there is simply where you live to consider. Once you get above a certain latitude, you cannot produce vitamin D in your body from sunlight, because the sunlight is not strong enough. It is coming in at a low angle through the atmosphere, and is the UVB is filtered out too much.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2839537 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2839537:):"Human skin ... exposed to sunlight on cloudless days in Boston (42.2 degrees N) from November through February produced no previtamin D3. In Edmonton (52 degrees N) this ineffective winter period extended from October through March. Further south (34 degrees N and 18 degrees N), sunlight effectively photoconverted 7-dehydrocholesterol to previtamin D3 in the middle of winter."

Also see http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/time-for-more-vitamin-d.htm

I agree with the sun exposure problem. The only way to absorb enough in certain parts of the world is, according to some scientists and doctors that have researched Vitamin D. absorption, being naked all day...outside :lol:

But other sources you can make up for it with diet:

Inuits, who don’t get that much sun exposure still have a darker skin because they get plenty of Vitamin D in one of the only food sources of it, fatty fish. It’s the fat in the fish that contains all the Vitamin D. When our ancestors moved north hundreds of thousands of years ago, we started to get less sunlight exposure and our skin became lighter to compensate. That makes white and black skin pretty much only a matter of Vitamin D absorption. Therefore, black people living in northern climates are at even greater risk of Vitamin D deficiency.
Just, I am sure not everyone's diet provides enough of it. :/

[Naiadryade]

Thanks, Emichiee!

And oops, I meant to say "Once you get above a certain latitude, you cannot produce vitamin D in your body from sunlight in the winter." So yeah, the only way to get it is dietary (fatty fish, as you say) or through supplementation. My understanding of the traditional Inuit diet is they eat fish and meat almost (or entirely) exclusively, because plants don't really grow in the arctic. It makes sense that a diet composed mostly of cold-water fish would provide enough vitamin D--you need to eat 2-3+ servings of fatty fish daily to get your RDA of vitamin D. I always supplement in the winter in addition to eating fish and fortified foods. Or rather, when I forget to supplement, I get all messed up and depressed by late winter. :demon::silly:

[Bagginslover]

I have posted about my horrible sheds after each of my sons were born and how I get a 7 year anniversary shed from that. First time it happened I couldn't figure out why, but the second time I started counting backwards and figured it out. Neither of my sons had a post-birth shed because they were both bald eggs when they were born. They didn't have any hair at all until they were nearly 2.

This is the same thing as I am experiencing, big sheds, with a regular interval between. But this is just a theory, I'm pleased its provoked discussion :)

OK, so my guesses about baby hair were wrong (they were just guesses) but my theory being based upon when a large proportoin of hair grew in, still stands, just with it starting after that several month-old shed ;) Vitamin D, I honestly don't know enough about it, but my diet hasn't changed in years, and as I said, I spent more time outside, and the weather wasn't vastly different to any other UK winter last year, so my production and absorbtion rates will not have been drastically different to the previous 7 years, as I said, if anything, they would have been better.

I don't think everyone will shed around their birthday, I just seem to myself. The time you shed will entirely depend on your own hairs growth phase time.

There is bound to be a time where more hair will fall than others, unless someone has an underlying health issue (and if I do, then the Drs are doing a poor job at monitoring me!).

I will continue to watch my shedding, I'll be very interested to see what happens in another 8 years....

[florenonite]

I agree with the sun exposure problem. The only way to absorb enough in certain parts of the world is, according to some scientists and doctors that have researched Vitamin D. absorption, being naked all day...outside :lol:

But other sources you can make up for it with diet:

Just, I am sure not everyone's diet provides enough of it. :/

IIRC, not everyone is even capable of assimilating it through diet. According to the NHS, our bodies store vitamin D in the summer to see us through the winter:


In the UK, our skin isn't able to make vitamin D from winter sunlight (November to March) as the sunlight hasn't got enough UVB (ultraviolet B) radiation. During the winter, we get vitamin D from our body's stores and from food sources.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Summerhealth/Pages/vitamin-D-sunlight.aspx

I would assume how much we use our bodies' stores and how much we need to consume depends on things like skin tone and sun exposure the previous summer. So, Bagginslover, I would look to the summer before last as a clue to your vitamin D production rather than the winter, because you won't be producing any vit D in the winter (also, I know Gloucestershire is further south than here, but I can't help wondering about your work schedule if you actually get to walk to work in daylight in the winter :lol:).

[chen bao jun]

I had a thick head of hair when I was born, same texture I have now, never lost it, just grew more and don't have seasonal sheds, I just shed like a poodle all the time, lol

[Leery]

Fungi, yeast, candida...maybe there is a possibility that some people suffer from seasonal bacterial overgrowth, rather than just shedding because a certain time of the year comes around.
Yeast survives best under certain conditions, so maybe when conditions change, it increases or decreases causing the hair to shed more or less. Yeast can suffocate hair follicles. Not all yeast is detectable (until it reaches a clinical level = not good), but I wonder if dandruffy people are more likely to shed/ be seasonal shedders.
Me for example, I don't shed seasonally and I never had problems with dandruff in my adult life (but recently had a case of yeast on my scalp and face and shed facial peach fuzz as well as head hair thanks to it :()
Just an idea.

Makes sense - all of my heavy shedding issues were accompanied by dandruff and itchiness.

[lapushka]

I seem to vaguely remember that something in our bodies (hair) gets replaced totally every 7 years. Skin? Hair? I forget...

[jeanniet]

Am I the only one seeing that "Are Babies Going Bald?" ad? Gee, I wonder where that came from! :google:

[EdG]

Am I the only one seeing that "Are Babies Going Bald?" ad? Gee, I wonder where that came from! :google:Yes, I turned on Javascript and there it was. :eek:

I'm going to turn the ads off now. :lol:
Ed

[vindo]

I seem to vaguely remember that something in our bodies (hair) gets replaced totally every 7 years. Skin? Hair? I forget...
The whole body renews itself constantly. Here is a creepy read:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1219995/Believe-lungs-weeks-old--taste-buds-just-days-So-old-rest-body.html

The hairs growing phases can last between 3-7 years but for some people it is even shorter...or longer which explains people with very, very long hair. Not allour hairs have the same terminal length either, but a certain percentage will make it very long (which bring us back to taper) :cool:



Am I the only one seeing that "Are Babies Going Bald?" ad? Gee, I wonder where that came from! :google:

Haha, no I just get whatever I searched, shoes, handbags, yarn, sheep (must be related to the yarn, I do NOT look up sheep :confused: ;))

[McFearless]

Emichiee, may I pm you about something you've mentioned in this post?

[vindo]

Emichiee, may I pm you about something you've mentioned in this post?

Yes sure! :)

[lapushka]

The whole body renews itself constantly. Here is a creepy read:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1219995/Believe-lungs-weeks-old--taste-buds-just-days-So-old-rest-body.html

The hairs growing phases can last between 3-7 years but for some people it is even shorter...or longer which explains people with very, very long hair. Not allour hairs have the same terminal length either, but a certain percentage will make it very long (which bring us back to taper) :cool:

Yes, I guess it was hair that I was thinking of! :D
That article is very interesting, Emichiee, thanks for linking to it! :)

[Bagginslover]

IIRC, not everyone is even capable of assimilating it through diet. According to the NHS, our bodies store vitamin D in the summer to see us through the winter:



http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Summerhealth/Pages/vitamin-D-sunlight.aspx

I would assume how much we use our bodies' stores and how much we need to consume depends on things like skin tone and sun exposure the previous summer. So, Bagginslover, I would look to the summer before last as a clue to your vitamin D production rather than the winter, because you won't be producing any vit D in the winter (also, I know Gloucestershire is further south than here, but I can't help wondering about your work schedule if you actually get to walk to work in daylight in the winter :lol:).

During the winter, it is light on my way to work, but not on the way home (I am off work for 2 weeks either side of the equinox, so that monnth with the shortest daylight hours I'm in and out all day ;) ). Can you remember what sort of summer we had last year? Again I was in and out (again on holiday from work, gotta love schools!) and I remember being very hot making a full body costume from fake fur, but I don't remember if it was a good summer. I do get out and about during the day, every day though, so should store up sufficeint Vit D, though I don't supliment or eat much fish, but then I never have.