A Holistic Hair Health Philosophy
Words are really important. Making sure they are understood clearly is really important to us at The HairPhysio.
‘Communicating clearly’ is a core value of ours, so we’ve started this article by making sure we’ve started as we mean to go on.
Our philosophy as hair and scalp health experts is ‘holistic’, so we need to make sure that our patients understand what that means in relationship to the complexity of the human body and hair and scalp problems that occur can be due to multiple factors.
You’ve all heard the song, ‘The toe bone’s connected to the foot bone…’
The human body is made of 11 important organ systems, including the circulatory, respiratory, digestive, excretory, nervous and endocrine systems. They also include the immune, integumentary, skeletal, muscle and reproductive systems.
Issues in some of those systems can affect many others and so can have an impact on your health that is inter-related.
A problem with hair or scalp is also rarely a single issue. It is usually multi-factorial. So, we try to make a comprehensive diagnosis in order to get to the ‘root cause’ (sorry about the pun) and thus make any treatment recommendations more effective.
Hair requires energy, nutrients and hormones from the body to grow in a healthy cycle. However, sometimes the body requires energy, nutrients or hormones to be diverted to more urgent areas or lacks some of these factors. This means there may not be sufficient factors for healthy hair growth. Hair is not essential to a person’s health, but issues with it can be a signal of the healthiness of the person.
Hair thinning or hair shedding are the failure of the natural hair growth cycle within the body and usually happen over time. Therefore, hair and scalp problems cannot be cured instantly by consuming medications. In fact as a holistic trichologist, pharmaceuticals are our last resort. They are often a ‘band-aid’ to the cause, and can come with negative complications and consequences.
Hair loss occurs when there is a dys-regulation of the health of the patient and shows as a dys-regulation of hair growth cycle. The dys-regulation of the underlying health can be caused by internal and / or external factors. Also, hair problems can take months if not years to recognise because the underlying issues are more likely to be ‘chronic’ rather than ‘acute’, and therefore can take months, if not years, to rectify.
So what could these potential multi-factorial elements be?
This is not a complete list, but in isolation and in combination these are many of the upstream causes of hair problems.
- Nutrient Deficiency
e.g.
Iron / Zinc / Copper / Magnesium / Calcium
Protein
Healthy Fats - Vitamins
e.g.
A, B, C, D, E, K - Metabolic Disorders
e.g.
Diabetes / Insulin Resistance
Inflammation
Cancer - Digestion / Absorption
e.g.
Intestinal permeability - Endocrine Disorders
e.g.
PCOS
High & Low Testosterone / Estrogen - Autoimmune Diseases
e.g.
Thyroid / Crohns / - Antigens
e.g.
SIBO
Yeast - Genes
e.g.
Mutation
Epigenetics - Exercise
e.g.
Too much / Too little - Stress
e.g.
Adrenal overload (Cortisol) - Sleep
e.g.
Quality / Quantity / Circadian Rhythm - Toxic exposure
e.g.
Smoking
Personal care products
Home cleaning
Pesticides
Herbicides
Antibiotics - Orthorexia / Crash diets
e.g.
Vegan / Vegetarian
Carnivore
Ketogenic
At The HairPhysio, we try to recognise and remove the cause, repair the damage and restore the growth cycle through external stimulation and internal nutritional support, in a structured and supportive program.
Further articles will discuss how we recognise and remove the causes and the types of treatments you can employ to repair and restore the growth cycle.