Hair Skin

overall masculinity associated with a full head of flowing hair is understandably something that many men would do anything to hold on to . . . and the inse­curity associated with losing your hair is the reason so many hair loss prod­ucts have been so successful.

But in reality, we’re all losing our hair—all the time. On average, you lose 50 to 150 hairs a day. The difference between Fabio and your bald Uncle Frank is that people with full heads of hair are constantly regrowing new ones to fill in the empty spaces. With hereditary baldness, known medically as androgenetic alopecia, though, about one-third of men will someday notice that new hair is not growing back, sometimes as early as their teens. And they have nobody to blame but their family—specifically their mother’s side of the family.

When it comes down to it, baldness is just something most men have to learn to live with. A couple of drugs, Rogaine (minoxidil) and Propecia (fin­asteride), can help some men regrow hair or prevent the loss of what they have. But the results are mixed, and the effects of the drugs stop as soon as people stop taking them.

And unfortunately for men, the fountain of youth cannot be found through nutrition. (Sorry, guys. Except in cases of extreme malnutrition, no amount of vitamins or minerals will regrow hair.) But for some women who have experienced hair loss related to physical trauma, crash dieting, or heavy menstrual flow, certain nutrients can help.

Vitamin C Food Source

connective tissues that give shape and elasticity to skin and blood vessels. As the body ages and those connective tissues lose strength, skin becomes thinner and blood ves­sels are more fragile. Sun exposure accelerates the breakdown of connective tissues, making older people who’ve spent years in the sun more susceptible to bleeding and bruising. The sun’s rays also deplete stores of vitamin C, the very vitamin that the body needs to protect cells and tissue from free radical damage.

Eating lots of fruits and veggies high in vitamin C, like citrus fruits, tomatoes, and broccoli, will provide a sufficient amount of vitamin C, but everyone (and their skin) will benefit by taking 60 milligrams of vitamin C every day.

Research has shown that topical products with vitamin C can prevent the damage caused by years of sun exposure and heal bruising in older skin. And when vitamin C is combined with vitamin E, the effects are even more powerful. Vitamin E and vitamin C work synergistically to repair tissues, so that same vitamin cocktail should help prevent bruising.

In a Duke University Medical Center study, two different formulas were applied to the back skin of nine volunteers who were then exposed to simulated sunlight. Those who received an antioxidant serum containing vitamins C and E had a 96 percent reduc­tion of sunburn cells and up to eight times the antioxidant protection of those who received the control formula.

One such formula, C E Ferulic, helps boost the antioxidant reservoirs the body dips into to help heal itself from bruises. However, since sunscreens and antioxidant formulas work in different parts of the skin and through different mechanisms, the formula must be applied to the skin first to neutralize oxida­tive stress. Once it’s absorbed, then the sunscreen can be applied.

Allergy symptoms occur when your body’s immune system overreacts to substances in your environment. Most people can live with a little cat dander, dust, or pollen, for example. But people with allergies have immune systems that can react to just about anything that comes along.

It fights these foreign substances just as it would bacteria or viruses, the main causes of run-of-the-mill are histamine and leukotrienes, biochemicals that your allergy symptoms immune system releases. Your immune system is an incredibly complex system of several different kinds of cells working in tandem. The overly sensitive cells involved in allergies are mainly mast cells and basophils.

Mast cells are found in tissues such as your skin, lungs, throat, stomach, and intestines, while basophils hang out in your blood vessels. As you can see, these cells monitor nearly every part of the body.