From Hair Care to Cloning: No... Video Transcript

Participants

Lisa Clark , Michael L. Reed MD, Marty E. Sawaya MD, PhD

Summary

By the age of 50, approximately 50% of women will have to cope with hair loss. This is a natural part of aging, but it's a part most women would rather skip. For many women, medications provide a reliable solution for their hair loss. But what about women who don't benefit from medication? Join our panel of experts as they discuss current and future non-medical options, from styling tips to surgery to cloning technology.

Webcast Transcript

LISA CLARK: Welcome, and thanks for tuning in to our webcast. I'm Lisa Clark. By the age of 50, approximately 50% of women will have to cope with hair loss. This is a natural part of aging, but it's a part that most women would prefer to skip. For many women, medications can provide a reliable solution to hair loss. For others, such things as clever hair styling or surgery might help overcome the problem of thinning hair.

Here to share some helpful hair care tips and treatment options for women who are experiencing hair loss, we have two experts. Dr. Marty Sawaya, adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine, and Dr. Michael Reed, assistant professor of clinical dermatology at the New York University School of Medicine. He's also in private practice here in Manhattan.

Now, it's true that although men have to endure a lot of bad jokes if they start to thin on top, it is socially acceptable for a man to have a little bit of hair or no hair. Some men even shave their heads to make a statement. But it is not socially acceptable for a woman to start losing her hair.

MICHAEL L. REED, MD: It's true. A man can choose or not to choose to suffer from baldness, but all women suffer from baldness, or hair loss or thinning or shedding, whatever it happens to be. It's because women have to have hair. It's an absolute requirement for them.

LISA CLARK: And she feels very stigmatized when this starts to happen, right?

MARTY SAWAYA, MD: Exactly. It's a very big social pressure for us to always look our best. We have to look like the models or the front of a magazine cover. So it's a very big pressure. And we lose about a fourth of our hair follicles by the time we're 50 years of age, so it's a natural aging process that we can't combat. Plus the fact of having more hair loss on top of that, for some people.

LISA CLARK: More good news about aging, right? When a women is at risk for losing her hair, are there things that she can do to slow or minimize the risk?

MARTY SAWAYA, MD: Definitely. And the sooner the better, that they seek help and do the proper things that they're supposed to do. Seeing their physician, making sure there's no underlying medical things we need to take care of. Excessive blood loss, medications, menstrual problems. A lot of things can happen as we get older. So making sure, health-wise, that we're really up to where we should be, is very, very important.

And the fact that we can have changes to our scalp with regards to age or hair loss problems, shedding problems, use of proper medications such as minoxidil, Rogaine for women can be very, very helpful. And properly using them is also advisable.

LISA CLARK: What are some of the mechanical things that women should be concerned about, in terms of taking care of their hair? Pulling it back too tight in a ponytail, cornrows, braids?

MICHAEL L. REED, MD: Any procedure, any product that chronically pulls for long periods of time on the hair shaft, will transmit that tension down into the living root, and will tend to cut off the blood supply or cause a low level degree of inflammation, and will actually cause the hair to use up its natural genetic allotment of hair growth and resting cycles, and it'll be gone prematurely, and it won't grow back after a long time. It will just be replaced by little fibrous tract.

Tight rollers, tight ponytail hairstyles, excessive brushing and combing, pulling, consciously or unconsciously, and cornrowing or braiding, those type of hairstyles, are all not advisable.

LISA CLARK: There's a myth that washing your hair is not a good thing. That is not true.