Driving with the top down, a stress free swim, simple things that one young Connecticut woman has dreamed of her entire life.

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21-year old Shana Manafort's daily ritual is an unpleasant one.

When she was just 6 years old, Shana was diagnosed with a brain tumor...

Just like your body, your hair needs a well-balanced diet to stay healthy and shiny. If you are experiencing hair loss, the first thing you should consider looking into is your nutritional habits.

Make sure your diet is rich in protein, antioxidants and essential fatty acids. Water makes up one-fourth of the weight of a strand of hair. Water not only hydrates your body, but it also keeps your hair silky and shiny, so you should drink between eight to 10 glasses of water per day.

Protein is the building block of hair, so include high-quality protein in your diet. This will give your hair shafts more strength and will reduce damage through snapping and splitting. Good sources of protein include fish, meat, beans, yogurt, milk and cheese.

Vitamin A, which will give you a healthy scalp, can be obtained from eating carrots and other vegetables. Vitamins B and C are very important for good circulation, hair growth and color. Good sources of those vitamins can be found in fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals, eggs and milk.

Zinc builds hair protein to help reduce hair loss. Foods high in zinc are meat and seafood. Iron helps carry oxygen to the hair. If it's deficient, hair and its follicles can become starved of oxygen. You can increase iron in your diet by including red meat and dark green leafy vegetables.

In addition to a healthful diet, be sure to add in a dose of daily exercise to keep your blood pumping. Essential fatty acids, especially omega-3 fatty acids, will play a key role in attaining healthful skin, hair and nails. Foods rich in omega-3 are salmon, tuna, mackerel, flax seeds, walnuts and almonds.

By CHANDRA BALUSU

More at:

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060405/COLUMNISTS06/604050301/1005/LIFE

When given in combination with oral contraceptives, finasteride, an orally administered drug approved for male-patterned baldness, can improve female-pattern hair loss in most women, according to the results of a small study reported in the March issue of the Archives of Dermatology.

At present, the main treatment for female-pattern hair loss is topical minoxidil, which is effective, but tolerability can be an issue, senior author Dr. Antonella Tosti and colleagues, from the University of Bologna in Italy, note. Whether treatment with agents such as finasteride, which show activity against male hormones, might promote hair growth in women has been unclear....

A pill intended to help bald men grow hair also worked in two-thirds of women who tried it in a recent study.

Thirty-seven women with female pattern hair loss took Propecia daily for a year.

Because the drug causes birth defects, the women also took birth control pills.

At the end of the study, photographs and hair-density calculations showed improvement in 23 women, 62 percent of the participants.

Thirteen had not changed, and one had worsened.

In female pattern hair loss, hair gradually thins over the top and front of the head, generally in one of three patterns. The condition occurs most frequently in white women after menopause.

The study was published in the March issue of Archives of Dermatology.

Source:

http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060405/Lives08/604050502/-1/LIVES/CAT=Lives08

The thought of going bald has always been a private nightmare for most men. We dare not think of it. Maybe just the thought would cause our hair follicles to shrivel up and die.

It's the 21st century and we're no closer to defeating the common cold much less hair loss. Or are we closer? Let's take a look at the facts first.

1.If you're going bald there's a 95% chance it's hereditary.

2.Minoxidil and Propecia are the only FDA approved drugs to treat hair loss....