The Science of Healthy Hair, Hair Loss and How to Regrow Hair

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2023

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, I explain the biology of hair, hair growth, why hair growth slows and what causes hair to stop growing and/or “fall out.” I discuss the essential role of hair stem cells and other supporting biological factors for healthy hair growth. Then I describe various approaches (mechanical and chemical) to slow hair loss by increasing blood flow to hair stem cells, including minoxidil, tadalafil, PRP, microneedling, Botox and ketoconazole treatments. I also discuss how age-related hormone changes cause hair loss and explain the effectiveness of treatments such as caffeine, saw palmetto, growth hormone, finasteride and dutasteride. For all hair growth options, I describe potential side effects, how soon to expect results and the amount of hair regrowth to expect and I highlight effective combination treatments for hair regrowth even in hair “dead” (bald) zones. For many listeners, thinning, brittle hair, or pattern baldness are a source of anxiety and stress. This episode explains the mechanisms underlying hair regrowth tools and the science behind them so that you can evaluate potential treatments and associated side-effect profiles and select the best one(s) for you. For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1 (Athletic Greens): https://athleticgreens.com/huberman Helix Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman HVMN: https://hvmn.com/huberman ROKA: https://roka.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Hair (00:04:13) Sponsors: Helix Sleep, HVMN, ROKA (00:08:04) Psychological States & Hair (00:13:19) Hair Anatomy & Stem Cells (00:26:05) 3 Phases of Hair Growth (00:35:40) Sponsor: AG1 (Athletic Greens) (00:36:55) Minoxidil & Blood Flow (00:45:37) Increase Blood Flow: Massage, Tadalafil, Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP), Microneedling (00:56:10) Microneedling, Minoxidil & “Dead Zones” (01:00:13) Sponsor: LMNT (01:01:25) Botox Treatments (01:06:27) Androgens, Hair Growth & Pattern Hair Loss; Scalp vs. Beard Hair (01:15:46) Topical Caffeine & Slowing Hair Loss (01:21:06) IGF-1: Growth Hormone & Sermorelin; Insulin Sensitivity: Myo-Inositol (01:25:52) Iron & Hair Growth (01:27:04) 5-Alpha Reductase & Saw Palmetto; Curcumin (01:33:22) Ketoconazole & Offsetting Hair Loss (01:38:46) Topical & Oral Finasteride (01:51:00) Post- Finasteride Syndrome (01:56:01) Dutasteride (01:58:53) Mechanical & Chemical Stimulation for Hair Growth (02:02:46) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.7	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.2	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are discussing hair.
0:16.6	Hair is a topic that occupies the minds of many people.
0:20.2	There are people that are losing their hair and want to halt or
0:24.6	Reverse that loss of hair and today we will talk about all the ways that science has taught us
0:29.8	We can slow or even reverse hair loss. I confess that researching today's topic was a particular joy for me
0:36.9	Not because I'm obsessed with hair mine or the hair of others
0:40.4	But because hair turns out to be fascinating from the perspective of
0:44.5	Cellular biology and stem cells which is a topic that I've long been interested in and that for much of my career
0:51.3	I've focused on in the context of development
0:53.8	So when your brain and your nervous system develop it develops from a small batch of cells that turns into many many trillions of cells and it does that by
1:02.5	Cell replication something that we call the cell cycle and we'll talk a little bit about this and so called my
1:08.3	Tosis today. I promise not to get into too much detail
1:11.3	But what makes hair so very interesting from a biological standpoint is that every hair every single
1:18.3	Individual strand of hair has its own little stem cell niche meaning its own little pocket down there in the follicle
1:24.5	In which specific stem cells give rise to those hairs for different durations of time
1:31.1	Depending on the hair where it is on your body, etc
1:33.9	So for instance the hairs on your head will undergo
1:38.3	ongoing growth for four to six or even eight years
1:41.9	So were you to not cut your hair? It would continue to grow one single hair would continue to grow
1:48.0	I guess we could say all the hairs will continue to grow for up to eight years
	...

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