Hair is a sign of beauty and health, with the current development of society, the progress of the times, people pay more and more attention to hair beauty, but due to the high pressure of work, life is not regular, in recent years more and more people with hair loss, the age is getting younger and younger. Preventing hair loss and popularizing hair-related knowledge is a very necessary task. Chinese medicine believes that hair can reflect the body’s qi and blood and the function of the five internal organs, hair and the body is closely related.
1, the characteristics of the hair.
Hair is the main appendage of the human skin, the number and color of hair varies from species to species, the average Asian hair 100,000, blond hair color hair of Europe and the United States is finer, there are about 120,000. The hair is a rod-shaped keratinized material, obliquely inserted into the skin, the free part is called hair stem, buried in the body for the hair root, the end of the hair root expanded into a ball, called the hair ball.
Histologically, the hair is composed of cells arranged in concentric circles and divided into three layers, from the inner to the outer hair medulla, hair cortex, and hair microdermis. The hair growth is cyclic, divided into anagen phase, regression phase (the excessive period between anagen and resting phase, which is short) and resting phase. The growth period of different hairs varies, for example, the hair growth period is generally 3~7 years (average 0.27~0.4mm per day) and up to 25 years, the regression period is 2~4 weeks and the resting period is 3~4 months.
Eyebrows have a growth period of 3~5 months and a resting period of 3 months, thus they are shorter than hair. A normal person can lose about 70~100 hairs per day, but at the same time, there is an equal amount of hair growing out, so it is normal as long as the daily hair loss does not exceed 100 hairs.
2.The function of hair
(1) protective role: hair has a protective role for the head, the head injury plays a cushion role; summer hair can resist the sun, reduce the strong light in infrared and ultraviolet light on the scalp, winter has a warm role.
(2) beauty role. A dark and shiny hair, beautiful hair can often show beautiful, dignified external temperament.
3.Chinese medicine’s understanding of hair
The “Fifty-two Disease Formula” in the Mawangdui relics excavated in Changsha in 1972 is one of the earliest medical documents found in China. It not only records many methods of prevention and treatment, but also involves prescriptions for body and beauty care, hair protection and make-up. Among the cultural relics excavated at the same time are beauty products such as wigs and grease powder. The classic work of Chinese medicine “Huang Di Nei Jing” discusses in detail the relationship between hair and the body’s meridians and qi and blood, the etiology of hair diseases and the methods and medicines for treatment.
Among them are: “When a woman is seven years old, her kidney energy is strong, and her teeth are longer; when she is five or seven, her face begins to scorch and her hair begins to fall; when she is six or seven, her hair begins to turn white. In men, the face is scorched and the hair on the temples is white, and in men, the teeth and hair go on the eighth. This explains the human hair growth is with age and tend to aging gradually fall off. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were also many entries on hairdressing drugs and methods in the Shennong Ben Cao Jing and Hua Tuo Shen He Secret Biography.
At that time, women were already very particular about hair and make-up and grooming, such as Wang Zhaojun and Miao Cicada, who were among the Four Beauties in ancient times. In addition to facial beauty and make-up and clothing selection, they also paid more attention to hair and eyebrow grooming. In the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, it is written that “Queen Mingde’s eyebrows were not painted, but only the left corner of the eyebrow was missing, and it was filled like a corn”. This shows that there was a way to make up for the lack of eyebrows by applying makeup to the eyebrows.
In some medical books of the Han Dynasty, there were also recorded methods and medicines for treating baldness (baldness caused by ringworm and eczema) and hair plucking (baldness of spots). After the Jin dynasty, the “elbow after the formula” in volume 6, the Sui dynasty “the source of the diseases of the treatise”, the Tang dynasty “thousand gold formula”, “the secret of the external Taiwan” and other books are listed in the hair beauty special volume, the classification is quite detailed, nourishing hair, special treatment of hair disease and hair washing drugs content.
The Song Dynasty “Taiping Sheng Hui Fang” took 10 years to prepare, of which the forty-first volume for the treatment of hair disease, a total of 12 categories of 134 prescriptions. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the emperors and ministers of the palace and the empress and the noblewomen, as well as the common people, all attached great importance to health and beauty care, and the great medical scientist Li Shizhen compiled the book “Compendium of Materia Medica” to discuss the pathogenesis and treatment of head and face, mouth and nose, hair and other diseases in more detail than before the Tang dynasty. There are more than 500 kinds of herbal medicines for head, face and hair diseases alone. There are also many non-drug methods, such as massage, qigong and other health and beauty hair treatment methods.
4, hair and internal organs, the relationship between blood and qi
”Blood is the main moisten”, “hair for the blood of the remainder”, Chinese medicine believes that the hair depends on the blood moisten, the hair of the disease response to the blood. In the young and strong years, people’s blood surplus hair long and lustrous. In old age, the blood is deficient and the hair is yellow and white. The main pathological changes of Blood are Blood deficiency, Blood stasis and Blood heat. Blood deficiency can be seen in symptoms such as dizziness, palpitation, insomnia, dryness of the eyes, etc. It is manifested in hair as weak hair growth, brittle hair, yellowing or early whitening, and falling off.
Blood stasis, common in patients with coronary heart disease, liver cirrhosis, and various tumors, has symptoms such as greenish-brown face and petechiae on the tongue, and is accompanied by dry, grayish hair that tends to fall out. Hair loss is common in patients with chronic febrile diseases such as typhoid fever, tuberculosis, lupus erythematosus, and yin deficiency in the body, or staying up all night consuming kidney yin, resulting in hair loss, withered and lusterless hair.
Chinese medicine believes that the kidney is the master of bone and marrow, and its flower is in the hair, the hair growth function comes from the innate essence of the kidney, the situation of the hair reflects the strength and weakness of the kidney, as stated in the Nei Jing “women seven years old kidney gas, teeth more hair long …… five seven, the face began to scorch, hair began to fall; six seven hair began to white. The male is six or eight, face scorched, hair on the temples awarded white …… eight or eight is the teeth hair to go”. Adolescent men produce sperm, women appear menstruation. At this time has the ability to reproduce called Tianjue. At the age of 49 for women and 64 for men, the teeth and hair fall out because the kidney energy gradually turns to decline, the face color, skin and hair begin to decline.
Another organ closely related to hair is the lung, Chinese medicine believes that “the lung is the master of skin and hair”, the human hair depends on the lung to promote the water and grain essence to moisten, if the lung dysfunction, such as lung Qi deficiency, or lung heat, etc., so that its function as the master of skin and hair is reduced, it will affect the normal function of the skin and the growth of hair.
Besides the lungs and kidneys, do other organs have an effect on the growth of hair? The answer is yes, after all, Chinese medicine is concerned with the concept of the whole, the five organs are a complete and indivisible whole, the function is mutual influence. If the spleen is deficient, then the blood and vital energy will be lacking, and the skin and hair will not be nourished by the blood and vital energy, which will produce skin problems such as yellowing and dullness, withered hair, loss of color and hair loss.
In such as the heart, the heart for the fire organs, and the lungs live in the upper jiao, the heart meridian of the fire heat is easy to transmit with the lungs, causing the entire upper jiao heat, the impact on the skin and hair as the general lung heat, causing hair withering, easy to break, fall off, etc.. Then the liver, liver and kidney live together in the lower jiao, the two organs often combined with Yin deficiency, liver and kidney Yin deficiency often leads to hair moistening decreases, causing hair problems; In addition, the liver is the emotional organs, easy to turn fire, liver fire upward, causing wood and fire to interfere with gold, can also lead to hair wilting, fragile, easy to fall off.
5, the classification of hair
As with the skin, hair also has its classification, each person can be based on their different conditions of hair care.
(1) oily hair: hair greasy glow, hair shaft diameter fine and appear fragile. Although the sebum can protect the hair and make it less likely to break, the fine hair needs limited sebum, making the sebum oversupply and the hair often appears oily. It is common in people with spleen deficiency, dampness and turbidity, and people with obese shapes.
(2) dry hair: sebum secretion less, the hair is rough, stiff, lack of elasticity, hair dry often curly, hair split or tangled into groups, easy to break. Sunlight, wind blowing for a long time, dry air, strong alkaline soap, excessive chlorine swimming pool water, etc. can absorb and destroy the oil on the hair so that moisture loss. Mostly seen in the form of thin and weak, on the side of Yin deficiency / fire body people.
(3) neutral hair: hair smooth and shiny, not greasy and not dry, easy to blow comb finishing, is normal hair, see in the sex flat, healthy people.
(4) mixed hair: this type of hair dry but oily scalp, or seen on the same hair stem both dry and greasy hair, often accompanied by more dandruff. Commonly seen in women of menstrual age.
(5) damaged hair: this kind of hair is often due to perming, dyeing, improper hair care caused by touching a rough feeling, hair split ends, dry scorched, loose and not easy to comb. A survey shows that a quarter of them are caused by shampoo. Chinese medicine believes that this type is mostly due to external evil (heat, poisonous evil) invasion caused by.
6, the main factors that cause hair damage
(1) dietary disorders: overeating, spicy and fatty, alcohol, etc. can easily lead to the spleen and stomach dysfunction, dampness and turbidity, heat, dampness and heat smoked in the hair resulting in greasy hair, fragile, easy to fall off; or spicy, smoke and poisonous evil, burning hair, causing dry hair, rough, split ends, easy to fall off, etc..
(2) work and rest disorder: modern people work and rest disorder, overtime, Internet, bar and so on unhealthy habits, day after day must consume the human liver and kidney yin, liver and kidney yin deficiency can not moisten the hair and thus lead to dry and rough hair, shedding and so on.
(3) external evil attack: hair dryer, perm, ultraviolet rays in the sun, etc., Chinese medicine are considered to be the evil of fire, fire and heat can burn the hair caused by dry hair, shedding, etc.
(4) other factors: such as trauma, improper combing (the pulling force and friction of the comb, the static electricity of the dense-toothed metal comb, the loss of hair small skin scales caused by reverse combing, etc.).