Speaker 1: 0:18

Thank you so much for joining us. Make or break, even one day, where should you turn for informative, honest, science-based information? Kimberly Vaughn's goal for this podcast is to offer informative content with the help of subject matter experts, along with individuals just like you.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Hello, welcome to a special two-part series on hair loss. Restore your roots and confidence. I'm your host, kimberly Vaughn, and today we're joined by an extraordinary guest, emily Loves, a renowned dating coach and the co-founder of Mega Dating Method. In this episode, you're going to explore the fascinating connections between self-confidence, hair loss yes, and hair growth and your dating success. How does it affect you and how does it affect your dating life? So get ready to discover transformative insights that will empower you in both your personal life and your hair journey. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3: 1:28

Are you looking for the best hair loss treatments and solutions for you? Well, you're in luck because today I have a hair restoration expert, kimberly Vaughn. Kimberly is a board certified clinical trichologist who has been dedicated to the study of hair and scalp for over 25 years. As founder of HPI Hair, kimberly has treated thousands of clients using a trichological paramedical approach. She's internationally recognized and trained as a leading expert in the science and practice of hair and scalp treatments. And the science and practice of hair and scalp treatments. Kimberly is also an early adopter of cutting-edge treatments and is passionately focused on a whole-body approach. As a certified nutritional consultant, she's an active member of the World Trichology Society, international Association of Trichologists, national Alopecia Areata Foundation, american Hair Loss Association and TLC Foundation. Kimberly's vision for the company drives the operations, marketing and business development efforts. They also have a medical director on staff. I know that's super important. So very, very thorough practice. So, kimberly, I have some questions for you. I hope that you can answer anything I missed that you wanted to share with the audience.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Oh my gosh. No, just how exciting it is to be on your show today, Emily. This is so much fun. 80 million Americans in the United States are losing their hair. It's just so exciting to have an opportunity to talk about it.

Speaker 3: 3:00

Oh well, I can't wait to learn more, because both myself and my partner have both dealt with hair loss, so it's something that affects obviously men and women, and I was blown away when it started to affect me, especially in COVID. I really didn't know what was causing it or what to do about it, so I'm so excited to talk with you. I'm going to start with some questions that my students from my dating coaching program have. With some questions that my students from my dating coaching program have, the first being does rubbing cinnamon into your scalp really mitigate?

Speaker 2: 3:34

against future hair loss. And what about reversing hair loss? Oh my gosh, let's see. So let's start with cinnamon. There's an awful lot of information and false information that is out in the world of the internet that give us false hope for miracle cures such as cinnamon, such as olive oil, such as rosemary oil, lots of different holistic and natural ingredients. So cinnamon can be used as an anti-inflammatory. It helps the body sometimes lower inflammation by rubbing it onto the scalp. I think you're going to smell nice and spicy when it's all over, but I don't know if there's any factual evidence that rubbing cinnamon on the scalp is going to make a difference.

Speaker 3: 4:17

That actually made me think of a question that my dad used to say this with so much authority like I just believed him. But he used to tell me, if you rub black strap molasses on your hair, you will reverse grayness. Is there any? Is that just total crap?

Speaker 2: 4:35

Well, putting anything on the top of your head is only treating the skin that it's touching or the hair strands that it's touching right. The skin that it's touching or the hair strands that it's touching right? The graying process of the hair starts well below the top layer of the skin, and so I would say that would be a little questionable, and so there's no scientific evidence that black molasses or cinnamon is going to make a difference in the color of the hair or in how slow the hair is going to shed.

Speaker 3: 5:07

Fabulous. Can you tell me why does an increase in testosterone levels correspond with an increase in hair loss and beard growth?

Speaker 2: 5:16

Okay, so a lot packed in that particular question. So the one thing that most, all men are familiar with is an acronym or an initials called DHT, and so DHT stands for dehydrotestosterone. What is testosterone? Testosterone is a hormone responsible for helping our bodies maintain its normal growth. Now, when we think of testosterone, we think of testosterone mostly for men, but what women need to understand is that you have components and levels of testosterone for women, just as you do for men. But when testosterone is formed in the body and when we are born in in vitro, that is when that you will typically find that either your genetic position of a male or a female will dictate how much testosterone that you have in the body. And so scientists have said for many, many years and it is now proven that we have this DHT breakdown, or this dehydrotestosterone that starts to, in my terminology, coagulate or clog the actual hair strand itself.

Speaker 3: 6:32

Oh, and so is it different with the beard than it would be on the top.

Speaker 2: 6:37

So, yes, and so what happens is that we have learned over the years that we have two types or areas of concern when we talk about hair loss. The first is male pattern thinning right, so that is a typical thought that we envision right Of. When we think of a male thinning, we think of it thinning from the frontal hairline or starting in the crown and then somewhere meeting in the middle Right, and so we know from a scientific perspective that that area of the scalp is affected by testosterone or affected by hair loss. For women, and, as you had shared earlier with COVID, you experienced something called female pattern hair loss, and when we experience female pattern hair loss, we can truly be a male or a female experiencing, but it means that the hair is going to start shedding from the frontal hairline all the way to the nape or from the nape to the front, and so what happens is is, again, now we know that there's a different affection in the hair follicle itself and there's something else that's causing that loss when it comes to other areas of our body, right, it means that testosterone is probably production.

Speaker 2: 7:59

The production of testosterone is fluid and is is just as it's supposed to, and so when we find that our beards get thicker or we find that we have more hair on our body than we do on our head. Many times that means that our levels of testosterone are elevated. And so, for men or for women, if we're utilizing any form of hormone replacement therapy in testosterone, whether it's injections, whether it's pellets, whether it's cream for men or for women, it can cause that testosterone level to be elevated, which what we've learned is that it causes more hair loss on the top of the head, but it can cause more hair growth on the top of the head, but it can cause more hair growth on the rest of the body.

Speaker 3: 8:47

Oh weird. It would be nice if we could just tell it where to go.

Speaker 2: 8:50

Yes, wouldn't that be nice. That's precisely what I was talking about. The more we know, the more we realize we don't know, which is more frustrating, right? Because why can't we determine where that testosterone goes, right? It's like, hey, okay, I'm going to have an injection of testosterone. Well, I want to put it where it's going to affect the positives of my body, right? And not the negatives, but it doesn't quite work that way, darn it.

Speaker 3: 9:19

I know Interesting. Okay, so what are some behaviors we can do to promote and protect our hair follicles? Are there certain shampoos that are detrimental to follicle health?

Speaker 2: 9:31

Right. So what can we do to help the hair continue to grow? So hair loss is complicated. Yes, we have a genetic form of hair loss, right? Which? This is this dehydrotestosterone or this DHT buildup that we spoke about. That is fairly clear in the path, right? So we can test and we can determine what's going on with the genetics. To determine is this a genetic hair loss case? If it's not, and there are other things that we can do that would help us with continuing to grow hair fluidly then we also need to look inside the body. So, because hair loss is complicated and because genetics isn't the only factor, we need to make sure that the rest of the body is functioning well.

Speaker 2: 10:22

Again, I'm going to go back to your example of COVID, right? So we saw a tremendous uptick in hair loss across men and women after and during the pandemic, and we're still seeing what's called long-haul COVID sufferers that are still having a tremendous amount of chronic shedding that doesn't seem to want to let up. So what we can do proactively is make sure that our hormone levels are all balanced correctly. So, depending upon your age, you're going to have different surges in hormone levels, right? So if you think about children when they go through puberty. For men, we see a higher level of testosterone. For women, we see higher levels of estrogen. We see both increase and vacillate over their aging process. But as we start to get older, then we see that take the opposite turn when we start going through aging processes, such as getting older with menopause or andropause, which is a male form of female menopause.

Speaker 2: 11:35

And so making sure that our body's healthy, making sure that we're getting our labs tested, making sure that our hormone levels are right and there's no other autoimmune condition so this is the other big area that we need to focus on is autoimmunity. So simply, how much inflammation is in the body and how strong are the cells of the body? And so there is a condition called alopecia areata, alopecia universalis and alopecia totalis, and so the reason I'm using this as an analogy is because you can lose your hair from small spots on the scalp to all over the top of the head, all throughout the entire body. That is an autoimmune condition, and so when that particular autoimmune condition flares in whether it's in hair loss, whether it's in rheumatoid arthritis, whether it is in a thyroid disposition it causes effects on the entire body.

Speaker 2: 12:34

So making sure that your holistic health is really in check is a real good prevention. The other is is thinking about stress on the hair itself. So when we think about lots of braids, when we think about extensions, when we think about pulling the hair or tugging on the hair in a manner of always pulling the hair up in a pony, back in a pony or a bun males or females that is can contribute to a situation that is called traction alopecia. So caring for your scalp, just as you care for your skin, is extremely important. Caring for your holistic body is also very, very critical in making sure that your follicles continue to stimulate natural growing hair.

Speaker 3: 13:26

Awesome. And so when someone comes to work with you, do you tell them what tests they need to do for hormone levels and all of that as well? Because that's something you know as a person who recently had a child. My hormone levels are like all over and I took several tests to see what was happening and they all came back like normal. But I'm like there's no way you know. So do you help people understand which tests they need to order to examine their hormonal health?

Speaker 2: 13:57

Most definitely so. Our clinic starts with three testing, and that is the reason that we're a trichology clinic, and from a trichology perspective, we look at the root causes of the hair loss. So, as I mentioned earlier, right male pattern thinning, or androgenetic alopecia, aga as most men know of it. It's pretty straightforward, but it's pretty straightforward. However, when men are shedding very early as early as 14, 15 years old many times there's something else driving that hair loss. So, in men and women alike, we have to get to the root cause. So we start with three different forms of testing. The first can be traditional labs. Those can be for clients that are all over the United States. We work with a national lab company and so, yes, we can provide the lab requisition that you can take and have reviewed at any city or any state. The next is a DNA genetic test, and so what this does is it's not a 23 or me and I don't know, there's a bunch of other ones that are on the market but this civically focuses on what's going on in your genetic predisposition and how that is affecting your hair growth and your hair loss. It takes it to the next step and then it also says which medications, whether it's oral or topical, are going to be absorbed in the body, the best for you and will give you the best outcome. We all want more shots on goal right now. Right, hair loss falls out very quickly, but it takes a very long time to grow back, so we would much rather hit it with exactly the right prescribed treatment to start, so that in six months, nine months, a year later, we truly are seeing results, and so that is what the DNA test helps us with In your particular situation, and, for anyone that's listening, that's had any type of holistic issues, such as pregnancy, such as diet issues, such as intestinal issues, crohn's is a perfect example.

Speaker 2: 16:12

Right Is that we need to look deeper into the body, and when I say deep or not from a blood level of just labs, we need to look at it from an epigenetic level, and so epigenetics is really what is going on in our environment and how does it affect our body. How does it affect our immune system, our amino acids in our body, our cell reproduction, what is happening with viruses that could be lingering in our system? All of this slows the body down, and so we need to find out and uncover what else could be going on so that we can go back to that holistic approach and truly help your body help itself, regain more cells. The hair, skin and the nail are made of cells, and so that's what we always have to go back to, hmm.

Speaker 3: 17:03

So are there any alternatives to Finasteride ProScar that are FDA approved?

Speaker 2: 17:10

Oh, great question. Emily. Applaud your student. I love it.

Speaker 2: 17:16

So Finasteride has been on the market for quite some time and was, but was on the market and used somewhat off label for hair loss for many years before it was finally FDA approved. It now has a sister strain of a similar medication with Dutasteride as the name, also currently not approved by the FDA for hair loss treatment. However, it is being more widely recommended and prescribed by the medical community because there are some individuals that Dutasteride is working better for than Finasteride, and ProScar is just kind of an off-label name, and so that is one of the reasons that we find that. You know, making sure that we're staying FDA compliant as clinicians is certainly important, but at the same time, we also have to make sure that the medication orally that we're taking or topically right, is actually going to work no-transcript.

Speaker 2: 18:45

Okay, and any idea like how, how would you know that it might not be Well? And so there are certain tests, and so our particular DNA genetic test will look at over 350 SNPs, which just means a genetic strain, right, and we can tell. Within that analysis is to understand which particular medication is your body going to respond to. So, is it finasteride? Is it dutasteride? Is it minoxidil? Is it vitamin E? Is it another type of supplement? You know, I mean, we all talk about saw palmetto, right, saw palmetto orals, for, oh, it's going to slow my hair loss down. That doesn't always work that way, but it is a very popular brand of supplement. Biotin is another one, but taking anything that you're unsure it's going to work or not for any lengthy period of time is not as wise as really trying to get to the root cause of what is going to work for you.

Speaker 3: 19:48

Yeah, because I can imagine if you take it and you've been taking it for a really long time you really don't know could it be better, or is this really effective or not? So that's interesting.

Speaker 2: 19:58

The other point is a lot of times we will find that clients, if they have been on a finasteride, they do not want to stop taking it because if they've already started to thin then they have read somewhere that if you stop taking finasteride that it will cause your hair to fall back out again, and it doesn't work that way. But at the same time, it doesn't matter if you're taking finasteride, if you're taking a supplement, if you're taking a heart medication, anything moderate to a severe you know heavy dosing of medication that's critical for your body. You never want to just gold cold turkey and just stop using it anyway. Wow, what an enlightening conversation with Emily Loves. I know you learned a lot. I certainly did, and hopefully I was able to share a lot of information as well with some of her listeners and her clients.

Speaker 2: 20:55

I hope this gave you an opportunity to embrace your self-confidence and take charge of your dating life. Remember this is just the start of our part two series, so be sure to join us next time as we delve even deeper into the world of self-assurance relationships, hair loss and hair health. Until then, keep radiating your confidence, looking amazing and remember this is Kimberly Vaughn signing off from your Hair Loss. Restore your Roots and Confidence where we can help you get to the root cause of your hair loss. One episode, one consult and one client at a time. Thanks so much. Make it a great hair day, bye-bye.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Thank you for tuning into this week's episode. We hope you've gained valuable insights into the world of hair care and restoration. If you found this episode enlightening, don't forget to drop us a review over on Apple Podcasts. If you're eager to delve deeper into how HPI Hair Partners can cater to your hair needs, why wait? Connect with us today at HPIhairpartnerscom and make sure you never miss an episode by hitting that subscribe button. Tune in every week for fresh and enlightening updates. Until then, here's to healthier hair and boosted confidence.