HAIRS AND NAILSRakesh Mohan Hallen
Although a regular visit to a hairdresser for a haircut or shave is normally limited tomen only, all of us regardless of our sex need to trim our nails regularly. But isn’t itsurprising that although hairs and nails are parts of our body we never feel any painwhile cutting them. What are they made up of? How do they grow? These are butnatural questions from any curious person and indeed we do have with us a largenumber of queries from our readers regarding hairs and nails. Here are some of them.
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Is hair a live or dead tissue?
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Why is it that we don't feel any pain while cutting nails or hair, but do so in case of any other part of the body?
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Why is the colour of human hairs black, white or brown and not any other colour e.g.red, yellow or green etc?
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Why is it that when we pull our hair we feel pain?Except for a few growing cells at the base of the root, a hair shaft is a dead tissue,composed of keratin and related proteins that grows from a live cell, known as thefollicle, at its root. Division of these cells is responsible for the elongation of hairs.Hairs vary in colour, diameter, and contour. The different colours of hair result fromvariations in the amount, distribution, and type of pigment in them, as well as fromvariations in surface structure that cause light to be reflected in different ways. Thus hairsmay be coarse or so thin and colourless as to be nearly invisible. There are separate cells,known as melanocytes responsible for the pigmentation of hair. These cells can producecertain compounds, which give a particular strand of hair its characteristic color. In mostof us, with black or dark brown hair, these cells produce tyrosine melanin. Another typeof pigment called pheomelanin is responsible for fawn coloured hair of some of us. Athird pigment called trichosedrin is responsible for red hair, rather rare amongst us. Sincegreen, blue or yellow pigments cannot be produced by our hair follicles we cannot havehair of such colours.We do not feel any pain when our hairs are cut because there are no pain receptorslocated in the hair shaft, which can produce a sensation of pain hence. But we do feel pain when our are hair are pulled, because sensory nerves surround all hair follicles.Pressure on the hair shaft is transmitted to these nerves, which results in the sensationof pain.
Differences
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What is the function of different kinds of hair on our body?
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Why do men suffer hair loss problem to a greater extent as compared to women?
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Why do nails keep growing in humans if not cut but not in animals?
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Why does scalp hair fall but not of beards?
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Why is it that some people have curly hair while others have straight hair?Human beings, like any other mammal, have several different types of hairs. The first
kind of hair to develop is the called the lanugo, a layer of downy, slender hair that begingrowing in the third or fourth month of fetal life. They are entirely shed before or after afew months of birth. Then, during the first few months of infancy a growth of fine, short,unpigmented hair called down hair, or vellus takes place. Vellus covers every part of bodyexcept palms and soles. After puberty, this hair is supplemented by long, coarser andmore heavily pigmented hair called terminal hair that develops in armpits and genitalregion and on the faces in male. The hairs of scalp, eyebrow, etc are of separate type anddevelop fairly early in life. Each of these different kinds of hair on a human body has itsown function, lifetime and rate of growth. Not all kinds of hair are equally important. While the hair on our eyebrows shades our eyes from Sun and also helps divert sweat from falling into our eyes, the hair in our nostrils trap dust particles and prevent them from entering our lungs. Nevertheless mostof the hairs on other regions of our body hardly serve any useful function. Thus scalp hair can at best provide some protection from the midday Sun and the beard and mustachestablish maleness and are likely concerned with sexual or social communication.Axillary and pubic hair, probably form part of scent-disseminating mechanisms.The growth of hair on the scalp depends on the level of some of the malehormones (androgens) for stimulation. It is the presence/absence of such hormones,which is responsible for falling hair in men. Since, in women these hormones are not present in substantial quantities hence such hair loss is less predominant among women.In order to understand why some people have curly hair while others have straighthair we must first of all know the difference between these two types of hair. If we cut astraight hair strand its cross section is round, while that of wavy hairs is partly oval and partly round; very curly and kinky hairs are shaped like twisted ribbons. Thesedifferences have their genesis in the nature of follicles from which the hairs grow. Hair follicles of different people are different because of their genetic makeup.
Growth
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How does the growth of hair and nails take place?
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Why do hair have different rates of growth on different parts of our body?
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Why do the hair on the head grow much faster than the hair on the hand?
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Do hair keep growing even after the death of the person?
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Why don’t the hairs of eyebrows grow as the hairs in the head?
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Why hairs on our head or chin are generally longer than those on the other parts of our body?
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Why do fingernails grow faster than the toe-nails?A typical mammalian hair consists of the shaft protruding above the skin, and the root,which is sunk in a pit (follicle) beneath the skin surface. As the cells are pushed upwardsfrom the follicle's base, they become hardened and undergo pigmentation, i.e. coloration.Thus a part of each hair extends below the surface of the skin. This part lies in the hair follicle. The end of the hair, called the bulb, is the only living part of a hair. The cells of the bulb divide rapidly and account for the growth of a hair. The hair cells above the bulbcontain a form of keratin called hard keratin. As already mentioned above, the colour of hairs is due to the presence of certain pigments, which are, incorporated frommelanocytes a type of specialized cells. Human hair grows at the rate of about one-third
of a millimetre a day. The growth of hair in the follicles occurs in cycles. In each cycle, afollicle goes through a growth phase and a resting phase. A hair stops growing duringevery resting phase, when it is known as a club hair. The club hair remains in the restingfollicle until the next growing phase. During the growing phase, the club hair is shed as anew hair grows and pushes it out of the follicle. However, the activity of the hair folliclesin the scalp is not synchronized, so that about 50 to 100 hairs a day fall-off from a total of around 150,000 follicles. There is evidence of seasonal fluctuation, with the greatest hair loss in late summer and fall. A follicle may continue its activity for a long time, and hairssometimes grow for several years and attain considerable lengths.A nail is also made up of keratin. It has three parts, the matrix, plate, and bed. Atthe base of the nail, and part of the way along the sides, the segment embedded under theskin is known as the matrix. Thus like a hair follicle most of the matrix is covered byskin. The plate is the hard outer part of the nail. It consists of many layers of flat, deadcells that contain keratin. The skin beneath the nail, known as the bed, is like any other skin except that it contains elastic fibers. These are connected to the nail to hold it firmly.The cells responsible for the growth of a nail are formed in the matrix. Newly formedcells push the older ones toward the tip of the nail. This pushing process results in thegrowth of the nail.The length of hair or a nail depends on the length of the growing phase of thefollicle/matrix. Since follicles/matrix in different parts of the body vary the growth rate of hairs/nails also vary. While the scalp hairs are active for two to six years, and then theyrest for about three months those in the eyebrows and eyelashes, grow for about 10 weeksand then rest for 9 months. No, it is not true that the hair continue to grow even after death- whathappens is in fact that after death the skin contracts and some of the hair which is below the skin surface gets exposed, which we perceive as hair growth.
Changes
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Why does the percentage of the hair decline from our head as our age progresses?
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Why do some men turn bald while others do not?
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Why do our hair turn grey?
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Why don't hairs of animals turn white like man, when they grow old?
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Why is it that fear, anxiety or cold makes one's hair stand?
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Is there any cure for baldness?
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Does the process of graying of hair begin from the root or from the other end?
As we grow old some of our cells become less efficient, same is the case with cellsresponsible for the growth of hair on our body. Hairs become white with aging because of the failure of the melanocyte to inject pigment into the cells as they areformed. Some of the melanocytes die before the death of the hair follicle, hence whenhairs associated with them grow they appear grey/white. Another explanation for thehair turning grey is that air bubbles or cavities are formed in the hair structure due tosome shock or nervous disorders. We know that nervous excitments, worries andsorrow can cause these air bubbles to appear among the hair cells and make the hair look grey. But how and why this happens, we still do not know. Tales of hair
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