Alternity Healthcare Blog

Alternity Healthcare, LLC is an innovative medical practice emphasizing proactive, preventive care designed to help patients avoid degenerative diseases, regain lost vitality and achieve optimal health.

Effective Solutions for Combating Hair Loss

For tens of millions of men and women, thinning hair and hair loss is a major concern. Many first notice that their scalp is shining through, they find more hair on the pillow or in the drain, or notice that their hairline is receding somewhat. More than 40-50% hair loss has typically already occurred by the time it becomes apparent to the individual.  But they often feel like the hair loss was sudden because they saw themselves in a photo, where the back or top of their head is more visible than when they look in the mirror, revealing the results of a progressive hair loss they didn’t realize was occurring. But there are highly effective solutions for combating hair loss available now.

Hair Growth Cycle

Each hair’s root is in a follicle where it receives nourishment from your blood supply. Hair grows in a three-stage cycle that repeats over time. Anagen is the active growing phase, Catagen is intermediary and Telogen is the resting phase. At any given time, the majority of the hairs on your head are in the active growing Anagen phase, which lasts two to seven years. Catagen typically lasts two to three weeks and Telogen, the resting phase, lasts three or four months. It is during Telogen that a new hair pushes out the old one from the follicle. The hairs you see in your comb or brush are from the Telogen phase.

An average healthy adult will have approximately 150,000 hair follicles by their late teens. The average person loses 100 Telogen hairs/day and grows 100 Anagen hairs. As we get older, the normal growth stage slows with fewer hairs in the Anagen phase and a higher percentage in Telogen, which results in thinning or baldness. Due to a variety of factors, follicles may produce thinner, less pigmented hair as we age.

Genetic Risk for Baldness

Contrary to popular belief, the baldness trait can be passed on from either parent’s side of the family. Due to advances in understanding our genetic make-up, we now know there are about 200 genes involved in the regulation of hair characteristics.

Assessing Hair Loss

There is an AI powered hair growth tracking and assessment tool called GroTrack.  This cutting-edge imaging technology scientifically quantifies hair thickness and hair density, which provides an objective hair growth assessment and allows for an accurate tracking of your response to hair growth treatments. This clinical data objectively documents that these are effective solutions for combating hair loss. The painless assessment only takes about 10 minutes in the office.

Non-Surgical Treatments for Hair Restoration

In most cases, hair loss is a treatable condition that you can control. Restoring and regrowing hair can help you feel more youthful and sexy, while also contributing to your overall wellbeing and self-confidence. If you want a beautiful new head of hair consider a strategy that includes these non-surgical options:

Alma TED: Alma TED uses painless ultrasonic sound waves and air pressure to drive powerful topical hair growth treatments and serums into the skin and promote increased blood flow to the scalp rejuvenating the hair follicles during a series of simple 20 minute procedures.

Peptide therapy: Peptides are the naturally occurring chemical messengers in your body that can modify physiological processes. These peptides act in several important ways to restore hair, that include: rejuvenating the follicle and scalp, increasing the time your hair follicle remains in the active growing phase, blocking negative hormonal effects that damage the hair follicle and activating follicle stem cells.

  • Thymosin beta-4 has wound healing and regenerative properties that augment other therapies that facilitates hair regrowth
  • GHK-Cu strengthens existing hair by increasing blood flow around the follicle and blocks the effects of DHT on the follicle.
  • Zinc Thymulin increases the time the follicle is in the anagen (Active growth) phase
  • PTD-DBM reduces inhibitory effects on the WNT/beta catenin pathway; essentially taking the foot off the brake on hair growth
  • Valproic acid reduces DHT suppression on the hair follicle by activating Wnt/ beta catenin pathway; essentially stepping on the gas of hair growth

Low Level Laser therapy: FDA cleared low level lasers are simple to use at home and have been proven to enhance hair thickness and quality.  The most effective device is made by LaserCap, and is only available through a physician’s office.  It has a satisfaction guarantee and a lifetime warranty.

Nutriceutical:  Nutrafol can make your hair stronger and shinier.  It promotes hair growth by addressing micro-inflammation, stress and oxidative damage with clinically tested, standardized and bio-optimized phytochemical ingredients

Prescription medication: Specially compounded medications such as topical minoxidil and oral Finasteride based options primarily help prevent further hair loss, but are often plagued by unpleasant side effects and rebound hair loss once stopped. Finasteride in particular, is associated with serious adverse sexual and neuropsychiatric side effects that develop and persist in patients during and/or after discontinuing finasteride treatment for which there is no known treatment or cure (post-finasteride syndrome)

Men and Women who are concerned about thinning or hair loss should contact Dr. Ebanks at Alternity Healthcare to determine the most effective treatment regimen for their specific needs.

Can Aging Be Cured?

Aging is characterized by a progressive functional decline in physiological functioning that leads to increased vulnerability to disease and death. This deterioration is the primary risk factor for all chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. In fact, successful aging is defined as maintaining high physical, psychological, and social functioning in old age without major diseases. read more…

What Really Makes Your Heart Healthy?

Most people nowadays are aware of the dire warnings about too much cholesterol in your blood.  With all of the pharmaceutical advertising for cholesterol lowering drugs; statins and a new outrageously expensive class of medication called PCSK9 inhibitors, you might think that simply lowering your cholesterol was the key to heart health and avoiding a heart attack.  But the evidence does not support that conclusion.  Although it is a contributing factor that should be taken into account, current evidence points to cholesterol being misidentified as the main cause of heart disease. read more…

Focus On Performance

Many people are vowing to get healthy in the New Year by losing weight and changing bad habits. But the majority of those resolutions fail; primarily because they are vague and lack a real strategy.  Changing your emphasis to improving performance can help you succeed this year.  Enhancing performance of every cell and organ in your body is the best method for optimizing your health and well-being.  Here are a few tips on how to make your New Year’s resolutions successful. read more…

Prioritize Recovery — It’s Critical for Maximizing Your Performance

Exercise training is the stimulus for gains in aerobic capacity, endurance, strength, muscle mass and power to take place.  But doing that hard work alone does not guarantee the results you want.  Your improvements really occur outside of your workouts, during your recovery.  If you do not recover well, you won’t see the results you expect.

All activity that we undertake and all bodily functions require energy (in the form of ATP).  A byproduct of that energy production and usage is the generation of free radicals that can cause oxidative stress.  Energy production occurs within the mitochondria of your cells, and the mitochondria also neutralize the free radicals produced.  So the number of mitochondria, and how well they function, determines how much energy you can produce and how well you can recover.  As we all experience, the ability to produce energy and recover declines with age. read more…

Telomeres: What They Reveal About Your Age

Benjamin Franklin first stated that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes.  While that may be more true than not, there is another certainty we all experience during the time that we are alive; namely, aging.  Technically, we begin aging from the time we are born. But those first couple of decades typically offers welcome improvements in our maturity, intellectual prowess and physical capabilities.  Aging, as we commonly think about it, begins in earnest in our 30’s or 40’s.  That is when hormones begin to decline and generally when we may first notice subtle changes in our appearance.  At the same time diminution in our physical performance, cognitive faculties, stamina and sexual potency signals the beginning of that relentless journey downhill.   Unless, of course, something is done to change that trajectory to enhance performance; which is the best method for optimizing our personal health and wellbeing, achieving our personal goals and living our lives as the best versions of ourselves. read more…

Hair Regrowth for the New Year

Hair plays a significant role in our society. It is associated with youthfulness and beauty in women and virility and masculinity in men.  But nearly 80 million people – men and women – struggle with hair loss.  True, baldness has become somewhat of a popular option for men and some embrace their baldness.  But it should be no surprise that hair loss can make many men and women feel self-conscious. The causes of hair loss are varied, and include heredity, disease, hormones and stress.  The good news is there are more solutions for treating hair loss than ever so nearly everyone that wants it can have a full head of hair. read more…

Testosterone Lowers Heart Risks

A little over a year ago two articles were published suggesting an increased cardiovascular risk associated with testosterone therapy.  There was tremendous media hype surrounding those articles that ultimately resulted in a warning from the FDA; a warning that was premature in my opinion (see “Testosterone and Your Heart”).    Looking at the same data, the European Medicines Agency concluded that there was “no consistent evidence” of increased cardiovascular risks.  Other research has even indicated a protective effect of testosterone on the heart.  That protective effect was recently reaffirmed in a new large scale study from the Veterans Affairs system.  Although the results were provocative and striking, this study has not been met with any of the same media attention. read more…

Take This to Heart

Did you ever notice how we use the heart to describe almost everything about ourselves? It’s built into the way we talk. If you’re close to someone they’re “near to your heart.” You can want something “with all your heart.” If you say what you feel you “get to the heart of the matter.” When you’re happy and carefree you’re “young at heart,” and when you see something uplifting it “warms your heart.”  You can use it to paint a picture of almost anything good, happy and inspiring.  The heart is at the core of our health, wellbeing, fitness and love.  Sadly, diseases of the heart are collectively also the leading cause of death among men and women in the US and worldwide.  Fret not; 80-90% of heart or cardiovascular diseases are preventable. And contrary to popular beliefs, it has little to do with cholesterol or saturated fats. read more…