Does hair ever stop growing?

When we think about our hair, our first thoughts are usually hair health and fashion, but hair has done so much for humans since our beginning. Hair works as a cushion to protect your head, to warm your head in low temperatures, and also to protect your scalp from damaging UV rays. If the sun's scorching rays make direct contact with your skin all the time, it could lead to the development of skin cancer, but our hair works to protect us from this.

In other words, since our hair continuously takes damage, it makes sense for it to continue growing. Hair is produced by repeated cell division at the hair root. Studies show that 100 to 200 hairs regrown every day and grow about 1 cm every month. However, as we get older, the cells in the hair follicles are no longer able to divide as rapidly, therefore, our hair falls out at a faster rate and becomes thinner. The mechanisms of hair growth are still not completely understood, but it has been known for a long time that there is a correlation to blood circulation. Hippocrates, a Greek doctor who lived 2,400 years ago, wrote, "If you can widen the blood vessels, hair will grow."

Our hair has another little-known role. It disposes of unwanted metals from the body. The cystine in hair has a property that binds easily to metals, and it regulates them by carrying excess metals out of the body. It is said that large amounts of arsenic were found in the hair of Napoleon, who was said to have been killed by a metal poison called arsenic. Truly fascinating.

It seems that there are still many things we still don't know about hair, but we're excited about the progress the scientific community has made in trying to understand it. We can expect great things from science in the future!