Thank you so much for having me.
Buy five months and get your sixth month free, plus complimentary gifts for your hair.
When you subscribe, you'll also get a Headspace membership included for free.
Visit Nutrafulcom and use code HEADSPACE at checkout for educational purposes only and not medical advice.
If you have medical conditions or take medications or supplements, consult a healthcare provider before using Nutrafol products.
Hey friends, Rosie here.
Welcome back to Radio Headspace.
Today we're continuing our conversation about whole body wellness and hair health, but this time focusing on men.
Hair thinning is often written off as just genetics or something that happens, but there's usually more to that story.
So today I sit down with double board certified dermatologist, Dr. Ron Bosley.
We talk about how things like stress sleep nutrition, hormones and everyday habits can play a role in men's hair health, and a few simple ways that men can start supporting both their hair and their overall wellbeing.
Dr Ron Bosley is a hair health expert who partners closely with Nutrafol to help educate both patients and providers on taking a whole body approach to healthier hair.
Dr. Ron, I'm so excited to be chatting with you today on Radio Headspace.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me.
I'm glad to be here so we can have a nice conversation.
Yeah.
You know, one of the reasons why I, I mean, for many reasons, right?
I think talking about health has been my passion for the last two decades, but specifically when it comes to stress, to physical changes, to our mental health as we age, this topic has become a hot topic for a lot of people I know.
And I know that a lot of our listeners are also really interested in this topic.
And I was excited for you to be on here, because there's a couple of specific questions that I wanted to ask you.
And I'm hoping that you can give us some good insight.
Of course.
Shoot.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
So for many men, they assume that hair thinning is something that is inevitable.
Right.
So from your perspective, is it really just genetics or is there more going on?
It's never just one thing.
I remember myself looking at photos and starting to have hair issues.
And I'm like, man, my dad was fine when he was my age.
What's happening to me?
But I wasn't accounting for the stress in my life, the fact that I was in medical school, the fact that my diet was terrible, the fact that I had so many other things that could be contributing to my hair issues.
And that is something that I like to preach when I see men come to my clinic.
It's like, hey.
Yes, there are certain things of father time and mother nature that we can't control.
But hey, there are certain things that we can definitely control and we can change the course of what's happening with the hair so that you can keep what you, what you're desiring to keep.
Yeah.
So what are some of the biggest contributors to hair thinning outside of genetics?
There are several big categories.
I mentioned a few.
Life stressors, whether it's personal stressors, whether it's the environment you live in.
Do you live in environments in which your hair health is compromised?
Of course we talk about hormones and that's maybe one of the things that kind of gets lumped into genetics.
But are there other hormonal issues that you're dealing with?
And are you being affected by the stress hormone?
Most people don't know there's this thing called the stress hormone that can mimic or influence the quote unquote sex hormone that we think about testosterone.
We think about like hair and men.
So there's so many factors that can influence.
And of course, I mentioned one earlier, father time.
You know, we age, our body ages, ourselves age and there are some consequences that come along with that that can exacerbate some underlying issues.
What are you seeing is the main source of stress that people are coming to see you for?
Well, I feel like it's shifted.
We are not too far from a period of life when everyone was a little stressed when we were born, through the pandemic.
And so that has been a big shift in the number one cause over the last six years.
But to add on to that, I will say the biggest stressor is just the things that happen in life that we experience all collectively, especially when we're talking about people in their 30s or 40s.
Everyone is trying to build their career.
Everyone is starting family.
But you know what I'm getting at.
There are so many experiences that this may affect us.
Slowly, day by day, our health is starting to change.
All these things add up together to equal this kind of low-grade stress that is influencing our health.
Yeah, you know.
It's so interesting that you say that because thinking about just the difference in men and women and how you know the hormonal differences, right.
We've had several conversations about perimenopause and menopause.
And I know being postmenopausal myself, the fluctuations go from high to low very sporadically.
And I know that it's different for men.
And I guess There's a couple of questions here I have for you with regard to hormones and the role that they play in men's hair health and how those shifts differ from women's hormonal shifts.
Yes, that is an excellent point to differentiate.
And I'll try to make it really simple.
You know, with women when we talk about hormones, the conversation about hormone is a little bit more ever present, just because women, just by nature of being a woman, experiencing hormonal change from a month to month basis, but also from a year to year basis,
And men may not necessarily experience that, but it is a steady and slow change in not only testosterone but the sensitivity to testosterone and how much of that testosterone is being converted to forms of testosterone that may not be as advantageous for hair growth.
And so for men, you're like, well, I feel fine.
I don't have other signs of hormonal changes, but we're neglecting the fact that our skin or our hair may be more sensitive to those normal levels of hormones.
Or we have other factors that are contributing to how our hair is responding to hormones in the environment.
It's in
And so that is a big starting point.
Time for me with my male patients is how are your hormones?
How are you feeling?
Are weather normal?
Well, fine.
That doesn't necessarily negate the fact that you may have some hormonal influence to the hair issues you're experiencing.
What do you do when your clients come in and they're really stressed about the hair loss that they're experiencing but they lead a very stressful career.
How do we mitigate that?
That is the million-dollar question.
Yeah.
I think the first thing we mitigate or first thing I like to do is just address it.
Right.
So if you you may think that your, your career aspirations are not affecting you, but they may be in the first part of that is just acknowledging that
Is there one thing you can do in your life that could give you a little bit of less stress?
Can we break that cycle even for a moment to reduce the stressors in your life?
Is it taking up a practice like yoga?
Is it meditating?
Is it reading books?
Is it finding a hobby?
Is there something that we can do to help just break that cycle, to help that One thing that could potentially be a big part of why you're coming to see me today?
And so acknowledging that is important.
But I also like to recommend treatments that can help center not only why you're coming to see me, but also other things that you may not necessarily recognize.
So many people struggle with stress and cortisol spikes.
Cortisol is one of the things that I keep hearing people talk about.
And I'm curious, those two things.
Well, first of all, if you can just tell us a little bit about the connection between stress and what cortisol is and what it does, and perhaps some of the things that impact those things that let's start with what we consume.
Yeah.
So for those who don't know, cortisol, we kind of call that the stress hormone.
And that's normal to have cortisol.
There are periods in which we want our body to produce a stress hormone and we want at times where we don't want it to produce a stress hormone.
And unfortunately, the lifestyle that we live, maybe the diets that we have, maybe it's not optimal.
Maybe we're missing some key minerals and vitamins in our diet.
You kind of constantly have this low grade stress hormone that's constantly there.
And the analogy I like to use to my patients is think of an airplane flying from New York to LA.
It has a course.
And if we deviate from that course, even 1 over a long time, that plane may end up in another city, may not end in LA.
So if we are constantly having stress and the things that are affecting us, it deviates us away from where we should be going.
And so even if you don't feel that stress, your organs, your body may be feeling that stress.
Yeah.
Thank you for saying that, Dr. Ron.
And it's so funny, my reaction to that.
I go straight to my consistent question.
How do I minimize my stress?
Because my stress is stressing me out, right?
So in your experience, if you see this What I'm saying to you and what my experience is, do you see it manifest in your patients?
And what is your recommendation for when somebody comes in and is stressed about the stress?
We talked about that going off course.
Well, if you put yourself back on course, even for a brief amount of time, you're still heading in towards that direction.
It's my responsibility to give you tips and tools to help your body respond to stress, even if you aren't able to physically change what you're doing or change the lifestyle you're in.
You know we mentioned before making sure your diet is sufficient, making sure you're taking supplements that provide certain minerals and certain elements to how your body normally functions.
And if you support that, then you are supporting your body's ability to not respond negatively to the stress hormone.
So that's where it's helpful to give my patients the tools to do that medically, but also when we're talking about their lifestyle, their nutrition, etc.
So how do men's nutritional needs change over time?
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
When you're younger, I feel like your body has corrective mechanisms to correct where you make mistakes.
As you get older, as we age, we may lose the ability for our body to course correct.
And so if you're not taking enough protein, if you're not getting enough vitamin D, if you don't have enough zinc or selenium or certain minerals in your diet, we start to lose the ability for normal cellular function.
So our body needs these things to function.
It needs vitamin D and certain minerals to do what it's supposed to do.
And if we're not providing it that, then we start to deviate off that course that we talked about before.
As we start to age.
We say we start to age in our early 30s, some late 20s, some say.
And so if you're not giving yourself enough support, supporting your muscles with your diet, if you're not supporting your organ health with the proper minerals and vitamins, then we continue that aging process and it kind of builds upon itself.
One of the things that I find really important to discuss is the is the importance of supplementing and why we need it, because I know plenty of people even now that don't see the value in it.
Can you tell us a little bit about why it's important from a medical perspective?
I am a realist with my patients and myself.
And I know that we don't, I'd say point blank.
I know no one has the world's perfect diet.
And a lot of the misconception about supplementation is it's just, it's a waste.
You know you're You're not to be explicit, but you're excreting out every dollar that you put into investment.
And that's just certainly not true.
Yes, maybe your body may not need everything in a certain supplement every day.
But are you sure you're getting enough vitamin D in your diet every single day?
Are you sure you're getting enough sun exposure?
Are you sure you're eating enough foods that have certain minerals?
And if the answer is no.
And it's kind of a low hanging fruit to supplement that.
Back to my metaphor.
We try not to deviate off of this goal of ours.
And I would do everything in my power to make sure that I have enough to support my bodily function.
And that's the importance of supplementation, to supplement what you should be already doing.
And if you're not already doing it, maybe it's the Swiss cheese model.
It's kind of preventing things from falling through the cracks.
Wow.
I love that perspective.
And again, one that I think is very important, because what's one practical step that men can take to support their hair health?
One step that every man can take when we talk about hair health is to First understand the bigger picture.
We talked about it earlier in that there are so many things that are influencing your hair health.
And my goal and your goal should be to tackle the first one.
Let's identify what that is, whether it's genetics, whether it's hormones, whether it's aging, whether it's nutrition, whether it's stress.
Let's pick one.
Let's work on that.
And my job will be to point you in the right direction of supplements, supplementation that kind of helps support that goal.
And we tackle that.
We move on to the next one.
And, you know, hair health is a long biological journey.
And our goal is to keep us on track for that journey and not to deviate off the path.
What do you find to be helpful?
Let's say that, for example, you have a patient that's a little impatient.
I encountered that way too much.
And I'm glad we're talking about it because maybe we can educate the masses.
Hair is a slow and patient process.
And the more we talk about that, the more patients kind of accept it.
But I kind of like, you know, I'm an analogy person.
I'm like, you don't want a tree to grow fast, right?
It'll be nice.
It'll be small and thin and it might blow over.
You want a nice flower.
Wide trunk, a nice, strong foundation.
And that's why hair takes a long time, because it's going through these cycles in which it's building up and which is growing and maturing.
And it comes out the scalp strong and resilient to the world that you're bringing it into.
And you don't want to rush that process.
So let the process happen.
Yes, there are some things that we can do medically to help expedite the timeline a little bit.
But you know, Mother Nature, Father Time.
They have their processes for a reason to make sure that it comes out healthy and comes out for the long term.
One thing that I...
I think is important to bring up.
I have a close friend, childhood friend that he's in his mid forties now.
And recently hair started thinning.
I've of course given him all of the correct direction with regard to supplements.
I'm like, please use this.
It's going to help you.
It's going to be great.
The thing that really stood out to me in the conversation I had with him was how embarrassed he felt.
It became a source of embarrassment for him.
And it was interesting to me because he wasn't saying it out loud.
Like even him saying, My hair is thinning.
He couldn't even say it because he felt I could see it was visibly making him uncomfortable.
And I think it's really... noteworthy to discuss it.
And I'm curious what your take is on that.
And if you encounter that with your patients, how do you help them navigate that part of their journey, especially for men?
Because Look, for some men, they could just shave their head and be like your dad.
You said he's a good-looking man.
You're like, it's going to be fine.
Everything's good.
But I think that there are some people that they don't know how to grapple with that.
Yeah well, thank you for sharing his story, because that is a very common issue, not only in my office, but just generally with men.
What we like to say.
By the time you're noticing hair issues, usually it's been going on for a long time.
Usually it takes quite a bit of advanced changes for you to start to notice it.
And that's why I stress the proactive approach.
A lot of my younger patients or people who actually come in early enough will say oh yeah, it's early for me.
Maybe let's just start on one thing.
And I try to convince them like no, we need to take a proactive approach to your hair health because yes, you may be in your early 30s and you may still be as vibrant as you were in your 20s.
But let's add a supplement like a Nutrafol Men's to kind of help with the more holistic, comprehensive approach to your hair health.
So yes, when we add that one thing that you want to do, we are getting the phenomena of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
And 10 years later you'll thank me because we've been able to help maintain some of that hair health that you've been looking for, without adding plan B, C and D that some men who are coming in later may need.
The best that we can do is what we do today.
And if we wait another day, another year, another decade, it would be worse, honestly.
Yeah, and thank you for saying that.
I also think it's fair to also bring up the other component of that.
Perhaps somebody that's already in sort of that later phase, like maybe they're already, maybe they're 50s, mid 50s, early 60s.
Is there something that those men can do to help with this process?
Or because there's also that feeling of like, oh, it doesn't matter for me.
It's, you know, my hair is my hair and it's just what it is.
I am so glad you asked that.
Because I have a story slash a new favorite solution for that.
Because that happens a lot, where men who are a little bit older who say hey, I'm not expecting a lot, but what can I do?
And lately, I've been recommending another Nutrafol product, Men's 50, for these patients.
And the reason why is this.
Because when we think about aging, it's not just the hair.
It's not just your body is this intricate system in which everything connects.
And if I can help you get what you want to get, Maybe we can supplement you with something that can help with other things.
And so we talk about reducing the effects of stress.
We talk about reducing the effects of aging cells, as I like to say in the clinic.
There are some supplements that I like, that I feel personally have a blend of ingredients that can help with aging gracefully.
I love that.
Dr. Ron, thank you so, so much for your knowledge, your expertise and what you do.
I know that a lot of our listeners who are currently going through this process especially the men out there listening I know that this is going to serve them in some way and hopefully inspire them to make the changes that they need to be proactive in their journey, in their hair health journey.
So where can people go to connect with you or get more information?
Yes.
Well, firstly, thank you for your time.
These are really good questions.
I love discussing this just because I feel like it's something that should be discussed more often.
I am a privacy dermatologist in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but you can follow me on my socials Dr Ron Bosley on Instagram and TikTok.
And I look forward to educating the world more about this topic.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for what you do and the knowledge you provide.
And thank you all so much for listening to this episode of Radio Headspace.
The information provided is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnoses or treatment.
If you have concerns of medical conditions or are taking prescription medication and or other supplements, please speak to a trusted healthcare provider before adding Nutrafol products to your routine.
