Silica – Hair, Bones, Joints and More

What can I eat or supplement to make my hair grow faster, thicker, longer, stronger? 

There is no single answer for that question. First, you need a varied, nutritious diet, exercise, enough sleep - a healthy lifestyle. But there are some assists...©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Silica (silicon dioxide) is a necessary nutrient – particularly for your skin, hair, fingernails, bones, and joints. It makes all of the above stronger when it is abundant in your diet. Many people report that their hair and fingernails grow more quickly when eating some silica-rich foods or consuming silica supplements. 

You get the silica in your body from plants, from the soil they are grown in, and from water. Plants take orthosilicic acid from the soil (this is the form which is soluble in water). Silica is deposited in various parts of plants. Some plants like grasses (grains), cucumbers, beans, take up more silica than others.

Silica inclusion from a grass leaf.

Silica in various forms has been demonstrated to make hair stronger and possibly thicken hair shafts, to make fingernails stronger, and to improve elasticity and smoothness of skin. Hair shafts in one study of women with fine hair increased by about 8% in diameter in a study of Choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid (Ch-OSA) supplements (10 mg/day).  One example is BioSil brand. Silica increases bone density as well.

“Silica” is required for the body to manufacture collagen in skin and hair and fingernails as well as in the synthesis of glycosaminoglycans which attract and hold large amounts of water in skin and cartilage.

Choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid is the form with clinical, double-blind, placebo-controlled tests to demonstrate that it works and has not been associated with negative side effects. And if I hear of any, I'll add them here and refresh the post.

 

Links to studies:

Ch-OSA might increase hair elasticity, reduces breakage, by increasing the load hair can withstand before breaking (abstract/summary).

Ch-OSH significantly reduces hair (and nail) brittleness (abstract/summary).

Horsetail?
If you are thinking of taking horsetail (Equisetum) extract for silica, know that horsetail can sicken  grazing animals who eat too much of it. It contains toxic alkaloids - the amounts of which are determined by the species. It may also contain trace amounts of nicotine. It is possible to remove the toxic alkaloids and nicotine, some supplement brands mention this on their packaging. Horsetail silica may not be very well absorbed. And given that supplements are not regulated with the requirement they contain what they claim to contain, proceed with caution.

Algae (diatoms)?
I have also read of people ingesting diatomaceous earth for hair growth (diatoms are algae with silicon dioxide in their cell walls – diatomaceous earth is a powder consisting of diatoms). While there are “food grade” versions of this product available and are assumed to be safer, swallowing diatoms is a lot like swallowing sand. It could work well, or you could end up with tummy upsets, so proceed carefully (and at your own risk) if you are using this as a supplement, rather than to eliminate snails from your garden. I regularly encounter diatoms that are as wide or long as 2 or 3 human hairs. Hypothetically, diatoms silica skeleton dissolves in the acid of your stomach, which is what would need to happen in order for you to absorb the silica. This may happen to some extent. Proceed with caution, food-grade diatoms are also an unregulated product and you may not be adequately informed about what you are getting by reading labels. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Food sources

Food is a good bet! Foods and beverages with high silica content; beer and high-silica mineral water are about equal. Beer is full of grain extracts which are silica-rich, already soluble in water. We get silica from ordinary drinking water too - the amount varies with location.

Solid-food silica sources which are well-absorbed by the body include whole grains or bran (in whole grain bread, brown rice, oatmeal), green beans, raisins. Also dry beans or lentils, cucumbers, leafy green vegetables, nettle tea (nettles in general are high in silica). 

With the exception of green beans and raisins, silica from fruits and vegetables is not as readily absorbed as that from grains. For example, bananas are very high in silica, but your body cannot access most of it. Nettle tea is an interesting possibility. Nettle leaves and stems contain large amounts of silica. Any silica that makes it into the tea will be the water-soluble (highly use-able) form. Nettle tea is also a diuretic, so use it with caution if you have kidney troubles.

If you're not supplementing silica, you get 20-30% of your intake of silica from liquids, and in liquids silica must be the soluble form (which is also the most available to your body) or you’d see sandy-looking crystalline bits in there. That being said, the digestive system is probably able to break some insoluble silica into soluble silica (see "source" #1 below).

To get more silica in your diet, consider drinking plenty of water, including tea and coffee, and eating whole grains and green beans. 

©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

The average drinking water (from groundwater or river water in the US) contains 15-17 parts per million of silica (one part per million is one milliliter per liter) – that’s about 14-17 milligrams per liter. It is thought you need 10-25 milligrams silica per day at a minimum. One liter per day (just over one quart or 4 cups) of water may provide you with that minimum requirement.

Adding supplements is a personal decision and should be considered carefully – not all supplements are safe for all people and it’s probably safest to find supplements which have been tested for efficacy and side effects. If you have a chronic health condition, or take prescription medication, consult with a doctor or pharmacist before introducing a supplement in case it might interact with a medication, or not be appropriate for your health needs.

Summing up: Silica strengthens your hair, nails, skin, and bones. It may help speed up hair and nail growth.  It’s a necessary nutrient, it’s widely available in nutritious foods and beverages. Yet another case in which eating well and drinking plenty of water makes your skin, bones and hair healthy.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Sources:

Dietary silicon intake and absorption

Jugdaohsingh R, Anderson S, Tucker KL, Elliott H, Kiel DP, Thompson R, Powell J. 2002 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 75 887-893.

Barel A, Calomme M, Timchenko A, De Paepe K, Demeester N, Rogiers V, Clarys P, Vanden Berghe D. 2005. Effect of oral intake of choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid on skin, nails and hair in women with photodamaged skin. Archives of Dermatological Research 297, 147-153.

Wickett R, Kossmann E, Barel A, Demeester N, Clarys P, Vanden Berghe D, Calomme M. 2007.

Effect of oral intake of choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid on hair tensile strength and morphology in women with fine hair. Archives of Dermatological Research 299, 499-505.

Why Hair Curves (Waves and Curls - and Kinks)

I've been working on this post for a while, my research has answered a lot of my questions and I hope it does for you too. While this post is about curling, it's also about how hair kinks because the structural foundation is probably the same. Curling or coiling hair is when hair curves around a "center" which is larger than the actual hair shaft. Imagine your hair curling around a toothpick, a pencil, a magic marker... Kinking is when hair twists on it's own axis. Kinking hair almost always curls or waves too. Which gives you the 1) hair twisting on its own axis, superimposed by 2) hair rotating around an imaginary axis. Pretty cool! The same research I'm using for curling applies to kinking hair. Wavy, curly, and tightly curled/coiled hair may or may not have kinking - but all these curl patterns can include some form of kinking.
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

The cortex of the hair is where curliness is determined. “Cortex” comprises 75% of what you see as “hair” and is made of proteins.

In the cortex there are various types of cells. These “cells” are made up of smaller fibrous units – macrofibrils, which are made of smaller units, matrix (proteins) and those of ever smaller units called microfibrils which ultimately are made from the "bare naked" alpha helical structure of keratin proteins, coiled together. Coil alpha helical proteins together and you have a fiber. Coil a bunch of those fibers together and you have "hair." It's a lot like making "plied" yarn or rope if you have ever seen or done that. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Image from an interesting website:
 http://hair-chemistry.weebly.com/hair-structure.html

You may recall that proteins get their “recipe” from your DNA. A particular sequence of DNA may contain instructions for “making keratin” and then “making individual keratin microfibrils” and “making macrofibrils” and so on. Your genes, the code your DNA bears, determines what proteins will be made and how. These are set when you are born, but then environmental factors can change them – things like hormones at puberty, pregnancy, menopause, or as part of chemotherapy. You can call these "things that change how your genes are expressed" by the term "epigenetics" and impress your friends!

©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

In straight versus curly hair, one main difference is what sorts of cells are in the cortex of the hair and how they are arranged. An article published in the Journal of Structural Biology (Bryson et al., 2009) identified 4 types of cells in human hair which have different characteristics and, when arranged in different patterns in the cortex of hair, can cause hair to grow in a curved manner. Three of these cell types are most common in all hair – A, B and C. This was determined using scanning electron microscopy, staining of hairs and slicing them in thin sections, then again using extremely high magnification and dye detection.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

In the past, it had been thought that the curvature of hair was dictated by the shape of the hair shaft. This has proven to be inconsistent. There is a correlation – curlier hair tends to have flatter hair shafts – but correlation does not mean a cause. For example, If I slip on the ice, tear my green trousers and skin my knee one day (correlation), that does not mean the next time I wear my green trousers I will slip on the ice again. Green trousers do not cause slips and falls on ice. It was also suggested that hair may grow at different speeds on different sides of the hair shaft, causing one side to bend more than the other and this hypothesis is still viable and even fits with what Bryson et al. described.

©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

In straight hair, the arrangement of the types of hair cells is more-or-less evenly distributed with A, B, and C cells around the medulla or center-most part of the hair. But in curving hair, the hair shaft seems to be divided in half, with one half having a distribution of cell types similar to straight hair (evenly distributed) and the other half heavily concentrated with “Type C” cells – we’ll think of them as “C” for “curvature.”

An example of a whorl (this is
actually a  fingerprint)

A helix or helical structure

Type C cells are high in cystine (a sulfur-rich protein), often have their macrofibrils fused rather than separated (like in the other common cell types, “A and B”) and tend to have their macrofibrils arranged in whorls, their microfibrils are helical. These Type C cells are clustered in the concave half of the curve of hair (the inside or short side of the bend) and the A and B cells (and a few C cells) are scattered more evenly on the outside or longer side of the bend. To make it simple, think of the C cells as having an inherent “twisting” nature. 

My drawing of a straight hair (left) and a coily, curly or wavy hair
(right) in cross section. This is cortex only - the middle part.
Type A cells are red, Type B cells are blue/purple,
Type C cells are green. The curving hair at right has a lot
of Type C cells on the lower half - this is the concave, short side
on the inside of the bend.

The inside of the curve is indicated by blue arrows, this is
the concave or shorter side of the bend in hair where "Type C"
cells are concentrated.

What does this mean for hair curvature? That half of curved hair which makes it curve, does so because it is a rather different material than the other half. The “ingredients” may be the similar, but the way it is assembled (the recipe) is different. It is hypothesized that the more “tightly wound” (helical microfibrils within whorl-like or otherwise twisting macrofibrils) half of curving hair contracts more than the other half when dry, causing the hair to bend and twist when dry but stretch out somewhat (or a lot) when wet.

Red arrows show the outside of the curve, the convex or
longer side with more-or-less evenly distributed mix of
the various types of cells.

©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

If your hair has loose, big waves, the asymmetry (the 2 different halves) of your hair may not be as great as illustrated here; for example, the layer of Type C cells in the concave half of the hair may not be very thick. If your hair has tighter waves or curls, there may be a greater difference between the two halves of your hair shafts - a thicker layer of Type C cells. Most studies of how hair curls have been done on wool, which has a very small (tight) curl diameter and extreme difference between the cell types on either side of the curve. So it stands to reason that the greater the difference between cell-type (protein) composition and distribution on each half or side of your hair shafts, the smaller the curl diameter. This sort of protein fiber and cell-type based explanation also makes it easier to understand how hormones or illnesses or medications can change how our genes are expressed to change a not-curly hair to a curly one or vice versa.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Updated January, 2015

Sources:

Bryson WG, Harland DP, Caldwell JP, Vernon JA, Walls RJ, Woods JL, Nagase S, Itou T, Koike K. 2009. 

Cortical Cell Types and Intermediate Filament Arrangements Correlate With Fiber Curvature in Japanese Human Hair. Journal of Structural Biology: 166, 46-58

Menachem Lewin (2007) Fiber chemistry p. 334

When Good Bottles Go Bad

If you make your own skin or hair products, re-bottle products, or refill bottles from large (gallon/liter) containers, chances are your bottles will, at some time, become contaminated. You may never notice.
For at-home decontamination, you can wash bottles with hot, soapy water and run the liquid through their caps if you have a flip-cap. Then use a bleach solution, isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, or vinegar to kill bacteria by pouring some in the bottle, shaking it vigorously now and then over the course of about 20 minutes. Run that through the cap too. For a final rinse, use water you have boiled and cooled (cool enough so it won't melt the bottle), and rinse several times. Air dry.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Plaque: a bacterial biofilm

But there's a sneaky little trick some bacteria have to stick to the bottle, presenting a possible source of contamination for your product. It's the same trick bacteria use to stick to your teeth, creating plaque: BIOFILMS.
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
A bacterial biofilm is made of extracellular  polysaccharides (long-chain sugars, much like those in some hair gels that form the lovely film which keeps your hair in place) and other sticky, gooey things. Biofilms are sticky, gummy, thick and generally yucky goop that clings to colonies of some species of bacteria. These bacteria create them under some circumstances to gain control of their environment. In some cases, a biofilm will protect the bacteria from the surrounding environment almost completely so that they can live in situations otherwise hostile to bacteria; such as on the wall of the bottle, next to your preserved product. If the bacteria can live in the product you've added to the bottle, they may escape their biofilm and get growing.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Biofilms can resist (in some cases) bleach, alcohol, acids, bases, hot water and soap and any but the most vigorous scrubbing. Abrasive scrubbing can actually scratch surfaces, giving biofilms a better place to grow. This is why, after scraping your teeth, you get them polished smooth at the dentist's office - to offer a more slippery environment to bacteria.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

So keep track of how many times you re-use a bottle. Be sure to clean it well between uses, but please recycle the bottles you use after a few uses and use a new one. Better safe than sorry.

Next post is a more in-depth look at why hair curls - I'm taking my time so it's well researched.

Eczema, Itchy skin and Water Softness

Got hard water? Water that comes from limestone or sandstone aquifers in particular tends to contain minerals which cause it to be "hard." Primarily calcium and magnesium. These minerals interfere with many detergents, including soap. They can deposit on your skin, your shower, in plumbing.
People with itchy skin or eczema and dermatitis often try (or at least wonder about) water softeners to relieve their symptoms. First off, a shower-head water filter does nothing to remove minerals from water. These filters can remove chlorine and some "heavy" metals, but do not soften. That's another story.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
A study in England tested 336 children, ages 6 to 16 years of age. All had eczema. All were treated for eczema with medication, but half were also given an ion-exchange water softener to test for 12 weeks.

Nurses evaluated the physical eczema symptoms and found no difference in measurable indicators of disease  between the group which used softened water and the group with used their (hard) tap water. However on the more subjective (more difficult to measure accurately) aspects of the disease (itchiness, sleep loss), parents/children reported "small benefits." Even though these benefits could not be translated into measurable change in skin disease. Half of them decided to buy the water softener at the end of the study because they perceived a benefit. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

So the bigger the intervention, the bigger the perceived effect? Even when no difference could be measured? While a water softener might make a difference for some people; (and if so, how do we know whether it was the removal of minerals, or the addition of salt in their place?) soft water doesn't have enough support to be recommended by doctors. That's a good thing, because water softeners are expensive. I'd hate to invest in one and haul bags of salt every month and then have it make no difference! Not to mention they only last 8-10 years where I live.
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Placebo effect? Probably. I have a problem with how the study was designed.
Half the kids got a real water softener - then the other half should have had "sham" water softeners installed in their homes which did nothing. Just having the water softener and knowing it is going to alter your perception of your symptoms. Neither group should have known who had a real vs. the fake water softener, nor should the researchers have known.
To get really fancy, there are ways to record how many times a person wakes up to scratch, because loss of sleep is significant physical stress which can worsen eczema - but it is very difficult to guess just how much sleep you're losing, or how poor your sleep quality is because you wake up often.
Itchiness is very difficult to measure - that one will stay subjective.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Science can measure facts far more accurately than perceptions, and it's not only the job of scientists to be critical, but also the job of the public. By "critical" I don't mean, "complain about everything and be negative," I mean to wonder about what might have been studied differently. To wonder whether the assumed problem of minerals in the water is not a problem at all, but adding salt to water might make it less irritating to already itchy skin. To wonder whether people who thought they had a real water softener (but really had a fake one) might also report less itchiness (placebo effect). Placebos are not a bad thing - but it's better if they cost far less than water softeners.

That's it for now. 

Source: Kim S. Thomas, Tara Dean, Caroline O'Leary, Tracey H. Sach, Karin Koller, Anthony Frost, Hywel C. Williams. A Randomised Controlled Trial of Ion-Exchange Water Softeners for the Treatment of Eczema in Children.PLoS Medicine, 2011; 8 (2)

Microfiber Vs. Terrycloth

This is one of those posts which makes me I think,  "I can't believe I actually think about these sorts of things." ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

What do you dry your hair with? Initially, right when you step out of the shower or bathtub? Can what you dry your hair with cause or reduce frizz in wavy and curly hair?

Microfiber towels are popular for cleaning eyeglasses and windows without streaking or scratching, and microfiber fabrics provide moisture-management for clothing. You know the “moisture-wicking” winter clothing? That’s usually microfiber. Microfiber is made of spun-together fibers (usually polyester) which are individually extremely fine in diameter – about 1/100^th the thickness of a hair strand.

When you dry your hair with a cotton (terrycloth) towel, it absorbs moisture quickly because the towel is dry and your hair is wet – but also because the shaggy texture of the towel creates far more surface area to come into contact with your hair.

Rather than absorbing water like cotton, water is pulled through the spaces between the fibers of microfiber by capillary action. Microfiber pulls water through the fabric and out to the other side where it can evaporate – as though through a drinking straw. It moves water by displacing it – not absorbing it.

Microfiber towels make your hair less dry than terrycloth towels. Or rather, if you squeeze sections of hair in a cotton terrycloth towel, the outside of the section of hair will be more dry than the inside whereas with a microfiber towel, the moisture remains more evenly distributed.

©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

So will the use of microfiber towels reduce frizz when used to "dry" curly and wavy hair? I think you have to judge that for yourself. I suspect that differential drying speeds in the same sections of hair could lead to a less orderly (defined) wave pattern when cotton terry towels are used.

One clear advantage to microfiber towels is that they are usually smaller and lighter than a cotton terrycloth bath towel. This encourages gentler handling overall – you can gently squeeze and blot your hair dry without getting your arms and head tangled in a full-size bath towel.  Rubbing, wringing, and wrapping hair up on your head will ultimately lead to hair damage, breakage, and duller-looking hair (in a word, frizz). So your technique is as important as your tools, um, towels. Blot and squeeze, don’t scrub and rub your hair. If you want to try a microfiber towel, but not pay a lot for one made just for hair, you can find packages of multiple microfiber towels in the automotive section of department stores or discount stores which are usually inexpensive. Save some for cleaning windows and eyeglasses.