eyelash growth

By Melanie Haiken, Caring.com senior editorWhen it comes to our hair, most of us worry most about what to do with it: how short to cut it, how to style it, whether to color it once it begins to go gray. But experts say that our hair says a lot more about us than how closely we follow the latest styles. in fact, the health of our hair and scalp can be a major tip-off to a wide variety of health conditions.

“We used to think hair was just dead protein, but now we understand that a whole host of internal conditions affect the health of our hair,” says dermatologist Victoria Barbosa, MD, who runs Millennium Park Dermatology in Chicago. “Our hair responds to stress, both the physical stressors of disease and underlying health issues, and psychological stress.”Here, eight red flags that tell you it’s time to pay more attention to the health of your hair — and to your overall health in general.Red Flag no. 1: Dry, Limp, thin HairWhat it means: Many factors can lead to over-dry hair, including hair dyes, hair blowers, and swimming in chlorinated water. But a significant change in texture that leaves hair feeling finer, with less body, can be an indicator of an underactive thyroid, known as hypothyroidism. some people conclude that their hair is thinning because it feels as if there’s less of it, but the thinning is due more to the texture of the hair itself becoming finer and weaker than to individual hairs falling out (though that happens too).More clues: Other signs of hypothyroidism include fatigue, weight gain, slow heart rate, and feeling cold all the time, says Raphael Darvish, a dermatologist in Brentwood, California. in some cases, the eyebrows also thin and fall out. a telltale sign: when the outermost third of the eyebrow thins or disappears.What to do: Report your concerns to your doctor and ask him or her to check your levels of thyroid hormone. the most common blood tests measure the levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and T4. It’s also important to keep a list of your symptoms