Why do nose and ear hair grow longer and thicker as we age?

Getting older often brings unexpected grooming challenges. This is particularly evident when there are areas which are young, we may otherwise ignore hair growth.

This includes our nose and ears, where hair grows thicker and longer as we age. But why does the hair in these areas act this manner?

The answer lies mainly in our sex hormones.

Two forms of hair

There are two forms of hair that grow on our bodies.

Hairy hair It is fantastic and colorless. This hair (also calledPeach Fizz”) grows throughout most of our body, including our arms and neck.

Terminal hair It is tough, thick and deep. It stands out from our skin and is often very obvious. Adult males have terminal hair on about 90% of their body, with females growing on 30% of it. The corpses.

When we’re cold, terminal hair stands up (gives goose bumps) and helps trap heat to maintain us warm. It also protects us from the sun (just like the hair on our scalp), and keeps dust and dirt out of our eyes through our eyebrows and eyelashes.

Because vellus hairs are short, thin, and colorless, it is just not normally an aesthetic problem (although it might be altered in some diseases). Instead, it is the terminal hairs which are most frequently seen, and the first goal of our razors.

The normal means of hair growth includes the expansion phase (anagen), before hair loss, is replaced by a follicle shrinking phase (categen), after which a brief resting phase (telogen) and because the cycle begins. About 90% of our body is hair Growth stage At any time

Nose, ear, eyelash and eyebrow hairs don’t normally grow very long. This is because the expansion phase of follicles only lasts 100-150 days, meaning there may be a limit to how long they’ll last.

Alternatively, the hair in your head has a growth phase that lasts several years, so in case you do not get it, it might be over a meter long. cut.

Why do we’ve got hair in our nose and ears?

It’s about us 120 hairs Growing in each of our nasal cavities, the common length is about 1 cm.

When you breathe through your nostrils, the hairs in your nose work with mucus to stop dust, pollen, and other particles from reaching your lungs.

Hair within the ears also plays a protective role, trapping foreign objects and dealing with earwax to facilitate the self-cleaning process.

What is the effect of aging?

Androgens are a gaggle of sex hormones that play a key role in puberty, growth and sexual health. The commonest androgen is testosterone.

These androgens Effect on hair growthand are the important thing to understanding why we’ve got long and thick hair in our noses and ears.

Hair in several parts of the body responds in a different way to androgens. Unlike some hairs which are stimulated at puberty (resembling pubic hair and facial hair in men), some hairs, resembling eyelashes, don’t reply to androgens in any respect. Other hairs grow in size more slowly, resembling hairs within the ear canal that may grow 30 years.

The level of ladies is lower Androgens In the body, subsequently, major changes in hair growth are more localized within the underarms and pubic areas.

We haven’t got much data to support different conclusions about hair growth later in life, because most studies have focused on why we lose hair (like balding) relatively than why we’ve got an excessive amount of.

However, there continues to be some speculation as to why we grow ear and nose hair as we age.

1. As we age, the body is exposed to androgens for an extended time frame. This long exposure makes parts of it Body more sensitive For testosterone, potentially stimulating hair growth.

2. Over time, and long-term exposure to testosterone, some great volleyballs can develop into one Change And grow dark, long terminal hair. These terminal hairs then attach to our nose and ears.

3. As we undergo puberty, together with increased androgen levels, a protein called SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin) can be released. This protein helps control the quantity of testosterone and estrogen that reaches your tissues. During aging, SHBG levels may deficiency Faster than androgens, leaving testosterone to grow ear and nose hair.

4. Hair changes easily With age. This can lead to changes in color, thinning and follicle changes. These follicles could have evolved to answer our body’s changing environment, resulting in longer hair growth.

Most of the results of hairy ears and nose are seen in men, because they’ve high levels of testosterone.

Should we be anxious?

This is often not an issue. Auricular hypertrichosis doesn’t affect hearing. Note that in case you are using hearing aids, excessive hair can affect their effectiveness, so in these rare cases it’s value discussing along with your doctor.

The biggest problem appears to be the looks of those hairs, which may make some people feel self-conscious.

To address this, avoid pulling the hair (resembling with tweezers), as this will result in Infectioningrown hairs and inflammation.

Instead, it’s safer to succeed in for the trimmers (or employ laser hair removal) to scrub up the world a bit.