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Human hair grows through 'pulling' not pushing, study shows
- Barathkanna 11mo agoSo hair grows by pulling itself upward? Perfect. I’m just going to stand under a ceiling fan and wait for my hair to pull itself back onto my bald spots. Science has finally given me a plan.
- IAmBroom 11mo ago[flagged]
- dilawar 11mo agoPut some mustard on your head and let a cow lick it dry... The pull will grow hair and the cow tongue will cleanse your aura.
- moralestapia 11mo ago>the cow tongue will cleanse your aura It's like that three-finger meme from the Tarantino movie, lol.
- goopypoop 11mo agoirresponsible to not mention the risk of Cud Cap and Sympathetic Udder Syndrome. I even heard of one guy got Raging Horn
- HexPhantom 11mo agoJust make sure you set the fan to "regrowth" mode and not "recede"
- patrick41638265 11mo agoImmediately had to think of Baron von Münchausen pulling himself out of a swamp by his own hair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma
- knowitnone3 11mo ago[flagged]
- tokai 11mo agoYou don't say. Seeing that Munchausen is a byword for telling tall tales.
- tsunamifury 11mo agoLook at his handle… not that yc is for these novelty accounts
- nickthegreek 11mo agoI just watched this for the first time last week and found it rather delightful.
- paxys 11mo agoDamn so it is possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- seneca 11mo agoI'm reminded of a girlfriend who patiently explained to me that your hair grows more if you brush it regularly because the brush "pulls it and encouraged it to grow". She said her mother had taught her that. I thought it was nonsense. Shows what I know. I suppose folk wisdom is vindicated again.
- saalweachter 11mo agoYou should be able to test this by brushing one side of your head more than the other
- taeric 11mo agoCurious if it works on beards, now. Though, I would also somewhat expect pulling at it increases blood flow, which I would think to have some impact on growth?
- DANmode 11mo agoBut why did you think it was nonsense?
- sjanes 11mo agoI seem to remember there was a report about pulling on the hair of guinea pigs or some other small mammal encouraged hair growth.
- mzs 11mo agoTissot, N., Genty, G., Santoprete, R. et al. Mapping cell dynamics in human ex vivo hair follicles suggests pulling mechanism of hair growth. Nat Commun 16, 10267 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65143-x https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65143-x
- stronglikedan 11mo agoI wonder if that's why it slows/stops growing when split ends are present. I've always wondered how that worked if it was pushing.
- dpark 11mo agoI don’t think this is relevant to that at all. This “pulling” is inside the skin still. But I am also pretty confident that hair does not stop growing because of split ends. That feels like an “old wives tail”.
- maxbond 11mo agoPresumably it's produced at the same rate but destroyed by drying out and cracking as it gets longer and has less access to oil, so it slows down and may find an equilibrium where it stays the same length.
- dpark 11mo agoSure. If your hair is breaking off at the same rate it’s growing it’ll be a stable length. I have no idea if that happens though. It seems farfetched that hair would actually be splitting that’s aggressively unless it’s visibly very unhealthy.
- maxbond 11mo agoIf you take proper care of it (which includes trimming split ends so that the cracks don't propagate) then sure, but I've previously neglected my hair to the point where my split ends had split ends. I'll absolutely cop to "visibly unhealthy" but there does come a point where the ends start to fall apart and break off easily.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- SoftTalker 11mo agoIs this different from how hair grows on any other animal?
- hbosch 11mo agoSo, the centrifugal force of head-banging is why metalheads grow long hair?
- sbankowi 11mo agoOr is that centripetal force? :)
- hydrogen7800 11mo agoApologies for the "low effort" response: https://xkcd.com/123/ https://xkcd.com/123/
- smartplaya2001 11mo agoWow very interesting. This explains how goku turns level 3 as a super saiyan.
- candiddevmike 11mo agoAs someone with thinning hair, it's horrible how little study/research is being performed to understand how hair grows and treat hair loss. Most of the products on the market today were discovered by accident and have serious side effects. This condition impacts millions++ of people, yet everyone from physicians to pharmaceutical companies is fine with the status quo of "here, this may work for you" effectively woo medicine.
- HexPhantom 11mo agoThe fact that we're only now uncovering fundamental mechanics like "hair is pulled, not pushed" kind of highlights how under-invested this area has been
- estebank 11mo agoAs someone with a race in my head between white hairs and a receding hairline, hair loss does afflict millions of people, but it has no medical impact on people's life, beyond increasing the need to wear a hat when outside in the Sun for long. Is it that surprising that medical professionals would spend their time on other afflictions instead?
- creata 11mo ago> it has no medical impact on people's life, beyond increasing the need to wear a hat when outside in the Sun for long The impact on mental wellbeing can be pretty severe, though.
- BobaFloutist 11mo agoThat sounds like a social concern, not a medical one.
- missedthecue 11mo agoA social concern where the path of least resistance toward resolution is probably effective medical advancements. For example, studies show bald men face greater challenges in both straight and gay dating in every country where it's researched (so it's not cultural context dependent). Probably easier to figure out the follicular science than change universal attraction preferences.
- tgbugs 11mo agoThis points to a potential answer to a long standing question I've had about why some hairs stop growing at certain lengths. If the force is being generated by cellular migration then control over when to stop growing can be mediated by a signal that tells the cells to stop migrating, and that could be based on time or vibration amplitude or something else that correlates with hair length. For hair that grows continually you just ... never turn off cell migration.
- dbbk 11mo agoOh my god I have always asked why eyebrows stop growing and NOBODY ever thinks about it.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> why eyebrows stop growing and NOBODY ever thinks about it If you clip your eyebrows, will they grow back to their original length? Or is there a process that generates an eyebrow hair and then stops after a pre-determined length of time (with periodic shedding)?
- estimator7292 11mo agoEvery hair grows to a maximal length before stopping or falling out. It varies wildly based on genetics, location on the body, and body chemistry. Animals evolved specialized hairs for different uses. Protection, warmth, display, your armpit hairs wick sweat and keeps your skin from rubbing. It's beneficial to have a system that keeps the specialized hairs in their optimal(ish) configuration and to replace hairs as they become worn and damaged.
- saltcured 11mo agoWait until you get older, and you either start trimming them or considering some kind of Yellowbeard style braids
- firmretention 11mo agoI don't believe any hair on the human body truly grows continuously. Even head hair has a lifespan of ~7 years and whatever you can grow in that time is the max. I was a big metalhead in high school and grew my hair out. Indeed, after about 7-8 years it stopped getting longer, right at about waist level, and was stuck there until I finally got sick of it and cut it off.
- HexPhantom 11mo agoThat feels like a pretty big clue that mechanics and motility are way more central to tissue dynamics than we give them credit for
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- adrr 11mo agoHow did this explain in-grown hairs?
- gorjusborg 11mo agoPulling doesn't have to happen at the surface?
- rambambram 11mo agoAnd grass? What about grass? I want to keep my favorite reply phrase: "Gras groeit niet harder als je eraan trekt." (Grass doesn't grow faster if you pull on it.)
- JumpCrisscross 11mo agoGrass has a unique cell wall organization [1]. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5241289/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5241289/
- JumpCrisscross 11mo agoAre most industrial polymers drawn or extruded?
- aklemm 11mo agoAs I’ve ALWAYS suspected
- randyrand 11mo agoSo if you shave your head your hair will grow slower?