title: Effect of topical application of hard water in weakening of hair in men.
abstract: Hard water is thought to play a key role in weakening of hair (not Hair Loss) and breakage especially when travelling is involved. In our community, commonly men do the travelling and complain more about hair problem which is why only young male individuals were included in this study.
  
  
  
  Water samples from different districts of KPK, Pakistan, were collected and their hardness values were estimated to find the water sample of maximum and minimum water hardness in order to know the maximum hardness hair would encounter in KPK, Pakistan. Samples from district Kohat had maximum hardness whereas minimum hardness was estimated in samples of district Peshawar. Water from district Kohat was considered as our sample water for the experimental group of hair. Hair samples were collected from 76 male individuals of district Peshawar, the area with least water hardness among the samples collected. Each hair sample was divided into two halves. One half was considered as experimental group and the other was considered as control group. The experimental group was treated with hard water of district Kohat for 10 minutes on alternate days, for 3 months. In a very similar way the control group was treated with de-ionized water. Tensile strength in term of "Stress" of both the experimental and control groups were measured using the universal testing machine and compared using paired t-test.
  
  
  
  The standard deviations (SD) for hair treated with hard water and distilled water was 62.05 and 58.13 respectively and the mean values were 238.49 and 255.36 respectively. The results showed that the tensile strength of hair was significantly (p=0.001) reduced in hair treated with hard water as compared to hair treated with de-ionized water.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemical Sciences, KPK, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad Waqas
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Luqman
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemical Sciences, KPK, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Roshan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemical Sciences, KPK, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Zahid
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Khyber Medical University, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, KPK, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad Haris
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Ramzan
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Lady Reading Hospital, KPK, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Fazal
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hanan
authors.affiliation: Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar, KPK, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Usama
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Javaid
mesh_terms: D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008422:Materials Testing; D010154:Pakistan; D013718:Tensile Strength; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D014867:Water
keywords: Hair, hard water, tensile strength, calcium carbonate, magnesium sulphate.