Why doesn't the hair in our armpits keep on growing?
by 
wickedwillie
ANSWERS: 2
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I am pretty certain that all human hair has a limited length. The hair on your fingers, hands, arms, eyelashes, and everywhere else will only grow so long. Some people have hair on their heads that will grow very long. I know two people about the same age who never cut their hair... one has hair about 3 feet long, the other about 16". Some have long lashes, others short. Eyebrows on men seem to grow longer as they get older, but you never see them as long as head hair. Some men grow long beards, others can not. It appears that hair follicles just have a genetically programmed life span. They grow for just so long before dying off and being replace by a new hair.
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Actually, your hair keeps growing throughout your life (excluding the upper scalp hair on some men). It's just that the hair folicles each have a programed length to which the hair shaft will grow. When the shaft reaches that length, it falls out and a new one starts to grow. Obviously, for some folicles, this programed length is longer than it is for others. That is why body hair is usually shorter than head hair. This is also why it is silly for a man to start worrying about going bald just because he sees some hairs in his brush. We are all constantly shedding hairs that have reached their maximum length. So, seeing a few hairs come off is normal. You only need to worry about it if you see an actual thinning of the hair.
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