Is the Water of Vancouver causing hair loss? | 温哥华的水会引起脱发吗？
Our hair loss patients are from many different ethnicities. Many of them are new immigrants, from Asia, Europe, or Africa. They all come to our clinic because serious hair loss problem. Many of them ask me whether the water of Vancouver, being low in minerals, is causing the problem. Some of them even tell me that they know it is the water of Vancouver causing the problem.
The water of Vancouver have been thought to be related to hair loss all the time. Recently a local chinese website published an article about the physiological changes of new immigrants. In the article it claims clearly that the water of Vancouver “is causing hair loss”.
Is this true? My answer is “NO”. Despite being one of the city that has top quality water in the world, the claim that the water causes hair loss does not make sense statistically---the claim does not differentiate the new immigrants and other residents. In fact, the other residents, who are born in Vancouver or come to Vancouver a long time ago, drinking the water for years, do not have serious hair loss problem as the new immigrants. Therefore we cannot conclude that the water is related to hair loss.
If water is not the problem, then what is it? The answer is “stress”. The new immigrants, being mostly elites of other countries, are having multiple stress when they come to Canada. Besides financial stress, they have to get to know the different culture, different language, different customs, even different laws. Even for a new immigrants from an English-speaking country, they will also have stress except the language barrier because they have to restart to fit in the new environment. New immigrants family usually have less family support and fewer friends so the stress can accumulate causing insomnia and anxiety. In serious cases this stress can last for months or years.
If this is not bad enough, then the difficulty to get permanent residency will make the final strike.
Therefore, the hair loss problem of new immigrants can only be solved by treatment designated to their problems. For the water of Vancouver, you can be assured that it is not causing hair loss.
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来我诊所的脱发病人，各族裔的都有。其中相当多的是新移民，有的来自亚洲，有的来自欧洲，有的来自非洲。这些移民都是因为头发严重脱落来就诊。这些病人中，很多人都问我是不是温哥华的水质太“软”造成的，有的甚至直接告诉我，是因为温哥华的水引起脱发。
温哥华的水质一直被认为跟脱发有关。 最近本地一个著名的中文网站上，有一篇探讨温哥华移民身体变化的文章也明确地把脱发于温哥华的水质直接联系起来，声称温哥华的水引起脱发。.
是真的这样吗？我的回答很简单：“不是”。且不说我们温哥华的水是世界上质量最好，最好喝的水之一这个基本事实，单从统计学上来讲，温哥华的水引起脱发的观点就完全站不住脚：这个观点没有区分新老居民。老居民的头发大多数都好好的，并没有从小饮用温哥华的水而引起大规模脱发。因此，水跟脱发一点关系都没有。
既然水不是脱发的原因，那么脱发最主要原因是什么呢？这个答案就是“压力”。新移民大多是各国的精英。这些人初来加拿大，除了经济压力外，还要面临文化不同，语言不通，习惯各异，甚至法律都超出原来认知等等问题。即便新移民来自本来就说英文的国家，也会面临极大的压力。同时，新移民一般家庭支持会变少，朋友也不多，因此这种压力就可以一直累积，引发失眠，焦虑等症状。更严重的是这种压力可能持续几个月甚至几年。
相信很多新移民朋友都熟悉“移民监”这个词。在加拿大不仅取得永久居民身份困难重重，新移民往往还要重新开始，尽快融入社会。
因此，对于移民脱发问题的治疗，要想解决根本问题，就需要根据这些特点以及脱发的特殊性来医治。总而言之，大家尽可放心：温哥华的水不会引起脱发。
