Using wearable devices for assessing the impacts of hair exposome in Brazil

Previous studies have shown that physicochemical properties of hair can be impacted by internal and environmental exposures ranging from chemical stressors to weather. Besides the effects on hair, these exposures, termed “exposome”, can act on specifc organs including skin, as a synergistic damaging effect of UV exposure and pollution on human surfaces.
The combination of several and environmental factors such as sun exposure, temperature, relative humidity, air pollution and photooxidation caused by ground level ozone impacts hair properties such as melanin oxidation, protein content, surface quality and structural components.Therefore, exposome studies can reveal new hypotheses on how epithelia and hair could be afected by daily life environment and routine.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of several environmental aggressors on human surfaces, using portable and wearable devices for monitoring exposome. To better understand the underlying in mechanisms associated with environmental factors, two subjects wore multiple sensors to capture the meteorological conditions biking through urban areas in summer and winter. Temperature, relative humidity, UV radiation and ozone concentration were recorded and hair swatches of different types, including natural, bleached/colored, colored and gray, were exposed on the helmets. Silicon and wristbands were used on skin to identify main chemical aggressors. After exposure, hair swatches were analyzed by surface microscopy analysis, oxidation markers and more than 1,500 chemicals were evaluated on the bracelets. Correlated with GPS and monitoring data, all these results provide insights on how environmental stressors affect the quality of different hair types and body surfaces according to exposure routine. Our results suggest extreme climate conditions associated with hair damage and photo-oxidative marker linked to the environmental aggressors. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) indicate possible causes of hair damages. This is the frst meteorotropic study of its kind, combining environmental aggressors related to hair damage, opening new research hypothesis further studies on exposome.

Rodrigo De Vecchi, Júlia da Silveira Carvalho Ripper, Daniel Roy, Lionel Breton, Alexandre Germano Marciano, Plínio Marcos Bernardo de Souza & Marcelo de Paula Corrêa