India: Rise in anxiety and stress-related issues has been a pressing concern and a cause for many underlying health issues amongst the younger population. MediBuddy, India’s largest digital healthcare platform, in the background of the impending festivities, witnesses a manifold rise in dermatology consultations. The data reveals that over 65% of men who took consultation for issues on the platform belonged to the age group 20-30.
The common perception is that stress affects the mental health of a person – while this is true, what is not common knowledge is that it also manifests itself in physical ways. One such major area that gets affected is the skin and hair. Data compiled by the digital healthcare platform, reveals that in the last few months, the MediBuddy portal has seen an overall growth of about 84% in the number of people seeking consultations for skin-related issues.
MediBuddy based on its data for the last few months, identified hair fall and acne as the most discussed issues. About 69.47% of issues were relating to acne, with the rest pertaining to problems like pigmentation, face tan, generic skin disease, ringworm, psoriasis, etc. The data on the platform also reveals that of the total people who sought consultations about 75.9% of people were males.
Similarly, there has been an average increase of 62% of issues related to hair and scalp with almost 90% of the people seeking consultations for hair fall; other scalp-related issues included dandruff and greying hair. Even in the case of hair-related issues, males were a significant majority on the platform- only 21.3% were females and around 78.7% were males.
Commenting on this, Mr. Satish Kannan, Co-Founder and CEO, MediBuddy said, “Men and women are both susceptible to dermatological issues, whether it is triggered by stress or any other factors. However, the common misconception that people perceive to believe is that it is more common amongst women than among men. The data indicates that men are also increasingly seeking professional help for dermatological issues rather than ignoring them. This allows them to receive timely care and resolve any apprehensions that may have.”
When a person is stressed the level of the body’s stress hormone (cortisol) rises. This, in turn, causes an increase in oil production, which can lead to oily skin, acne, and other skin problems. And when it comes to hair, many dermatologists believe that stress is the primary reason for unexplained hair loss. When under stress hair goes into the telogen (fall-out) phase. Plus, in monsoons, our skin tends to fluctuate from being oily to dry due to the drastic changes in humidity levels in the atmosphere. Also, people look forward to the festive season to bring back cheer in life. Keeping this in mind, they sought help to treat their skin and hair-related issues from doctors.
