“You are what you eat.” There’s more than a grain of truth to this adage.
What we put in our bodies has a significant effect on every aspect of our health, including the health of our hair. This also means that when we are dieting, we may be starving our bodies of necessary nutrients and our hair of crucial vitamins and minerals needed for it to grow.
Can Diet Cause Hair Thinning?
If your diet lacks the proper amount and balance of nutrients, your hair will suffer. When your body doesn’t receive adequate nutrition, it deprioritizes nonessential functions like hair growth… allocating energy to more important processes that are necessary for survival.
This often leads to telogen effluvium – which appears as excess shedding throughout the scalp and overall hair thinning. Telogen effluvium occurs when the hair’s growth cycle is disrupted by metabolic stress, pushing greater-than-usual numbers of hair strands into their telogen (resting) phase. In telogen effluvium, new hair either doesn’t grow at all or grows back very slowly while existing hair sheds more than usual.
What Vitamin Deficiency Causes Hair Loss?
When dieting, we may not receive adequate amounts of specific vitamins and minerals. Vitamin deficiencies implicated in hair loss are vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B9 (folate), vitamin B12, and vitamin H (biotin).
Other nutrients required for healthy hair growth include protein, calcium, and zinc, and iron. Iron deficiency is a common problem for those who follow a plant-based diet, so supplements may be required to maintain healthy iron levels.
What Foods Cause Your Hair to Fall Out?
Nutritional deficits are only one aspect of the relationship between diet and hair loss. There are many popular types of food that can damage our scalp and hair. These include foods high in processed sugar or otherwise high on the glycemic index, foods high in saturated fats, and foods that contain high levels of mercury.
Foods containing processed sugar or those high on the glycemic index (like potatoes, white rice, or white bread) cause inflammation, increase oil production, and can decrease blood flow to the scalp. These factors inhibit healthy hair growth.
Fatty or fried foods also increase oil production and create free radicals that damage hair’s growth cells. As for the mercury often found in certain fish species… it collects in the hair and can lead to thin, brittle, easily shed or broken strands.
Can Diet Related Hair Loss Be Reversed?
If you commit to improving your diet, there’s a very good chance your hair loss will be temporary. Results won’t happen overnight, and it may take around six months for your hair’s growth cycle to produce visible regrowth. During this time, we can recommend treatments to protect your existing hair and to create optimal conditions for hair regrowth.
Reef Hair Offers Treatments to Preserve and Regrow Your Hair
If you are working to change your diet or have hair loss that doesn’t respond to a change in your diet, Reef Hair offers a full spectrum of hair restoration treatments that may help preserve and grow your hair. If you experience permanent hair loss, we also perform device assisted ARTAS® and NeoGraft® hair replacement procedures, as well as classic manual transplantation. Contact us today to schedule a consultation at our Huntington Beach location. We will perform a full hair and scalp analysis, and discuss potential treatments to achieve the thicker, fuller hairline you desire!
