Hair Loss Nutrition Basics

The absence of sound nutrition should not be overlooked as a cause of hair loss or thinning.

Everything in your body, and that includes your hair, maintains its health and vitality because of what you put into it. Is it possible to avoid baldness forever by eating enough protein, vitamins, and minerals? The answer is probably not. However, it may be possible to slow down or avoid the hair loss caused by nutritional deficiencies, and keep the hair you have remaining healthy and at its best.

It is widely known that eating well is essential for a healthy heart, bones and other key body systems, but what you may not know is that a lack of protein, good fat, vitamins, and minerals can affect what grows out of the top of your head as well. Hair too needs to be fed, and well fed, to maintain its ability to grow and to stay put. Eating a steady diet of junk food is not good for your hair. Some people who do not eat meat or dairy products could be missing out on essential vitamins and minerals necessary for hair health.

It has been well studied and documented that a diet which is deficient is calories or protein can contribute to hair loss or hair that doesn’t look healthy and vibrant. Patients who suffer with anorexia nervosa, a disease where the patient eats far too few calories to sustain good health, often experience hair loss. Hair which lacks luster or is brittle and breaks off easily, may reflect a nutritional problem with your diet. It is possible to get all the amino acids your body requires from a proper well balance diet.

However, others are harder to absorb from the diet, and this worsens as you get older. For some people, using protein supplements may well have a beneficial affect on hair growth also. Essential amino acids are found in lean meats, nuts, grains, soy, fish eggs and dairy products. There are two sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine and cysteine, which are crucial for maintaining hair health because human hair needs sulfur for normal growth. The body also requires sulfur to help retain healthy connective tissue formation.

• Methionine - this is an essential amino acid that your body will not produce naturally, so it therefore must come from your diet or from supplements. Foods which are rich in methionine include sesame seeds, fish, meat and some other types of plant seeds. The recommended dose is 250mgs per day, however, by taking too much can cause toxicity because methionine is broken down into homocysteine which can lead to heart disease.
• Cysteine - this supports hair growth by providing sulfur to replicating hair follicle cells. Your body is able to make this amino acid on its own. But is also found most high protein foods such as eggs, milk, some cheeses, whey protein, chicken, turkey, and duck. There are also vegetarian sources which include red peppers, garlic, brussel sprouts, oats and wheat. It is recommended that a dose of cysteine of 100mgs per day could have the effect of increasing the sulfur percentage in hair, which has been reported to increase the thickness and strength of the hair.

Good fats or essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and omega-6 oils are essential for your body’s functioning. They are only obtained through your diet as your body can’t manufacture them. They are obtained from foods such as salmon, sardines, tuna, flaxseed, soybeans, pumpkin seeds and nuts oils. After a 4 month deficiency of essential fatty acids, people report hair dryness, change of hair colour, scalp redness and flakes. The consumption of unsaturated fatty acids, for example fish oil or evening primrose oil, has been found to improve hair texture and scalp redness after only a few months.

However, there is an alternative view which believes that a diet too rich in animal fat may contribute to hair loss. This was evident in studies of the dietary habits of Japanese men after World War II and how they changed. More men started eating greater amounts of saturated animal fats and started complaining about hair loss. This is an interesting relationship but it doesn’t prove cause and effect, although it does show one possible effect of diet on your hair.

In traditional Indian medicine, the weakness of the body is believed to be the cause of hair loss. Their remedy is feed the body with a diet rich in proteins, including meat, fish and dairy products. The avoidance of fried foods, which are a source of saturated fats, is also recommended.