It’s well documented that a diet deficient in calories or protein can contribute to hair loss or hair that doesn’t look healthy and vibrant. For example, patients with anorexia nervosa, a disease in which the patient consumes too few calories to sustain good health, often experience hair loss. Hair without good luster doesn’t feel good when you run your fingers through it, or it may be brittle and break off easily — all may reflect a nutritional problem with your diet.
You can get most of the amino acids your body needs from a proper, well-balanced diet, but others are harder to absorb from the diet, especially as you get older. For some people, protein supplements may have a beneficial affect on hair growth.
Adequate protein intake is critical for hair growth including amino acids, which include lysine, arginine, cystine, cysteine, and methionine. These amino acids are created by the body from the proteins we eat. If you eat protein rich foods, you get enough of these essential amino acids, but if you don’t, supplements may provide some of them. The essential amino acids are found in lean meats, nuts, grains, soy, fish, eggs, and dairy products.
Two sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine and cysteine, are most important for maintaining hair health because human hair requires sulfur for normal growth. (The body also requires sulfur for healthy connective tissue formation.)
Methionine: Methionine is an essential amino acid that your body doesn’t produce, so it must come from your diet or from supplements. Foods rich in methionine include sesame seeds, fish, meats, and some other plant seeds.
The current recommended dose of methionine is 250 milligrams per day. Taking too much of this amino acid can cause toxicity because methionine is broken down into homocysteine, which can lead to heart disease.
Cysteine: Cysteine supports hair growth by providing sulfur to replicating hair follicle cells. It’s a non-essential amino acid, which means that your body can make it on its own. Cysteine also is found in most high-protein foods, including eggs, milk, whey protein, some cheese, chicken, turkey, and duck. Vegetarian sources include red peppers, garlic, brussel sprouts, oats, and wheat.
The recommended dose of cysteine is 100 milligrams per day. Supplementing your diet with cysteine has the affect of increasing the sulfur percentage in hair, which has been reported to increase the thickness and the strength of the hair.
Fitting in the good fats
“Good fats,” or essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and omega-6 oils, are essential for your body’s functioning but are only obtained through your diet — your body can’t manufacture these. You can get these essential fatty acids from fish (salmon, sardines, tuna), plant (flaxseed, soybeans, pumpkin seeds), and nut (walnut) oils, as well as in fish oil capsules.
After two to four months of essential fatty acid deficiency, people report hair dryness, change of hair color, scalp redness, and flakes. Consuming unsaturated fatty acids, for example fish oil or evening primrose oil, has been found to improve hair texture and scalp redness after a few months.
On the other hand, some people believe that a diet too heavy in saturated animal fat may contribute to hair loss. Evidence comes from the effects of dietary change seen in Japanese men. After World War II, more Japanese men started consuming greater amounts of saturated animal fats, and they also started complaining of hair loss. Although this interesting relationship doesn’t prove cause and effect, it does show one possible effect of diet on your hair.
In traditional Indian medicine, body weakness is believed to cause hair loss, and so one treatment consists of a diet rich in proteins, including meat, fish (source of essential fatty acids), and dairy products. Avoidance of fried foods (source of saturated fats) is also recommended.
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06192010
1. Hair loss and the Traditional Chinese medicine
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