FEED ME!
Hungry hair is an easily remedied problem. The nutrients coursing through your blood and feeding your scalp and follicles have a direct effect on how your hair grows, how it looks, how long it lasts and whether it’s flexible, strong and shiny.
As you begin to incorporate into your diet the foods and supplements that support healthy hair, one of the immediate benefits you’ll enjoy will be an overall improvement in your health and your sense of well-being. You’ll also enjoy watching your hair becoming healthier and, in most cases, beginning to regrow.
We’ll be covering a lot of foods and supplements here. The idea isn’t to load you down with taking 50 supplements a day, but rather to give you an idea of what your body needs. Listen to your gut, talk with a nutritional therapist, get with a kinesiologist or simply experiment with different foods and supplements to see what resonates with your system. Often, when you take a supplement that your body really needs, you will feel a distinct sense of
“Yes!” afterwards as your body goes to work assimilating it and putting it to use.
Eating Your Way to Better Hair
You can easily structure meals from the list of foods below. Also, when cooking with oil, use olive oil. It’s easy to digest, doesn’t make “bad” cholesterol and has a pleasant taste.
Obviously, it would be better to eat organically if
possible. Here’s a tip: you know those irritating little stickers they put on fruit? If the four-digit PLU code starts with “4”, it was grown with pesticides, herbicides and other petrochemicals. If it’s organic, it will start with a “9”. Genetically modified “frankenfoods” begin with “8”.
Now you know.
If you can’t buy organic produce, at least give your produce a good washing before eating. Products such as Veggie Wash or Clean Greens do a good job of removing chemicals, wax and dirt from your produce.
If you want to save some money by making your own effective produce wash, put one tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar in a cup of water. Put it in a spray bottle and shake before use. After you spray your produce, give it a thorough rinse and you’re good to go.
In terms of the way you eat, consider gradually transitioning over to a low fat, high fiber diet. As you concentrate more on fresh fruits and vegetables, you’ll discover they play a key role in slowing down and stopping hair loss as you get older. The key word here is “fresh”. Canned and otherwise processed fruits and vegetables have been heated, loaded with salt and sugar, and in general have had their nutrition and vitality stripped away.
You’ll want to eat foods containing biotins, which play an important role in healthy hair. You’ll find ample biotins in fish, cooked eggs, whole milk, nuts such as cashews, almonds and walnuts, in brown rice and also in oats and bran cereals.
Iron-rich foods are important as well. Mollusks like clams, oysters and mussels will load you up, as will beef, pork and chicken liver. Any time you’ve eaten a meal rich in iron, you’ll want to follow it with citrus fruit of some kind - oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, lemon or lime. The vitamin C they contain, in addition to being good for your hair, is essential to complete your body’s assimilation of iron.
If you want to get into some really serious health benefits, consider adding to your diet an ounce of pure wheatgrass juice, taken every morning on an empty stomach. Wheatgrass juice has literally everything your hair needs, plus it slows the graying of hair, detoxes your body and supercharges your blood. You can buy it flash-frozen on the internet or sometimes at your health food store. Flash-frozen is the best and most consistent form of top quality wheatgrass juice.
High quality proteins are important too, since these are what your hair is made of.
Start rebuilding your hair’s protein with lean poultry, fish, beans and nuts.
Oils and unsaturated fatty acids are critically important to healthy hair. Foods rich in omega 3 and other essential fatty acids include salmon, walnuts and flaxseed. A couple tablespoons of flaxseed ground up and scattered in your salad, soup, yogurt or other food will give you concentrated amounts of omega 3 in a very easy to assimilate form. Flaxseed has a mild, nut-like flavor and is a very inexpensive way to supercharge your meals with exactly the kind of oils your hair needs.
More sources of unsaturated fatty acids include cereals, soybean oil, poultry and eggs.
If you want to strengthen your hair and encourage its growth, you’ll want to add silica-rich foods to your diet. Sprouts of all kinds, potatoes (skin on), peppers and cucumbers with the rind on are all great sources of silica.
Soy is another bean that strengthens your hair and aids in its growth. Soy is readily available in tofu and the many flavors of soy drinks found in most stores.
Foods rich in vitamin A also play an important role in restoring your hair. You don’t want to overdose on vitamin A, so exercise that
awareness. But when you get your vitamin A from natural sources (not supplements), it’s not likely you’ll overdose. Look for mangos, dried apricots, mozzarella cheese, liver, carrots, sweet potatoes, milk, spinach, egg yolks and cantaloupe.
A good avocado is always a treat in a salad, in guacamole sauce or just by itself.
Avocados provide exactly the proteins your hair needs and moisturizes the hair shafts.
The Dawn of Wisdom
Are you starting to get the idea? Whole, natural, unprocessed and, if possible, organic foods will go a long way toward restoring your hair and improving your overall health.
As you start adding these types of food to your diet, you’ll naturally feel less inclined to eat foods that will undermine your quest for more hair and better health. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that sugar, coffee, refined or processed ingredients of any kind and of course, processed foods are all working against restoring your hair. So are hydrogenated and saturated fats. Instead of eating deep fried foods and feasting on junk food at the
local drive-through, why not just rip out a handful of hair and get it over with?
Drinking Your Way to Healthier Hair
Sorry, I wasn’t talking about booze!
Another essential for hair restoration and general health is hydration: are you getting enough water? Most people’s bodies are literally starving for water. They exhibit symptoms like constipation, eczema, thick dandruff, wrinkled skin, foul breath, thick dark urine…and hair loss.
Your body is 98% water; why not give it what it’s made of? Drink pure water, or better yet, distilled water to keep your body properly hydrated. An easy way to quickly establish enough water in your body is to routinely drink at least eight ounces of water immediately after urinating. You’ll urinate more frequently and
clearly as your water intake rises, and you’ll hit the balance point where you know that your body has enough water. At that point, you will begin to meet your body’s hydration needs automatically.
Supplements: The Ground Rules
The fact that you’re experiencing hair loss is a sure indication that something isn’t quite right in the nutrition department. It’s OK to take supplements in pill form, but just be aware that your body will only absorb a small percentage of what you ingest, depending upon the state of your digestive system. Your absorption can be as low as 2%!
Taking liquid vitamins or vitamins in colloidal form will boost your aborption rate up into the 80% level. Properly formulated sublingual vitamins can really go to work for you; their absorption rate is at or above 98%! Sublinguals are a bit hard to find, but CVC makes an outstanding B complex/folic acid sublingual, as does TriVita.
In any case, it is far better to absorb your nutrients from a healthy diet of fresh, vital whole foods than to take fifty pills a day. But any supplementation is better than none at all, and you will see improvement. Taking supplements consistently is the key, and results are usually visible noticeable within sixty to ninety days.
To start off with, find a good multivitamin for men and be religious about taking it according to directions. A good multivitamin’s scattergun approach will ensure you get at least some of what you’re missing and will back up whatever you’re lacking in your diet or supplement plan. For best results you may want to talk with someone at your health food store. Their multivitamins will cost more, but you want something that’s powerful, effective and contains all the vitamins you need. Brand-name vitamins tend to have more filler and fewer active ingredients, so it’s worth the extra expense.
Find a multivitamin that contains amino acids. These are directly involved with restoring healthy hair. You’ll have to read labels and ask questions, but it’s worth the extra effort.
Be certain to check how much vitamin A you’re getting in your multi. You don’t want to overdose on this vitamin by overlapping with other supplements. Here again, it’s better to get your vitamin A from food sources, but it’s OK to take your multi as well in addition to your food sources.
Healthy Hair Supplements
Ginseng is an ancient herbal remedy particularly useful in restoring hormonal function, something important to consider if your hair loss is genetic or caused by a hormonal imbalance.
Horsetail (equisetum) is extremely rich in silica, which fortifies the hair follicles and strengthens hair structure while stimulating increased growth. Horsetail also boosts the absorption of minerals throughout the body.
Nettle is another rich source of silica and is a great conditioner for your hair, having the same basic effect as equisetum. You’ll often find nettle in combination with equisetum at the health food store.
Valerian is the herb to consider if you’re experiencing stress in your life, as it has a pronounced soothing effect on the nerves. Stress starves your scalp of blood and reduces nutrients to the hair root. If you take valerian, combine it with a good B complex to maximize its effects.
Zinc is usually contained in a good multivitamin, so there’s no need to take it separately.
Saw Palmetto and Beta-Sitosterol caused new hair growth in about 60% of men in one study sponsored by The Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine. The levels used in the study were 400 mg of saw palmetto extract and 100 mg of beta-sitosterol per day, and results were observed after about five months of usage.
Black Currant Oil supports hair growth by virtue of the presence of gamma-linolenic acid. You might try about one gram a day for sixty to ninety days.
Capsicum can stimulate hair growth by increasing blood flow to the scalp, accelerating growth by as much as 50%!
Red Sage (danshen) is another ancient remedy said to maintain and preserve the hair you still have. You’ll see red sage as an ingredient in some of the shampoos you try. You can purchase it as a liquid and add it to your shampoo.
Chinese Angelica (dong quai) naturally blocks the creation of 5 DHT, thus allowing hair to regrow. It is one of the few vegetable sources of B-12 and traditionally has been considered an aphrodesiac. There are currently no studies to back its claims, but it’s not likely to have survived thousands of years as a hair restorative remedy if it weren’t working for someone!
Evening Primrose Oil is similar to black currant oil in its concentration of gamma-linolenic acid. It supports hair growth from the inside, with visible results typically reported in the sixty to ninety day range.
Flaxseed Oil is readily available in liquid and tablet form; the tablet is a bit more palatable. Take about 4000 mg/day. In my opinion, the most potent and tasty way to get your flaxseed oil is as mentioned earlier: grind up a few tablespoons and sprinkle it into your food.
Fo Ti (he shou-wu) is another Chinese herb said to slow and even stop hair-loss altogether. Try taking 500 mg three times a day.
Full Spectrum Enzyme Complex is a good bet if you’re not certain what enzymes you may need. Take one with each meal.
Ginger is a great source of essential fatty acids. It has been shown to boost blood circulation and stimulate hair follicles.
Grape Seed Extract has flavinoids that stimulate the growth of skin cells. About 150 mg/day is the normal dose.
Green Tea Extract is another natural source for blocking the production of 5 DHT.
Jojoba Oil is a traditional remedy for restoring hair growth and for getting rid of dandruff. It is chemically very similar to the sebum produced by your own scalp.
L-Arginine is one of the natural amino acids essential to new hair growth.
L-Lysine is like L-Arginine and works with it to re-establish your hair.
Lemon Grass restores the natural oil production of your scalp and makes hair
“fatter”.
Licorice is another natural blocker of 5 DHT. We’re not talking about the candy.
You can get it in liquid form and add it to your shampoo. Licorice isn’t recommended if you have problems with low potassium, as it can aggravate that condition.
Omega 3 can stop hair loss and restart hair growth. Most people are deficient in omega 3’s. Take as a supplement or eat salmon, herring or mackerel, or get into the flaxseed habit!
Rosemary boosts circulation, gets rid of dandruff and breaks up deposits of sebum. You can add some to olive oil for use in your scalp massage regimen.
You can also add four or five drops to your shampoo.
Safflower supports the stimulation of your scalp’s blood vessels, allowing more nutrients to be absorbed by the follicles.
Sesame supports healthy hair growth in a number of ways. Try adding sesame seeds to your food or cooking with sesame oil.
Homeopathic Remedies
Homeopathic solutions typically have a tiny (nearly non-existent) amount of the active ingredient suspended in pure water or some other liquid. Science has no idea why homeopathic solutions work, but they do. If they didn’t, commercially available products like Zicam cold medicine would be drummed out of the marketplace by the FDA and consumers alike.
Homeopathy has a long and successful history, which we won’t go into here. It’s a good idea to work with a practicing homeopathic healer rather than just trying to treat yourself. Their insights into treatment regimens are worth knowing.
Certain homeopathic solutions are available or may be concocted to treat the following conditions:
Hair loss due to disease or chronic illness: silica Hair loss due to depression: natrum muriaticum
Hair loss due to grief/sorrow: phosphoric acidum, also ignatia Premature hair loss and graying hair: lycopodium
Hair loss due to stress: arsenicum album
Your homeopathic practitioner will advise which strength of the solution to take, and normally you will take the remedy twice daily for two weeks. When positive results are attained, you will stop taking the remedy until you experience a return of your symptoms.
Next we’ll learn how to combine some of these solutions into home-made remedies that will have you back on the road to a full head of hair!