Dieting Causes Hair Loss

Oh, now is that not just the icing on the cake that you can’t eat because you’re on a bloody diet – dieting can cause hair loss.

I was so distraught when I read that if you are losing significant weight you may lose hair. I ran to the bathroom right away. All squinty-eyed in the mirror, I went over my hairline over and over again, looking for any sign of weakness, thinness, recession. OK, none found…yet.

The American Hair Loss Council states on its website:

“Hair loss may also occur due to dieting. Franchised diet programs which are designed or administered under the direction of a physician with prescribed meals, dietary supplements and vitamin ingestion have become popular. Sometimes the client is told that vitamins are a necessary part of the program to prevent hair loss associated with dieting. From a dermatologists’s standpoint, however, the vitamins cannot prevent hair loss associated with rapid, significant weight loss. Furthermore, many of these supplements are high in vitamin A which can magnify the hair loss.”

I am assuming that losing hair while losing weight doesn’t happen to everyone (every model would be bald). Perhaps the key to keeping your locks is to eat a balanced diet. If you are worried about hair loss while dieting, maybe try to limit foods that are high in Vitamin A. These foods include cantaloupe, carrots, spinach, kale, apricots, papaya, mango, beef liver.

On the other side of the coin however, Vitamin A is really good for your body. Vitamin A plays an important role in vision, bone growth, reproduction, cell division, and cell differentiation (in which a cell becomes part of the brain, muscle, lungs, blood, or other specialized tissue.). Vitamin A also helps regulate the immune system, which helps prevent or fight off infections by making white blood cells that destroy harmful bacteria and viruses. Vitamin A also may help lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell) fight infections more effectively.

After looking around on the web for more evidence of hair loss being related to weight loss, and finding a number of people claiming to have experinced this, I am sure that this isn’t just another weight loss myth. If anyone who reads this post feels they may be experiencing hair loss because of their diet, please seek medical advice from your doctor. Hair loss can be as simple as too much Vitamin A, but it can also be a symptom of more serious health conditions.