Dieting and Hair Loss

This is one thing you won't see on a diet ad - women with thinning hair. According to this piece in the Pittsburgh Gazette, hair loss is a very real problem when making abrupt dietary changes.

The little-talked-about secret of the dieting industry is that a successful diet can also trigger hair loss. As Americans struggle with obesity and tackle countless fad diets, some dermatologists say they are increasingly hearing complaints from perplexed dieters about thinning hair.

The article lists a number of nutritional deficiencies that could result in thinning hair:

Hair loss usually develops gradually and may be patchy or diffuse (all over). Roughly 100 hairs are lost from your head every day. The average scalp contains about 100,000 hairs.

Each individual hair survives for an average of 4 1/2 years, during which time it grows about half an inch a month. Usually in its 5th year, the hair falls out and is replaced within 6 months by a new one. Genetic baldness is caused by the body's failure to produce new hairs and not by excessive hair loss.

Changes in levels of zinc, magnesium, protein, essential fatty acids and vitamins D, B and A can all trigger episodes of shedding hair.
hair loss in women is normally associated with hormonal changes - such as after childbirth - but it's not often you read about an association with weight loss diets.

Thinning hair can be quite frightening - my wife had such an experience after the birth of our second child - it took over a year before her hair regained it's former "glory". That's about all the details I can provide (or I might find my laptop thrown out the window :-).

As far as men go, well some of us are quite familiar with thinning hair - no matter what the diet is... However the article points out that "The problem affects both men and women, but women are more likely to notice it and seek treatment, say doctors."