Intro: We’re kicking off a three-video series on hair loss.
What causes it? And what can drugs, supplements, and foods do
to help prevent or reverse it?
Watch the videos to find out. I know I’m going to.
"Supplements for Hair Growth"
“Studies show that by age 50, approximately half of men and women
will experience hair loss.”
No, it’s not caused by washing your hair too much,
or brushing your hair too little, two of the many myths out there.
The majority of hair loss with age is genetic
for both women and men, in the case of this study.
Based on twin studies, the heritability of baldness in men
is 79 percent, meaning about 80 percent of the differences
in hair loss between men is genetically determined.
But that still leaves some wiggle room.
Even if you have identical twins, identical twin sisters
in this case with the same DNA, one can have more hair loss
than the other thanks to Increased stress,
increased smoking, having more children,
or having a history of high blood pressure or cancer.
For example, check out these two identical twin brothers.
Same genes, but the twin on the right reported
more stress in his life.
In this pair, the identical twin on the right
was a smoker and drank more alcohol.
Smoking can contribute to the development of both
male and female pattern baldness because of the genotoxic compounds
in cigarettes may damage the DNA in hair follicles
and cause microvascular poisoning in the base of the follicle.
Other toxic agents associated with hair loss include mercury,
because it seems to concentrate about 250-fold in growing scalp hair.
In fact, maybe the reason Shakespeare started losing his hair
was due to mercury poisoning from syphilis treatment.
Thankfully doctors don’t give people mercury anymore.
These days, as the CDC points out,
mercury mainly enters the body through seafood consumption.
“Women of reproductive age frequently seek treatment for what is
thought to be hormone-related hair loss especially at menopause.”
But, for example, this woman came in with hair loss
and blood tests indicated elevated mercury levels,
and no wonder, as she had a diet high in tuna.
But the good news is that her mercury levels fell
with elimination of dietary tuna.
Within two months her hair started to come back,
and after seven months maintaining a fish-free diet,
her hair completely regrew.
So, doctors should consider screening for mercury toxicity
when they see hair loss, since there’s something we can do about it.
Instructing patients to reduce fish intake and repeat blood tests
could offer relief of symptoms and uncover dietary habits
that may be a source of heavy metal-induced hair loss.
Though admittedly, sometimes heavy metal can lead to too much hair.
What about nutrient deficiencies as a cause of hair loss?
After bariatric surgery, the most frequent nutrient deficiency symptom
is hair loss, but that’s because they’ve had their anatomy
rearranged to cause malabsorption on purpose.
In general, there is little evidence to suggest that vitamin
and mineral supplementation benefits people
unless they are actually deficient.
For example, we’ve known for centuries that scurvy,
severe vitamin C deficiency, can cause hair loss,
but once you have enough vitamin C such that
our gums aren’t bleeding, there’s no data correlating
vitamin C levels and hair loss once you have
a certain baseline sufficiency of vitamin C.
It’s also a myth that supplements containing zinc
will increase hair growth, unless you have zinc deficiency,
like if you’re an alcoholic or something.
But if you have normal zinc levels in your blood, taking more zinc
won’t help, and in fact can have negative side effects.
It’s the same thing with taking iron supplements.
The most common ingredient in top-selling hair loss products
is vitamin B7, also known as biotin.
Yes, biotin deﬁciency causes hair loss,
but there are no evidence-based data
that supplementing biotin promotes hair growth.
And severe biotin deﬁciency in healthy individuals eating
a normal diet has never been reported,
but if you eat raw egg whites, you can acquire a biotin deﬁciency
since there are these compounds that attach to biotin
and prevent it from being absorbed.
But other than rare deficiency syndromes,
it’s a myth that biotin supplements increase hair growth.
But hey, why not just have the attitude "can’t hurt, might help?”
Because of the lack of regulatory oversight
of the supplement industry and, in the case of biotin,
interference with lab tests.
Many dietary supplements promoted for hair health
contain biotin levels up to 650 times
the recommended daily intake of biotin.
And excess biotin in the blood can play haywire on a bunch
of different blood tests, including thyroid function,
other hormone tests including pregnancy),
and the test they do to see if you’ve had a heart attack,
so it could potentially even be life or death.
And in terms of poor regulation, as I’ve done tons of videos about,
there are all sorts of supplement manufacturer shenanigans.
For example, this outbreak in which hundreds suffered
selenium toxicity because they had an oopsie
and put 200 times the dose and so it ended up causing hair loss.
And the same thing can happen with getting too much vitamin A.