What Vitamin Deficiencies Cause Hair Loss

Hair loss is a highly common concern for both men and women. While genetics, hormones, and chromosomes often play a key role in hair loss, vitamin deficiencies are a surprisingly common culprit as well. Understanding why deficiencies cause hair loss is vital for preventing hair loss and encouraging hair growth upon your scalp. In this article, we will guide you through the hair growth cycle, what vitamin deficiencies are behind hair loss, and explain the healthy vitamins for hair are needed to stimulate growth.

Understanding the Hair Growth Cycle

Before you can understand what causes hair loss, you must first understand the hair growth cycle. Hair loss is caused by follicles located in the dermis layer of the skin. In this dermis layer, each individual hair follicle goes through a growth cycle. This cycle has an anagen phase (growth), a catagen phase (transitional), and telogen phase (resting). As the name implies, the anagen phase is when hair follicles actively grow. Meanwhile, the catagen phase is what signals the end of hair growth, while telogen is a resting phase for hair follicles before shedding, to which the cycle begins anew in the anagen phase.

Vitamins play a crucial role in the hair growth cycle, as they can ensure healthy hair growth and maintenance. However, disruptions or deficiencies in attaining these necessary vitamins can disrupt the cycle, which leads to hair thinning and hair loss.

What Vitamins Promote Healthy Hair Growth?

There is a whole alphabet of vitamins that are essential to promoting strong hair growth. These include:

Vitamin A 

This promotes the production of sebum, which moistens the scalp and keeps your hair follicles healthy. Foods that are rich in vitamin A include eggs, spinach, and broccoli.

B Vitamins

B vitamins include a high variety of vitamins such as folic acid, biotin, B6, B12, and niacin. These vitamins aid in the metabolism of proteins necessary for hair structure, and promote great hair growth and hair follicle health. Foods with vitamin B include salmon, beef, and legumes.

Vitamin C

To strengthen your hair and prevent breakage, consume vitamin C as it supports collagen production, which strengthens hair and prevents breakage. Eat citrus fruit like orange and grapefruit to get vitamin C.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D has a large influence in hair follicle cycling, which can potentially reduce hair loss. Fatty fish, cod liver oil, and certain kinds of mushrooms are great at this.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E prevents hair breakages from happening, providing antioxidant protection and boosting the immune system, guarding against oxidative stress that can damage hair follicles. Nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils are great sources of food for this.

Vitamin K

This vitamin is in charge of supporting blood circulation to the scalp, ensuring that essential nutrients reach hair follicles. Leafy greens like kale, cabbage, and lettuce are great at this.

Iron

Finally, iron is vital for strong hair growth. Iron deficiency anaemia leads to hair loss by disrupting the hair growth cycle. This results in weakened, brittle hair, plus increased shedding.

As you can see, a strong and varied diet of a variety of foods is vital for promoting healthy hair growth. Having a balanced diet with essential fatty acids, drinking lots of water, and having effective stress management, are vital to ensuring healthy hair growth.

Signs and Causes of Vitamin Deficiencies

There are a variety of signs that indicate vitamin deficiencies in your hair. These include excessive shedding, changes in hair texture and appearance, and slow hair growth. These symptoms are a sign that you might not have enough nutrients in your body needed to grow healthy hair follicles. 

These deficiencies can be caused by a variety of things. A nutrient-poor diet, medical conditions that affect nutrient absorption, such as anaemia affecting iron intake, or medications that interfere with the absorption of vitamins are common culprits for this. Unhealthy lifestyle choices like smoking or excessive alcohol drinking can also cause hair loss. 

Best Hair Loss Vitamins and Supplements

There are a variety of supplements on the market that you can take that have healthy vitamins for hair. Iron and vitamin C supplements are excellent at stimulating hair growth, but by far the best supplements for hair loss are biotin supplements. These supplements contain Vitamin B7, which is considered one of the best vitamins for hair growth. These supplements play an extremely vital role in maintaining healthy hair growth.

Before you take any supplements, we urge you to speak to a GP to make sure they are the best for you and won’t interfere with any other medications you might be taking.

Stay Informed About Healthy Hair Growth

Thanks to this guide, you will now have a better understanding of how hair loss vitamins are incredibly useful for improving vitamin deficiencies that cause hair loss. If you think your hair loss problems are accelerating at a much stronger pace, however, we have the means to help.

If you would like to continue to be informed about the best practices for maintaining healthy hair growth, get in touch with us. Follicle Clinic Sydney is a leading hair transplant clinic in Bondi, helping all kinds of people reach their hair growth journeys. Whether you have alopecia, male pattern baldness, or a receding hairline, we have a variety of services we can provide to help you in your hair growth journey.