5 Common Nutritional Deficiencies That Cause Hair Loss

Quite a few people experience hair loss – it can happen at any age. Often patients come to our clinic, distressed about hair loss and looking for a quick fix. However, do keep in mind that hair loss may occur due to one of several problems. Let’s take a look at the most common nutritional deficiencies that cause hair loss:

• Iron: Everyone knows that iron deficiency causes anemia; this is typically characterized by pale skin and fatigue, and a vulnerability to repeated infections. What most people don’t know is that iron deficiency can also cause hair loss. When hair follicles don’t get the requisite oxygen, they ‘rest’ and hair starts falling out. If you’re losing more than 100 strands a day, you may have an iron deficiency.

• Biotin: This is part of the Vitamin B family, and is essential for converting food into glucose, producing fatty acids and amino acids, and activating amino acids in the hair roots and nail cells. So if you’re experiencing excessive hair loss along with brittle nails, you may need to check for biotin deficiency.

• Selenium: This mineral has powerful antioxidant properties that perform several important functions like maintaining your thyroid function, helping enzymes do their work properly, minimizing free radicals, and so on. Selenium also plays an important role in maintaining hair and nail health by eliminating free radicals and controlling growth of hair and nail cells.

• Zinc: It’s an important mineral that ensures good immunity, a healthy digestion, good neurological function, and thyroid function, among other things. Inadequate zinc in your diet may lead to hypothyroidism, which can cause hair loss.

• Copper: This mineral helps the body to absorb iron, produce red blood cells, and to keep blood vessels, the immune system, nerves, and bones healthy. We have already seen how anemia can cause hair loss. What you probably didn’t know that even a deficiency in copper can lead to anemia, causing your fair to fall off at an alarming rate. Zinc deficiency can also cause a host of other problems like joint pain, brittle bones, repeated infections, fatigue, improper digestion, paleness, feeling ill most of the time, and so on.

Of course, there are many other problems that could be the reason for your hair loss, the most common being – genetics. Look at your family: parents, aunts, uncles, cousins… and you will be easily able to see for yourself if hereditary factors are causing your hair to thin. If not, there could be some more serious underlying health problem.

It is crucial to establish the root cause of your hair loss; if you only try some remedy to regrow your hair, you could be putting yourself at serious risk for life-changing diseases like osteoporosis, impaired immunity, heart disease, and arthritis, to name a few.

At the Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness, we make sure to test you thoroughly for nutritional deficiencies and other possible causes, so that we can help you tackle they underlying health problems first. Later we can suggest methods to restore your hair – like PRP hair restoration procedure, for example.

If you’re experiencing alarming hair loss, perhaps it’s time you took it seriously; find out why it’s happening. Schedule a COMPLIMENTARY consultation with our patient care concierge, and she will help you find the right doctor who can help you.