New Year Diet Fads Could Increase Hair Loss Risk
While millions get ready to start the new year with a long list of resolutions that will transform them into the person of their dreams, what many don’t know is that any “new you” ambitions that involve diets could inadvertently lead to hair loss.
This is because numerous hair loss conditions are triggered or influenced by dramatic changes to the body and diets are often far more of a shock to the system than people realise.
In a round-up of 2015’s worst fad diets, the Daily Mail recently declared that some are a waste of money while others are downright dangerous. Top billing this year went to the No Sugar Diet, which is said to count Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin as fans, and according to the British Dietetic Association (BDA) it can be an especially bad idea when taken to extremes and sugars including those found in vegetables, fruit and nuts are forbidden, rather than just cutting back on refined sugar.
Not far behind on the bad diet hit-list was one in which participants are encouraged to chew gum and eat nothing but kale, which the experts described as “extreme, socially isolating, unbalanced, hard to sustain and potentially harmful.” And that's before taking into account the links one scientist discovered between kale and hair loss.
Quoted in the Mail article, Sian Porter at the BDA says: “When people need medical advice, they go to their GP; when people have a toothache they go to their dentist, but some people will believe almost anything when it comes to nutrition, food and diet.”
As an adjunct to this, when people experience excessive hair shedding they typically visit a specialist because they want to get to the bottom of the problem as quickly as they can. Luckily, a tailored hair loss treatment course featuring daily applications of minoxidil, which is applied directly to the scalp, can help in many cases.
What’s worth remembering when approaching the new year with new goals is just how sensitive the body is to change. When suddenly deprived of the nutrients it has come to rely on, turmoil ensues, and this can manifest itself in multiple ways. One such way is temporary thinning due to Telogen Effluvium.
This treatable hair loss condition begins when sudden or severe stress is placed upon the body, and leads to an increase in the shedding of hair to give the impression of an overall “thinning”. In cases where Telogen Effluvium is prolonged, it is classified as Chronic Telogen Effluvium or Diffuse Hair Loss. This more severe form of the condition describes those cases that have lasted for six months or more.
What is surprising to many is that even Male Pattern Baldness and Female Pattern Hair Loss - despite being genetic - can, in much the same way, be made worse by diets, too.
One way to minimise stress on the scalp and hair follicles during times of dieting is to ensure they continue to get the nutrients they need with a food supplement. Belgravia's specialists have developed Hair Vitalics supplements for healthy hair growth in Men's and Women's formulations. These have been designed to provide premium vitamins, minerals, amino acids and botanical extracts identified to be beneficial to the hair, in optimum doses. Though not recommended as an alternative to a balanced and healthy diet, this highly-targeted one-a-day tablet can be a great additional nutritional support.
Scientists have recently claimed that the best way to lose weight is to avoid crash or fad dieting completely and to simply reduce the size of your portions. By rewinding the clocks 20 years to when portion sizes were smaller, they say, losing weight would be relatively easy and the stress on the body, scalp and hair would be minimised, too.
This is because numerous hair loss conditions are triggered or influenced by dramatic changes to the body and diets are often far more of a shock to the system than people realise.
Bad diets taken to extremes
In a round-up of 2015’s worst fad diets, the Daily Mail recently declared that some are a waste of money while others are downright dangerous. Top billing this year went to the No Sugar Diet, which is said to count Tom Hanks and Alec Baldwin as fans, and according to the British Dietetic Association (BDA) it can be an especially bad idea when taken to extremes and sugars including those found in vegetables, fruit and nuts are forbidden, rather than just cutting back on refined sugar.
Not far behind on the bad diet hit-list was one in which participants are encouraged to chew gum and eat nothing but kale, which the experts described as “extreme, socially isolating, unbalanced, hard to sustain and potentially harmful.” And that's before taking into account the links one scientist discovered between kale and hair loss.
Quoted in the Mail article, Sian Porter at the BDA says: “When people need medical advice, they go to their GP; when people have a toothache they go to their dentist, but some people will believe almost anything when it comes to nutrition, food and diet.”
As an adjunct to this, when people experience excessive hair shedding they typically visit a specialist because they want to get to the bottom of the problem as quickly as they can. Luckily, a tailored hair loss treatment course featuring daily applications of minoxidil, which is applied directly to the scalp, can help in many cases.
Shocking the body can lead to hair loss
This treatable hair loss condition begins when sudden or severe stress is placed upon the body, and leads to an increase in the shedding of hair to give the impression of an overall “thinning”. In cases where Telogen Effluvium is prolonged, it is classified as Chronic Telogen Effluvium or Diffuse Hair Loss. This more severe form of the condition describes those cases that have lasted for six months or more.
What is surprising to many is that even Male Pattern Baldness and Female Pattern Hair Loss - despite being genetic - can, in much the same way, be made worse by diets, too.
One way to minimise stress on the scalp and hair follicles during times of dieting is to ensure they continue to get the nutrients they need with a food supplement. Belgravia's specialists have developed Hair Vitalics supplements for healthy hair growth in Men's and Women's formulations. These have been designed to provide premium vitamins, minerals, amino acids and botanical extracts identified to be beneficial to the hair, in optimum doses. Though not recommended as an alternative to a balanced and healthy diet, this highly-targeted one-a-day tablet can be a great additional nutritional support.
Scientists have recently claimed that the best way to lose weight is to avoid crash or fad dieting completely and to simply reduce the size of your portions. By rewinding the clocks 20 years to when portion sizes were smaller, they say, losing weight would be relatively easy and the stress on the body, scalp and hair would be minimised, too.
The Belgravia Centre
The Belgravia Centre is a world-renowned group of a hair loss clinic in Central London, UK. If you are worried about hair loss you can arrange a free consultation with a hair loss expert or complete our Online Consultation from anywhere in the world for home-use treatment.
View our Hair Loss Success Stories, which includes the world's largest gallery of hair growth photos and demonstrates the level of success that so many of Belgravia's patients achieve.
