Unlock the Power of Nutrition - Top Foods for Healthier Hair:
Understanding the Role of Diet in Hair Health:
How Does Diet Affect the Hair?
Unhealthy hair looks dry and thin and tends to shed profusely, and it means that you need to re-assess the quality of your diet, switch up your hair care products and schedule a visit to your trichologist.
You need to nourish your body with foods that will thwart hair loss and help the hair grow faster. Beautiful, shiny hair requires more than just expensive hair care products — it needs good nourishment!
Common Nutritional Deficiencies That Impact your Hair:
By and large, nutritional deficiencies are the main cause of unhealthy hair and hair loss. If you’ve had a tough, long drawn out battle with thinning of hair, excessive hair shedding and hair loss – then nutrient deficiency is in all likelihood the cause, especially if you have dismissed genetic causes and hormonal oscillations.
5 nutrient deficiencies which are responsible for unhealthy hair and prolonged hair loss are – iron, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin E and zinc. These immensely affect the health of your hair and a lack of these will set off hair loss. When you recharge your diet with these, it will put an end to hair loss and will boost hair regrowth. Once the dietary insufficiency gets remedied, hair shedding stops and hair restoration takes place.
Top Foods for Strong Hair
The top foods that should be incorporated in to your daily menu in order to have long, strong, healthy hair are –
Best Protein Sources for Hair Strength
Fish
Fish is packed with protein and omega-3 fatty acids, the chief nutrients for healthy, luxuriant hair. When you load up on fish, you will see a radical reduction in hair loss, along with an improvement in hair thickness as well as hair density. Along with the generous amounts of protein, fish gives you plenty of vitamins D and B and selenium. These work in sync to give you healthy hair.
Eggs
Loaded with quality protein and choline, biotin, iron and vitamins A, D and B12, eggs play a pivotal role in maintaining the health of your hair. They deal with hair loss and significantly improve hair texture too.
Beans
Hair follicles are composed of protein, so eating protein most definitely boosts hair health and hair growth. Amp up on legumes, beans, lentils – kidney beans, chickpeas, soy - these are full of protein. They successfully tackle hair thinning, hair loss and premature greying of hair, promising you healthy looking, thick locks.
Fruits and Veggies that Promote Hair Health
Leafy greens
Spinach, Fenugreek, kale – all are crammed with iron, calcium, magnesium, folic acid, and phosphorus; all are vital for healthy hair. These minerals fight as well as stave off hair loss and balding. These also bring a ton of oxygen to the scalp and hair roots and enhance hair growth substantially.
Pumpkin
The pumpkin is stuffed with beta-carotene and iron – both of which are vitally important for good hair growth. It also packs in a bunch of vitamins C and E which protect your hair from free radical damage. The veggie also gives you plenty of magnesium, a mineral that plays a part in protein manufacture as well as the hair growth cycle. When there’s a deficiency of magnesium, the production of protein gets disrupted and this affects the health of your hair. Load up on pumpkin to get this potent mineral.
Berries
Berries are loaded with vitamin C, which is a powerful antioxidant. Antioxidants shield the hair follicles from free radical damage and thus boost hair strength. Vitamin C also maintains the collagen stores, which is exceedingly important for strong, healthy hair. Vitamin C also plays a part in augmenting the absorption of iron which brings in a slew of oxygen to the scalp.
How to Incorporate Nutritious Food into Your Daily Diet:
Easy and Delicious Meal Ideas:
These meal plans are bursting with protein, giving you a generous amount of the follicle boosting nutrient, additionally, there’s a side of vegetables that proffer a liberal amount of vitamins and minerals which keep the hair very happy!
- Omelette with a side of baked spinach and broccoli
- Chicken biryani with pahadi raita
- Chole pulav with cucumber raita
- Rajma chaawal with tomato salad
- Baked salad with cheesy dip
- Hummus and guacamole on toast
- Palak paneer and beet raita
Quick Snack Options for Busy Days:
Nuts
Nuts are packed with nutrient dense hair growth supporting components. Peanuts, cashews, almonds and walnuts are fantastic sources of protein, good fat, and zinc which support a healthy scalp and encourage good hair growth. Chomp on a fistful of nuts as a mid morning snack.
Chia seeds and sesame seeds
Make a blend of roasted chia seeds and sesame seeds, have 2 to 3 spoons daily. These seeds are nutritional powerhouses that support excellent hair growth. They give you generous amounts of omega 3 fatty acids, fibre and antioxidants. The two seeds are also a very good source of protein; and all these together helps keep your scalp healthy and also promotes beautiful, luscious hair. Additionally, the seeds also pack in loads of zinc and copper, both of which activate the enzymes which stimulate protein synthesis, exceedingly critical for hair growth. They regenerate new hair growth and make your hair thick and voluminous.
Yogurt smoothies
Yogurt supplies loads of protein - the building block for healthy hair. A yogurt smoothie is ideal to get in all your nutrients when your hard pressed for time. Yogurt proffers you lots of antibiotics which keep the gut microbiome healthy and helps in the absorption of the nutrients which in turn maintain a healthy hair growth cycle. Throw in a couple of fruits and you have a showstopper snack that promises you complete hair care.
Lifestyle Changes That Can Enhance Hair Health:
Right from dietary modifications and being under constant stress, to being bombarded by a storm of hair care products, there are lots of lifestyle alterations that you need to consider.
Talk with your trichologist and embrace the tried-and-tested methods which experts recommend integrating into your everyday routine. Along with consuming a well balanced, wholesome diet that is packed with ‘hair happy’ foods, you absolutely need a few lifestyle modifications to foster good hair growth.
The Importance of Hydration for Hair Health:
The hair strand is composed of 25 % of water and thus drinking 2 to 3 litres of water per day helps keep your hair healthy and glossy. If you are dehydrated, the hair is devoid of the moisture that it needs, and the strands look unhealthy and turn brittle. This in turn affects hair growth adversely.
When you are well hydrated, all the vital nutrients reach the scalp too via circulation, in case of dehydration, the scalp can not be replenished with the necessary vitamins and minerals.
Sufficient amounts of water energizes and supports hair growth from the root to the tip and fosters a healthy scalp, thwarting itchiness, dryness and dandruff.
The Truth about Hair Vitamins and Supplements:
Hair health is rather complex and largely depends on dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors. Doctors, trichologists and nutritionists will always recommend food over supplements, however, in case of deficiencies or medical disorders or when the hair needs a lot of care and attention, you will have to resort to supplements to enhance repair.
It is important that you know that the nutrients in the food is more easily absorbed by your body than the nutrients in the supplements.
On the other hand, supplements provide a bigger concentration of specific nutrients which could be rather difficult to get from your diet, such as, vitamin D, vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids.
Always remember, before you embark on to any supplement schedule, please discuss with your health care provider.
FAQs:
Here’s a round-up of certain foods that could trigger brittle hair and set off hair fall, avoid them:
- Sugary foods
- Animal fat
- Refined foods that are devoid of vitamins and minerals
- Alcohol
- Greasy, fried food
These foods are packed with all the potent nutrients which boost hair growth and proffer results very quickly-
- Eggs
- Berries
- Spinach
Vitamin D plays a pivotal role in the hair growth cycle – it binds to vitamin D receptors in the hair follicles and monitors the hair cycle. It influences the various phases of the hair cycle and makes sure that the hair stay in the Anagen phase, i.e. the growth phase for a protracted period of time. Cod liver oil and fish give generous amounts of vitamin D.
Omega 3 fatty acids are miracle workers! They boost blood circulation, are powerfully anti inflammatory and protect your scalp – thus enhancing hair growth. Omega 3 fatty acids are potent DHT blockers too thereby combating as well as warding off hair loss. Notably, omega 3 give your hair a wonderful sheen! Bulk up on fatty fish, walnuts and flaxseeds; these are crammed with omega 3. You could even start an omega 3 supplement, discuss with your doctor.
Selenium is an wondrous, yet uncelebrated hero when it comes to hair health! A commanding antioxidant, it perks up blood circulation and boosts oxygen and nutrient supply to the scalp, which encourages good hair growth. Chicken, eggs, fish, beans and nuts proffer large quantities of selenium.
If you have been grappling with unhealthy hair, poor hair growth and hair loss, and your trichologist has eliminated the chances of you having hormone disturbances or any underlying medical condition, then it is bound to be a dietary insufficiency. Your trichologist will identify and establish what is deficient in your diet and what is responsible for the hair loss. Your blood work will also give a very precise picture of which vitamin or mineral your are deficient in and how you can fix it. Your doctor will prescribe the necessary supplements to remedy the deficiency and you will soon be on the road to healthy, beautiful hair!
DHT is the chief cause for the miniaturisation of the hair follicles and consequently hair loss. Certain foods are potent DHT blockers – foods which are packed with lycopene, zinc and lysine are very dominating DHT blockers. Thus, make sure that you eat plenty of spinach, broccoli, pumpkin seeds, beetroot, tomatoes, banana, flax seeds and sesame seeds on a regular basis.
If the cause of your hair loss is a vitamin or mineral deficiency, then loading up on the deficient mineral by eating plenty of foods that are packed with the nutrient or embarking on a supplement regimen will put a stop to your hair loss almost instantaneously and the hair shedding will be reversed.
Having healthy hair is calls for a multi pronged approach – the correct diet, the right hair care products and lifestyle changes. Having beautiful hair begins with what you feed it. What you eat has a very strong influence on how your hair looks. When your diet is lacking in certain nutrients, it will first become evident through the health of your hair and usually manifests as thinning of hair, excessive hair shedding and stunted hair growth. Contrariwise, if you eat all the correct foods and your overall health is good, your hair will look wonderful!