How to prevent hair loss

Some forms of hair loss are reversible, with the right nutrients

Most of us can tolerate all sorts of low-level maladies, aches and pains. We put them down to being part of the human condition. But watching your crowning glory slide down the drain can be utterly devastating. You’ll most likely do whatever it takes to stop it.

Your scalp holds approximately 100,000 hair follicles. Hair goes through natural cycles of growing, resting and falling out. A little hair loss when your wash or brush is normal; on average, people lose 50-100 hairs a day. When loss exceeds that amount, for longer than a few weeks, it’s considered a problem.

There are different types of hair loss, generally known as alopecia. The main ones include:

Androgenic alopecia, or hereditary hair loss. This is the most common type and is also known as male or female pattern hair loss. If you’ve got the gene for this – and a lot of people do – there’s not much, diet-wise, you can do about it. A receding hairline, thinning and a bald patch are signs of this form of alopecia.

Alopecia areata, on the other hand, is not hereditary. It’s an autoimmune disease; the immune system attacks the hair follicles and causes hair to fall out. ‘Areata’ means patchy, and this form of alopecia can occur anywhere on the body. Although there is no cure, hair can grow back. Sometimes it falls out again, but not always.

Another common form of hair loss is telogen effluvium, and this is the form that interests us here, because nutrition can play an important role in cause, prevention and reversal.  Hair starts to fall out but is not replaced with new growth. Loss tends to occur all over the scalp rather than in patches, and results in thinning.

There are many possible causes of telogen effluvium: medications, thyroid imbalance, polycystic ovary syndrome, stress, shock, surgery or a fungal infection of the scalp. And, not least of all, nutritional imbalances.