A well balanced diet along with vitamins and supplements definitely promotes optimal health, but it also promotes healthy hair, and in the process slows down hair loss. Vitamins and supplements are able to reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease, so why not hair loss? While there are no miracle cures to be found at the health food store, there are quite a few vitamins and supplements that can improve the quality of your hair.
While you should always make sure that you are getting enough of every vitamin and mineral in your diet, there are a few vitamins and supplements that be taken to specifically stop hair loss to some degree. Therefore, it is important to make sure that you are getting enough of these vitamins and supplements in your diet to promote healthy hair.
PABA, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, and folic acid are considered to be the most important vitamins for the hair. These vitamins not only improve the overall quality of the hair, but they also reduce the amount of grey in the hair. It has been shown in studies that these four vitamins used together significantly reduced the amount of grey hair in test subjects in a recent study. Brewer’s yeast, a supplement rich in vitamin B, is also shown to darken hair as well.
Vitamin E is another important vitamin for the hair. The beauty industry has promoted Vitamin E for many years as a hair improvement supplement, and with good reason. Vitamin E has been proven to work to make hair healthy, thick, and luxurious. Besides taking the vitamin itself, there are many other ways to get healthy doses of vitamin E in your diet. Wheat germ and wheat germ oil, rich in Vitamins E and B, are great dietary supplements for getting enough vitamin E to stimulate hair growth.
Minerals are also important to promote healthy hair. Two minerals that promote hair growth, magnesium and potassium, can be found in common multivitamin supplements. Silicon (Silica) is a supplement usually sold as a “healthy nails, skin, and hair” supplement. Silicon is necessary for bone and connective tissue (collagen) formation. Iodine is another trace mineral helpful for hair quality, usually purchased in the form of kelp tablets. The recommend daily dose of vitamin D, which is found in a multivitamin, is important for the proper assimilation of these minerals in the intestines.
Vitamin A and Vitamin F are also important vitamins to take when you want to have healthy hair; however, the best way to get them is through food intake. Vitamin A is more of a benefit to the scalp. It can be helpful with dandruff, and also a dry itchy scalp associated with other medical conditions. It is usually included in a multivitamin in small amounts, but the best place to find it is in cod liver oil. Vitamin F, or the essential fatty acids, are abundantly present in all unsaturated vegetable oils and in raw seeds and nuts. Unsaturated oils in the diet are considered to be valuable to the sebaceous glands, which are located in and around the hair follicles.
While a multivitamin can take care of the basics needed to stop or slow down hair loss, the extra benefits come from the vitamins and supplements that can be found at your local health food store. Taking vitamins and supplements aimed specifically at hair loss is the best way to stop it and the best way to keep a fuller head of hair.