There are few health problems quiet devastating as hair loss. Not only does thinning hair drastically change your appearance, but hair problems can indicate underlying health problems like chronic stress and inflammation, hypothyroid, and more.
For most people; especially men, hair loss is considered an unmanageable fate – if your hair is falling out, there’s nothing you can do about it. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is, hair loss of any sorts, even the so-called “genetic” male-patterned baldness is 100% manageable. Truth be told, not only can you stop hair loss, but you can regrow hair and you can do it completely naturally, without drugs, medications, transplants, etc.
All of this happens to be well-known in the science community. However, most of us never hear about what I am going to teach you today because most research around hair loss is either burred in medical literature, or manipulated toward a particular outcome to support Big Pharma’s billions in sales from hair loss drugs.
“According to recent IBIS World Industry Market research, the U.S. hair loss treatment manufacturing industry is expected to earn a revenue of $3.6 billion in 2016. … Data from the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery states that 85.4% of individuals wanted hair loss treatment in 2015.” 1
Although I will not be uncovering every last detail about the truth about hair loss in this particular post (I saved that information for my online course, Forever Healthy Hair), I do want to touch on a very important topic – the connection between ketosis or the keto-diet and hair loss.
With the popularity of ketosis steady on the rise, many people are coming to me in coaching sessions or my email box about hair loss, and to no surprise. This is something I dealt with during my bouts of ketosis during my bodybuilding days, l0w-carb veganism, and experimental ketosis. Fortunately, it was a problem I was able to correct before it ever got chronic. I was also able to figure out the exact reason ketosis and low-carb, sugar-free diets cause hair loss.
Thanks to my background in physiology and the help of a few intelligent mentors, not only was I able to figure how this connection, I discovered the exact physiology behind all hair-loss.
As devastating as hair loss can be, the good news is that once you learn the pathology, you will see that the solutions for hair loss are much simpler than you have previously thought or been told.
Hair Loss And The Keto Diet
As you’ll learn in-depth when you take my Forever Healthy Hair, the major culprit behind hair loss and poor hair health is hypothyroidism. To learn about this is great detail, you will definitely want to check that course out. However, today I would like to briefly discuss the how and why ketogenic diets are a bad idea for hair health. In short, a ketogenic diet, low carb diet or a diet devoid of sugar are all great contributors to hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism contributes to hair loss and poor hair health in numerous ways, but here are the main mechanisms:
- Hypothyroidism causes elevations of three stress hormones; estrogen, cortisol, and prolactin with coinciding increase of adrenal activity.
- Hyperadrenal activity causes an increased synthesis of aromatizable steroids (aromatase activity), causing your protective, pro-hair hormones to be converted into estrogen, causing a greater rise in estrogen.
- Decreased androgens = decreased hair growth
- Increased estrogens, cortisol & prolactin ‘suffocates’ the uptake of thyroid hormone into the follicles
- Excess cortisol impairs the cellular utilization of glucose – in other words, it starves the hair follicles of glucose
- The hormonal imbalances here all attribute to inflammation, damaged scalp integrity, the fibrosis of the scalp and therefore the death of the hair follicle
- Decreased production of carbon dioxide = less oxygen to hair follicle
So as you can see, hair loss is a systemic condition, and just like all others, addressing a thyroid deficiency should be a primary goal. However, given the physiology of the thyroid, we come to find out that a #ketogenic diet, low-carb dieting and avoiding sugar all oppose this goal and attribute to hypothyroid.
Here’s how…
First, understand this, the hair follicle needs three basic things to grow and thrive; glucose (sugar), oxygen, and thyroid hormone – these are the basic nutrients that your hair follicles “eat”. In fact, the hair follicle has been referred to by researchers as a thyroid hungry, highly energetically demanding mini-organ that needs a lot glucose. Without adequate glucose (sugar), the mini-organ that is the hair follicle will starve.
So, not only does the low-carb, or carb-devoid nature of ketogenic diet lack sufficient glucose, which directly puts a nutrition stress on your hair follicle, it also attributes to hypothyroidism, further worsening your hair health.
Here’s how…
When your body doesn’t get enough sugar or glucose, which is intentionally inflicted during ketosis (carb-deprivation), then your body gets it fuel sources from the fatty acids and so-called “ketone bodies”. However, these cannot sustain hair growth. This is due to the simple fact that the hair follicle is a glucose dependent organ, it simply cannot “sub-in” free fatty acids for energy. In fact, all of your cells prefer glucose, it is the primary energy source of the body for numerous reasons that I won’t get into in this post.
Given this fact, in order to make glucose to fuel your hair follicles and other organs and cells, in a glucose deprived state (keto/low carb), your body turns on its backup fuel system, a process called gluconeogenesis. In order to get into a state of ketosis, you have to enter gluconeogenesis.
Gluconeogenesis is basically the process of turning proteins and fats (muscles, tissues, organs, etc.) into glucose for energy. This process occurs when our body is under stress; however, a basic stress of the body is low blood sugar. So this is why ketosis or lipolysis; the utilization of fatty acids for energy, could be considered a metabolic stress.
Basically, when you are carb deprived, your body will use fatty acids for energy where it can, but for the functions it cannot, it turns fatty acids and proteins to glucose. The problem with this is that, although a helpful survival mechanism, gluconeogeneis is initiated by the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is catabolic, so it can breakdown your tissues to convert them into glucose. Not only is this process destructive; attributing to the loss of skin integrity and wrinkles, but as we’ve learned, elevated cortisol directly impairs the cell ability to utilize glucose.
Furthermore, one of the hallmarks of metabolic stress is exchanging glucose for fatty acids as a main source of fuel; i.e lipolysis and ketosis. Oxidizing fatty acids, instead of glucose, results in less carbon dioxide, restraining the availability of oxygen to hair follicle. An increase in free circulating fatty acids in the scalp and tissues, along with the decrease in carbon dioxide might largely explain why balding scalps are found to be less oxygenated (hypoxia). 2
So what we learn when we study the physiology is why stress of any sorts causes hair loss. We also clearly see that the body doesn’t necessarily consider long, thick hair to be a necessary survival attribute when the body is threatened. As we see, when the body is chronically stressed, it will halt hair growth and breakdown tissues just to keep itself alive.
Keto, Hypothyroid & Hair Loss
Other than depriving the hair follicle of glucose, a low carb, ketogenic diet also causes hair loss by down regulating thyroid function. Remember that gluconeogeneis thing we talked about? Well, ultimately, that process preserves our energy by down-regulating our metabolism and thyroid function.
You see, not only does ketosis and gluconeogensis elevate cortisol and estrogen, which impair thyroid function. The chronic depletion of liver glycogen (energy), from not eating carbs or not enough carbs can also slow thyroid function. That’s because the liver is responsible for converting 70% or more of inactive thyroid hormone (t4) into the active form (t3). Because the liver prefers glucose to make glycogen, limiting your intake causes a rapid depletion of liver glycogen, which not only stimulates the process of gluconeogenesis, but impairs its ability to actively convert thyroid hormone.
A classic signpost of liver impairment is the depletion of glycogen; something self inflicted on a ketogenic diet just to “burn fat”. But what people fail to see is that “burning fat” through this process, is a stressful one, achieved by the catabolic effects of adrenaline, cortisol and others.
Sticking to the point though, the depletion of liver glycogen that occurs on a ketogenic diet results in hair loss by;
- elevating cortisol through gluconeogenesis (or the stimulation of the adrenal/pituitary driven metabolism; i.e. stress metabolism)
- decreasing the liver’s ability and efficiency of converting t4 into t3; resulting in low t3 levels (i.e hypothyroidism)
The True Cause of Hair Loss
I’m not going to debunk all the myths about hair-loss today like I do in my Forever Healthy Hair course. However, consider these facts:
- Most babies are born with “patterned baldness”
- Women commonly lose hair postpartum
- Hair loss is prevalent in menopausal women, PCOS and hypothyroid
- Hair loss is a common side effect of birth control; along with weight gain and other symptoms of hypothyroid
- Baldness is strongly associated with diabetes, cancer, insulin resistance, atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome, prostate cancer and obesity
- DHT levels drop as we age, but baldness and hair loss increases
- Estrogen rises are we age, as does hair thinning
- Hair loss occurs during chronic stress
These facts alone raise major questioning for me when it comes to the common “genetic” and “androgenic” theories of baldness. What is common amongst all of the various imbalances known to be associated with hair loss or baldness are:
- Chronically elevated cortisol levels
- Chronically elevated estrogen levels
- Chronically elevated prolactin levels
- Low thyroid function
- Overactive adrenal function
- The liberation of fatty acids, further stimulating estrogen
- Deficiencies in the protective hormones DHEA, pregnenolone, progesterone and testosterone
When looking beyond highly biased, somewhat dogmatic ideas about what causes hair loss, compared to the physiology, a few things become obvious – hair loss is a systemic health problem, therefore, it will not be corrected by some single shot, wonder pill. Correcting hair loss is surprising a simpler problem than conventional media makes it to be, but that doesn’t make it an easier one to solve. Let’s be honest, it would be so much easier to take one pill and never have to change your diet, lifestyle, stress, thought and emotions patterns, all which are causing the problem.
But, the great news is, knowing these causative factors, we gain power. Hair loss is not some ill-inflicted fate, but something that can be corrected through adequate nutrition, stress reduction, and a joyful, wholesome lifestyle.
The ‘Secret’ to Correcting Hair Loss Prevention and Regrowing Hair
Now that you are aware of the true, commonly overlooked cause of hair loss, male pattern baldness, and so-called “androgenic alopecia”, you can take the correct steps.
Here are a few tips on correcting the underlying major imbalances that attribute to hair loss:
1. Lower Estrogen
- Quit drinking (the alcohol producing yeast also produce estradiol, and beer contains phytoestrogens that also increase prolactin)
- Lose excess weight; most stored body fat for American’s is polyunsaturated, which stimulates estrogen production. Word of caution, never do anything to rapidly lose weight, which will cause a liberation in these PUFAs and increase more estrogen. You will want to learn how to lose weight the healthy way.
- Consume more fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K2, all which are highly anti-estrogenic. They are found best in grass-fed organ meats like liver, egg yolks, raw grass-fed dairy, etc. You can also supplement them; this is a great product.
- Reduce exposure of xenoestrogens and phytoestrogens. Major estrogenic mimicking substances in our environment include parabens, phthalates, sterates (all in commercial personal care products). I would suggest switching to natural products like Alitura Naturals.
2. Lower Elevated Cortisol
- Stop chronic cardio and endurance workouts, which double the amount of estrogen and cortisol in the blood. Instead, stick to heavy, resistance training to build lean muscle, which produces anti-stress androgen hormones
- Keep blood sugar normal; cortisol regulates blood sugar, when blood sugar is low (low carb dieting), cortisol spikes. Ditch the stressful keto diet and be sure to get 30% or so of your macros from healthy carbs and sugars. If you’ve taken anything from this post its that carbs and sugar are not unhealthy; if you’re avoiding sugar simply because you cannot proper metabolize or oxidize it, that is not addressing the problem. For more diet tips, be sure to enroll in my Healthy Weight Loss course.
- Do something you love each day. Mental and emotional stress cause cortisol to rise as well, if not more than other stressors. The basic cause for physiological stress is conflict; a force, counter-force. For example, having to do something you don’t want to do is a stress. And in a world full of people doing things they don’t truly want, taking time each day to do something for the pure joy of it is a must for reducing stress.
- Get enough sleep
- Spend time outdoors every day
- Stop being so serious. There is no purpose for seriousness when you can be sincere, earnest and honest instead.
3. Lower Prolactin
- Ashwagandha extract not only lowers cortisol by 20%, it also decreases prolactin up to 40% while increasing testosterone.
- Vitamin E is anti-estrogenic and greatly lowers prolactin levels. Be sure to get your vitamin E from a wheat germ extract.
- Mucuna is an Ayurvedic herb that increases dopamine, and dopamine is what regulates and opposes prolactin. So by increasing your dopamine you will also lower prolactin. With that in mind, anything that makes you happy (i.e. achieving your goals), will increase dopamine and lower prolactin.
- Increase dietary Zinc. Zinc can cut prolactin levels by 50%! The best sources include oysters, beef liver and polyrachis black ant. 3
4. Improve Thyroid Function
Ultimately; low thyroid is the major cause of hair loss, because under hypothyroid all the stress chemicals that impair hair health rise significantly.
- To restore your thyroid, I would suggest adesiccated thyroid supplement, obtain adequate nutrition (as described in my Forever Healthy Hair course) and adhering to the other tips. Cortisol, estrogen and prolactin all oppose thyroid function; lowering them will greatly help in restoring its function
- Avoid low-carb and ketogenic diets like the plague
- Eat plenty of whole fruits, sucrose, raw honey, maple syrup and well-cooked potatoes for optimal carb intake
If you’ve enjoyed this post and are curious in learning more about the true cause of hair loss and how to correct it, I would strongly suggest my course Forever Healthy Hair. You will learn more about how to identify hypothyroidism, correct it and the associated hormonal imbalances, along with many other effective tips for regrowing your hair.
