Are you struggling with thin hair, or worse, hair loss? Continue reading to learn about the best vitamins that help with healthy hair growth for thick, luscious, and beautiful hair.
According to NHS, around 8 million women in the UK suffer from hair loss. While losing around fifty to hundred hair strands a day is normal, many people notice excessive hair fall. You may be suffering from hair loss if large clumps of hair go down the drain every time you wash your hair.
Hair thinning and hair loss are common conditions that affect people of all ages and genders. While pregnancy and other conditions may cause hair loss in women, male pattern baldness is also quite prevalent. Other times, people lose hair with age or due to conditions like alopecia.
Do You Need Vitamins for Healthy Hair Growth?
You may not notice, but your hair goes through a lot that can leave them damaged and dull-looking. Brushing, styling, chemicals (dyeing), and heat are a few factors that contribute to deteriorating hair health.
Not forgetting, the weather also plays a big role in determining your hair quality. For instance, humid air can lead to frizz. Other times, prolonged exposure to direct sunlight causes discolouration and brittleness. As a result, hair becomes more prone to damage and breaks easily.
Therefore, taking good care of your hair is essential for ensuring health and quality. Many people, especially women, struggle with hair loss, finding it hard to grow their hair past shoulder length. While you can’t magically eliminate the issue, incorporating some hair-friendly vitamins in your diet can help support healthy hair growth.
Vitamins help meet your body’s daily values, helping with deficiencies. Meeting your body’s needs significantly improves hair health, resulting in healthier, stronger, shinier, and longer hair. You can fix deficiencies by taking vitamin supplements or improving your diet.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is essential for the healthy growth of all cells in the body. As such, it plays a vital role in hair, skin, eye, nails, and even reproductive health. Not forgetting, this vitamin is also critical to maintaining a healthy immune system.
Weak, thinning, and breaking hair are common signs of a vitamin A deficiency. Without adequate amounts of vitamin A in the body, your hair can become more vulnerable to damage and prone to breakage.
Therefore, meeting your body’s daily need for vitamin A is paramount for healthy hair growth. Hair is the fastest-growing tissue in the body that relies on vitamin A for growth.
The vitamin contributes to the development and growth of new hair cells at the follicle base. So, adding more vitamin A to your diet can lead to the growth of new and healthy hair. It is excellent for people with bald patches on their scalp.
Besides, vitamin A also assists the sebaceous glands in your scalp in producing sebum, an oily substance responsible for moisture. A moist scalp equals less dryness and healthier hair.
B Vitamins
Many people live with the misconception that ‘B vitamin’ refers to a single vitamin, which is not true. In reality, B vitamin is short for vitamin B complex. The Vitamin B complex comprises eight water-soluble vitamins, each having its specific role in our body.
These include vitamins B1, B2, and B3, known as Thiamine, Riboflavin, and Niacin respectively. Then there’s Pantothenic Acid, B6, B7, also known as biotin, Folate, and B12. Although they have separate roles in maintaining overall health, each B vitamin encourages metabolism and proper cell development.
Since B vitamins are essential for cell growth and development and metabolizing proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, they enhance hair health. The vitamin B complex encourages healthy cell rejuvenation to promote hair growth for denser, thicker hair.
These vitamins also help create an abundance of red blood cells crucial for hair follicle support. As such, B vitamins improve the rate of hair growth. You will soon notice a consistent, faster, and healthier change in hair length by addressing your vitamin B deficiency.
Red blood cells carry sufficient oxygen and micronutrients to the scalp and hair follicles necessary for new hair growth and shiny hair.
Vitamin C
There are few ingredients as crucial to human health as vitamin C. it is a vital part of the skin, hair, and overall health, whereas vitamin C deficiency can lead to various beauty and health-related issues.
Also known as ascorbic acid, vitamin C is essential for strong immunity, bone health, and dewy skin. For that reason, you can find this ingredient in nearly everything, from skincare products to toothpaste.
You must know that hair health begins from the inside, and nutritional deficiencies and other internal body factors leave a big impact. Therefore, you should pay attention to your body’s needs as well.
Vitamin C has amazing hair-boosting effects, among other benefits. The water-soluble vitamin is a potent antioxidant; it can fight oxidative stress caused by free radicals. By neutralizing free radical damage, ascorbic acid ensures a healthy scalp.
Additionally, its collagen-boosting property is a major reason many people use vitamin C. It promotes increased collagen production for adding elasticity, shine, and strength to hair strands.
What else? Vitamin C deficiency can often weaken the hair, making them more vulnerable to damage and breakage. Not forgetting, split ends and dry hair are top signs of vitamin C deficiency. So, you can use vitamin C supplements to reverse hair damage and loss.
Among other bodily functions, vitamin C is also responsible for aiding nutrient absorption in the body. It may help absorb essential nutrients such as iron to enhance your hair quality further.
Vitamin D
If you’re suffering from hair loss, remember that millions of other people are also experiencing some form of this frustrating condition. Although a common condition, it is hard to identify the real cause behind why an individual might be experiencing hair breakage.
That said, vitamin D deficiency is the most prevalent cause of hair loss across the UK and worldwide. Low vitamin D levels in the body can have a more significant impact on hair quality and health than most people think. Whether or not lack of vitamin D is the reason for your hair loss, it can help reverse the condition.
Keratinocytes are keratin-producing skin cells that metabolize vitamin D in the skin. In case of a vitamin D deficiency, the keratinocytes in hair follicles fail to facilitate and regulate hair growth as they should. As a result, the hair begins to shed, and you experience hair loss.
Furthermore, all living cells in the body contain vitamin D receptors which allow the vitamin to bind for the proper function of the cells. It plays a vital role in regulating cell cycles for kidney cells, immune cells, and hair follicles. But, lack of vitamin D disrupts the healthy function of cells, resulting in poor hair.
You can increase your vitamin D intake through foods like salmon and mushrooms or by taking vitamin D supplements.
Vitamin E
Like vitamin C, vitamin E carries incredible antioxidant properties to reduce oxidative stress and damage by fighting free radicals. As such, this vitamin protects the cells in your body and encourages healthy growth, development, and function.
For decades, vitamin E has been a popular skin-boosting ingredient. Today, it is highly popular in the world of hair care. While it doesn’t do much to promote hair growth on its own, vitamin E works like magic to restore the damage. On that note, pairing it with another hair growth vitamin is excellent.
In other words, it is your number one choice if you want to transform your frizzy and unmanageable hair into luscious, shiny, and healthy-looking locks. The same vitamin E properties that enhance skin quality do just about the same for hair health.
As with other cells in the body, free radicals can adversely affect hair follicles at the base of your scalp. As a result, free radical damage leads to an unhealthy scalp prone to hair breakage. But, the antioxidant properties of vitamin E are a life-saver in such cases. Taking a supplement every day can reverse hair loss and restore scalp damage.
A few studies suggest that vitamin E encourages increased blood flow, which promotes healthy hair growth.
Although there is not enough scientific evidence, people notice shinier hair after consistent use of vitamin E. This benefit is especially true for vitamin E hair serums. Vitamin E serums create a protective barrier around your scalp to lock moisture. So, it is fair to say that this vitamin also helps eliminate scalp dryness and itchiness.
Bottom Line
It is no surprise that your diet impacts your internal health and external appearance alike. Your daily intake determines how healthy your hair looks. While unhealthy hair may indicate other conditions, vitamin deficiencies are the most common reason.
A lack of essential hair-friendly vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin D, and vitamin D can lead to hair breakage and loss. Luckily, you can improve your hair quality and health by incorporating the vitamins mentioned above into your diet.
