Bellevue Health Clinic

Archive for the ‘Nutrition’ Category

Vitamins are crucial for regulating various functions in our body and if you have hair loss problems, you may need to review your vitamin intake. It is known that lack of balance in vitamin consumption significantly impact the overall condition of hair and can even lead to hair loss and balding. So if you want to fight hair loss, you have to think about the vitamins you take on a regular basis.

You probably know that vitamins come with food, so the diet you follow plays a very important role in keeping your hair in good condition. If you’re not receiving all the vitamins you need with food, you may start experiencing hair problems. And even if the overall balance of vitamins is good, your hair may not receive them all due to other health problems that can impede the distribution of vitamins in your body. That’s why you need to review your food regimen before actually using any drugs to treat hair loss – most probably your hair problems are caused by poor nutrition or vitamin imbalance. There are numerous vitamin supplements available on the market that you can use to get proper amounts of vitamins every day. However, it is strongly recommended to consult with a doctor before starting a course of vitamin supplements, because taking most vitamins in amounts that are larger than necessary may also have negative effects on your health.

It is also important to understand that nearly all vitamins are essential for keeping your hair in a good condition. There isn’t any specific vitamin that is responsible for keeping your hair healthy. All the vitamins from A to E contribute to good health in general and have their effects on hair. However, in most cases hair loss takes place when there’s a deficiency of Vitamin B6, biotin, folic acid and inositol. Besides, all the vitamins from B group are essential for adequate hair growth. This is especially important for men, who tend to be more sensitive to vitamin B6 deficiency and may go completely bald when there’s an acute shortage of this particular substance.

But before you start a course of vitamins instead of using Propecia or any other prescription drugs you should first consider the right dosage for getting the desired effects. Because you don’t use drugs like Propecia without knowing the right dosage, do you? The same goes for vitamins.

Vitamin B group

Foods that are rich with Vitamin B include beans, peas, carrots, nutritional yeast, soy, eggs, cauliflower, nuts and bran. Daily norms for this group of vitamins are:

Vitamin B3 (niacin) – 50 mg 3 times per day.
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid) – 100 mg 3 times per day.
Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine) – 50 mg 3 times per day.

Biotin

Biotin is responsible for keeping your skin, and hair in a good condition. Foods rich with biotin include green peas, oats, brown rice, bulgur, lentils, brewer’s yeast, walnuts and sunflower seeds. The daily dosage:

Biotin – 50 mg 3 times per day.

Inositol

Inositol is crucial for keeping your hair healthy as well. Dosage:

Inositol – 100 mg twice a day.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is generally good for your health and it keeps the blood circulation in the scalp in a proper condition. By doing so, it helps feed the hair follicles will all the substances they need by keeping a good blood flow. Dosage:

Vitamin C – 3,000 – 10,000 mg per day.

Our body is actually a natural manufacturing plant that produces healthy substance and nutrients required by the body in order to keep it fit and healthy. Natural substance like L-Carnitine or 5-HTP is the body’s natural product. But by lifestyle changes, eating pattern changes, and exercise decreases, the body’s getting weak and the amount of these natural substances is getting less. Because of that, we often need extra vitamin or supplements to make our bodies stay healthy.

5-HTP is the substance beneficial to help producing serotonin, which will give the feeling of peace and calm. Most medicines containing 5-HTP substance are often used as medication for depressions and anxiety. When people lack of this substance, they easily get upset and stressed out.

L-Carnitine is the transporter for fatty acid from cytosol into the mitochondria during metabolism process. The fat then broken down and changed into energy. When people get older, the level of L-Carnitine will decrease and may lead to osteoporosis. With the help of supplements or serum containing this substance, the L-Carnitine level can be increased and restored to regular amount.
There’s also another vitamin useful for the body. Vitamin E is usually used as antioxidant, which prevent degeneration. Vitamin E can be found in cosmetics products designed to prevent wrinkles or to make skin look younger.