Many people apparently like having no hair. You see guys everywhere who are bald—by choice. On the other hand, retaining or re-growing hair is a billion-dollar industry. Most products aren’t particularly effective, some you have to use for the rest of your life, and some are downright nasty.

Propecia, for example, Big Pharma’s big seller for men, warns that common side effects are impotence and decreased sex drive. A 2011 study found these occurring in more than 90 percent of users.

Yes, women think a full head of hair on a guy is sexy. But for a guy to lose interest in sex—in order to look sexy? Ironic, isn’t it?

Not just men

Women are also vulnerable to hair loss. Female pattern baldness affects some 30 million American women.

Compared to male pattern baldness, when the hairline recedes and the top of the head sheds, female pattern baldness appears as thinning hair overall, a center part that grows wider, or a bald spot at the crown, like men. Women don’t often have the receding hairline common among men.

What Causes Hair Loss?

It can be any of up to 30 different medical conditions, including thyroid problems and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). It can be the birth of a child. It can be genes.

If you’ve lost or are losing hair, have your doctor check you for an identifiable medical source. Tackling that is your best starting point.

Of course, the usual suspects—diet and stress—top the list.

Healthy Hair Needs Healthy Food

Your hair is made up of a protein called keratin that’s created in your hair follicles. Healthy follicles create about six inches of new hair per year. The old hair is pushed out and falls away.

At any given time, about 90 percent of your hair is actively growing. The remaining ten percent is “resting.”

Growth requires fuel. When the fuel supply to your skin, or any other organ, is inadequate, the creation and distribution of the nutrients it needs slow to a crawl.

The Standard American Diet (SAD, the perfect acronym) fails miserably as fuel. Not only does it fail to provide even close to all the nutrients you need for health, it piles on disease-producing sugars, fats, preservatives, flavor “enhancers,” sodium overload, and more.

Eat right—fresh, local, organic, heavy on fruits and veggies, healthy oils, whole grains—and you give your hair what it needs to keep growing.

Can Stress Cause Hair Loss?

Stress is another major cause of hair loss. It can be as dramatic as a serious physical or emotional trauma or as common as a generally stressful lifestyle—work, family, health issues. But the results are the same—your body is in overdrive, burning the candle at both ends.

I recommend yoga, tai chi, qi gong, sports, exercise, meditation, dancing—anything that helps you focus more on improving your health, and less on your daily dilemmas.

Hair Loss And Genetics

Last, but not necessarily least, your genetic profile may predispose you to hair loss. A team at a German university says it has identified a gene variation that may play a role in male pattern baldness.

If the men in your parents’ families have all their hair, that could be your good luck. Initial research suggested that the baldness gene was a sex-linked trait, distributed on the X chromosome, but new investigation shows that there are several genes that affect baldness and they are inherited from both parents.

That means that if your dad, uncles, or cousins have or had male pattern baldness, your likelihood of the same increases.

I expect similar discoveries will show a genetic predisposition for female pattern baldness, as well.

But men and women both can fight back. Not with Big Pharma’s “solutions. ”

Prevent, stop, or re-grow naturally

So your diet’s good, you’re un-stressed, and you’re losing hair. What now?

Castor oil has been used forever to improve scores of conditions—including hair health.

• Mix it half and half with coconut oil, olive oil, or jojoba oil
• Massage into scalp and hair
• Cover hair with a warm towel or shower cap. Keep covered for 2–8 hours or overnight. Wash out thoroughly.

Silica is a wonder micronutrient that helps our bodies create collagen, a key player in maintaining healthy hair follicles. Get it in liquid form—drink 15 drops in 15 oz of water twice daily.

Hair ReVive (for women) contains the B vitamin biotin, which is essential for hair and nail health. Most women get only 150–200 mcg from diet. Biotin dosage recommendations vary widely, but I’ll stand by Hair ReVive’s 6,000 mcg of biotin plus other hair health enhancers.

You can find countless other natural preventive and regrowth formulations for women and men online, using these sweet ingredients and more:

• Jojoba oil
• Saw palmetto
• Garlic juice, onion juice, or ginger juice
• Rosemary
• Licorice
• Lavender
• Almond or sesame oil
• Green tea

These and scores of similar, natural formulations have been used for centuries.

All I can add is “Hair, hair!”

References

• “Treatment.”
• “What is biotin?“
• “Liquid Silica.”
• “20 Ways to reduce hair loss in men.“
• “Home Remedies for Hair Loss in Wome“
• “Understanding Hair Loss—the Basics.”
• “Hair loss.”S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.. Accessed Feb. 9, 2015.
• “ Alopecia (adult and pediatric).” Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; 2014.
• “Hair loss.” Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. Accessed Feb. 9, 2015.

Last Updated: July 30, 2021
Originally Published: September 1, 2014