A healthy diet is essential for healthy hair. It’s an important part of the body’s overall health, and a poor diet can lead to hair loss.
Here are six nutrients essential for healthy hair:
- Protein
Protein helps to maintain the structure of your hair by providing it with strength and elasticity. It also helps your body make keratin, a protein that makes up about 90% of the proteins found in your hair. If you don’t get enough protein in your diet, your body will use its own stores to make up for it — which means less keratin for your hair and more for your fingernails, skin and other organs.
- Iron
Iron is essential for carrying oxygen from the lungs to all parts of your body including the scalp so that cells can produce energy. Without enough iron in your diet, you may experience headaches and fatigue as well as brittle nails, thinning hair or even hair loss.
- Vitamin B6
It helps in the production and metabolism of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein and a major component of hair cells. Vitamin B12 – helps produce red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the body, including the scalp. Iron – allows oxygen to pass through cell membranes, which is essential for healthy circulation in your scalp and hair follicles.
- Zinc
It helps produce enzymes that promote healthy skin and hair growth by increasing the amount of melanin produced by melanocytes, a type of skin cell responsible for skin pigmentation or tanning.
- Calcium
Calcium plays an important role in cell growth and development and helps keep your bones strong — both things that are necessary for healthy hair growth as well.
- Omega-3 fatty acids
Omega-3s reduce inflammation and help keep your scalp healthy by providing nutrients to the skin cells that make up your hair follicles.
