Hair Loss

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Hair Loss

If you’re a typical adult, you have about 100,000 hairs on your head. And you’re not willing to part with a single one of them.

Yet once your hair starts to thin, there’s little Western medicine can do. Except in cases caused by radiation treatments, scalp infections or severe stress, hair loss in men and women is hereditary and permanent. Only one prescription product, minoxidil, has won approval as a hair loss cure. And it doesn’t work for everyone, especially when there is actual baldness rather than thinning. The natural remedies in this chapter, used with the approval of your doctor, may help slow hair loss or increase hair growth, according to some health professionals.

See Your Medical Doctor When... Your hair loss is rapid. You experience hair loss after taking high doses of vitamins, such as vitamin A. Your hair loss accompanies other problems, such as hypothyroidism or malnutrition.

Aromatherapy

To stimulate the scalp, try a blend of bay and lavender essential oils, suggests Greenwich, Connecticut, aromatherapist Judith Jackson, author of Scentual Touch: A Personal Guide to Aromatherapy. She says to add six drops of each oil to four ounces of warm carrier oil (almond, soybean and sesame are popular carrier oils; all are sold in most health food stores). Massage the mixture into the scalp and allow it to absorb for 20 minutes, she says, then wash with your regular shampoo, to which you’ve added three drops of bay essential oil.

For information on preparing and administering essential oils, including cautions about their use, see page 19. For information on purchasing essential oils, refer to the resource list on page 633.

Food Therapy

For women, thinning hair or hair loss can be a sign of a problem in the gastrointestinal tract, says Michael A. Klaper, M.D., a nutritional medicine specialist in Pompano Beach, Florida, and director of the Institute of Nutritional Education and Research, an organization based in Manhattan Beach, California, that teaches doctors about nutrition and its relationship to disease. “Occasionally, it’s a sign of insufficient stomach acids or that she’s not absorbing protein, zinc and other nutrients,” he says. “If she takes acidophilus after meals for a month or so, that often helps.” Dr. Klaper recommends nondairy powdered acidophilus, available in most health food stores. He says to take two tablets between meals (four to six tablets per day) for at least two months.

For men, Dr. Klaper says that a low-fat diet may help slow down the balding process. “On some level, male pattern baldness might be tied to increased testosterone levels during puberty, which are often the result of a high-fat diet or eating too many animal products,” says Dr. Klaper. “If you look at Japan, male pattern baldness was almost unheard of prior to World War II. The Japanese diet is now far more fatty and Westernized, and Japanese men are going bald everywhere. It’s clear that a high-fat, meat-based diet raises testosterone levels, and that may adversely affect hair follicles. I’m not sure eating low-fat foods will stop hair loss, but it might slow it down.”

Massage

Giving your scalp a three-minute massage each day may increase blood flow to your hair follicles and help hair growth, says John F. Romano, M.D., clinical assistant professor of dermatology at New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center in New York City. He suggests using your fingertips to gently rub all over your scalp. Don’t be too rough; vigorous pulling or brushing can actually pull hair out of your head.