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6 months in the Paleo diet, and I'm starting to find at least 20-30 strands fall out after blow-drying my hair...
What?
I have no idea why this is happening...
I started out at 20 years old, 5 foot 8, 149 lbs and now 20 years old, 5 foot 8, 128 lbs.
Now, I wasn't necessarily fat to begin with but I have lost a significant amount of weight without trying.
I've cut out all grains besides the occasional quinoa.
But I can see myself balding- it's scaring me.
Has this happened to anyone else?
Are you eating low carb? When I went low carb and very low carb my thyroid started suffering.
Were you vegetarian before? One thing I read a while back was that when people aren't eating enough protein, their hair basically dies and stops growing. Then when they are eating right again a new hair pushes the old one out. So they think that the food they are currently eating is the cause of the hair loss, when actually it was the preceeding diet and really their hair is growing again now.
Yes?
Do you have a source of iodine in your diet?
Cutting out refined salt (which is iodized) removes a large amount of iodine from your diet. They add it to salt because most people don't get enough of it. Hypothyroidism can cause hair loss.
That does not seem that abnormal by CW standards.
[url=http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_normal_hair_loss_and_excessive_hair_loss]What is normal hair loss and excessive hair loss[/url]
[QUOTE=JonOhJay;1002008]6 months in the Paleo diet, and I'm starting to find at least 20-30 strands fall out after blow-drying my hair...
What?
I have no idea why this is happening...
[/QUOTE]
Paleo diet or not; losing weight as you have is always a stress on the human body, so elevated cortisol and other stress hormones is most likely the reason for your hair loss...
[QUOTE=JonOhJay;1002008]6 months in the Paleo diet, and I'm starting to find at least 20-30 strands fall out after blow-drying my hair...
What?
I have no idea why this is happening...
I started out at 20 years old, 5 foot 8, 149 lbs and now 20 years old, 5 foot 8, 128 lbs.
Now, I wasn't necessarily fat to begin with but I have lost a significant amount of weight without trying.
I've cut out all grains besides the occasional quinoa.
But I can see myself balding- it's scaring me.
Has this happened to anyone else?[/QUOTE]
JonOhJay, this isn't necessarily caused by your diet, but it can't hurt if you add some high quality mineral and vitamin supplements to it. My best friend she has a "hair doctor", because of her initial thin hair. No she has been taking some supplements for 3 months with great improvements.
Jenni
Could also be part of your natural grow/rest/fall out cycle.
On average, people lose 50-100 strands of hair per day (at least, that's what I've read), so from your description, it doesn't seem like anything to be alarmed by.
However, if you are noticing a substantial increase in hair loss, there is a chance that it is due to diet.
My personal experience has been that I've had thinning hair for about a decade, during which time I've also had other hypothyroid symptoms (even though blood tests always came out normal).
When I went low-carb paleo/primal, my other hypothyroid symptoms got insanely bad and my hair loss increased pretty dramatically.
In the past 6 months or so, I've been doing a few things to improve my thyroid function (including high carb/sugar/salt) and cold therapy, and I now have quite a bit of new hair growth. Also, my overall hypothyroid symptoms are definitely improving a lot.
I still lose some hair, but in amounts that seem more appropriate, not by the handfuls the way I had been while eating low-carb primal.
Are you male or female? If male you might just have been cursed with early-onset male pattern baldness, which sucks for you but there's not much to be done about it.
Are you eating very low-carb? Try eating a couple of potatoes a day, or some white rice or sweet potato or bananas, for a couple of months, to see if that changes anything.
As said above, try to get some more iodine, but there are several minerals that can cause hair and skin issues when deficient--silica, and zinc, among others. A mineral supplement might be a good idea to try.