The Better Blog

If you are facing accelerated hair loss, you may be deficient in more than one vitamin, and it is essential to know the culprits. Your cells rely on vitamins to function and grow, and deficiencies may exacerbate hair fall. Your scalp boasts nearly 100,000 hair follicles, and of these, 90% reside in the growing (anagen) stage and require micronutrients like vitamins to sufficiently forge a robust head of hair. So if you are finding more strands in your brush than on your head, read on to find out which vitamins you should take for hair loss.

The maximum length of time hair spends in the anagen phase, otherwise known as the active growth phase, varies from person to person depending mainly on genetics. Yet, various things can disrupt the time our hair spends growing, like our health, diet, stress and hormones. For example, an increase of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in our system during menopause leads to follicle miniaturization. 

When this happens, our once-healthy follicles start producing thinner, weaker hair. DHT and other issues can disrupt the growth phase for some of our strands, cause fragile hair and even result in permanent hair loss. But there are ways to counteract this issue and increase our hair's time in the active phase. 

There’s no denying the pregnancy glow of a mom-to-be—even her tresses tend to look thicker and more luminous. Perhaps you’ve even experienced fuller, longer hair firsthand during pregnancy.

What’s the secret behind this lustrous pregnancy-related hair growth? Some swear by their prenatal vitamins—prompting women everywhere to flock to their nearest supplement aisle. But is it all hype? Could it just be hormones? Keep reading as we take a closer look at hair growth during pregnancy, the role prenatal vitamins play and if the benefits make it worth adding them to your hair-care routine, even if you’re not expecting.

Sitting back and waiting for your thinning hair to grow? There are things you can do to stimulate hair growth. 

Your body has 5 million hair follicles, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, which sounds like a lot, but only about 100,000 of those are on your scalp. While your genetics influence how much your hair tends to grow—on average it’s about half an inch each month—so does your lifestyle, and this is something you can actually control! 

To encourage your thinning hair to grow a little bit faster, try taking things a little more slowly. Mindfully approaching how you go about your day can do wonders for your stress levels, which ultimately affects the health of your hair. So what does mindfulness look like? For starters, taking your foot off the pedal, stopping to smell the roses and sometimes quite literally remembering to breathe. Here are a few of our favorite ways to slow down to support our healthiest hair growth possible.

A common complaint among women experiencing menopause is seeing more and more hair strands falling out each day. Hair that doesn’t grow as long or as fast as it once did is another issue they face.

But even though some of your hair follicles may eventually go dormant and stop producing new hairs altogether, these sleeping follicles are not a lost cause. Regular scalp massages and topical hair products with the right stimulating ingredients can effectively wake them up and trigger hair production again. 

Just like anything else, everyone’s personal experience is different. So while some may never experience even an ounce of hair loss due to diabetes, others may be losing their hair by the handful. Unfortunately, this is why a number of newly diagnosed diabetics may not know what lies on the road ahead of them.

So, does diabetes cause hair loss?

Menopause-related hormone changes give us mood swings, insomnia, hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, weight gain, and to top it all off — hair loss. Our hair follicles are mini-organs that require constant blood supply and nourishment to continue producing hairs. Changes to our scalp and hair’s underlying biology can cause dryness, shedding, and hair loss. Thankfully, there are things we can do to stop hormonal hair loss.

You may have noticed that your hair grows faster or slower at different times throughout your life. Many factors can contribute to these fluctuations, and when we’re talking about slow hair growth, nutritional deficiencies, stress and hot styling tools are just a few of the culprits. 

But before we dive into all the reasons your hair grows so slow, it’s important to understand the hair growth cycle and how it can impact how fast or slow your hair grows.

Getting yourself into a healthy lifestyle is rewarding for so many reasons. Not only can diet and exercise improve your physical well-being, but it can also improve your mental wellness. However, there are some downsides that can come along with a healthy diet that you may never have realized—including putting a damper on hair growth. 

Cleaning up your diet and exercising frequently can actually hinder your hair growth goals in a couple different ways, which you may have already noticed if you’re currently dieting. Even if you aren’t actively trying to lose weight, your healthy lifestyle can still potentially hurt your hair. This means that your already aging hair can sometimes really take a hit if you’re a healthy eater. Seems wrong, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s true, and we’ll give you all the details on how your diet could be causing hair loss and what you can do to counteract it.

We face new and sometimes unexpected hair-care challenges as we age: graying, dryness, brittleness. Worst of all? Most of us will have some degree of hair loss and thinning to deal with during and after menopause.

But just because age-related hair loss is common doesn't mean we have to accept it. Several potential solutions could help, depending on what's causing our hair to weaken and fall out. If nutrient absorption issues or a vitamin A deficiency are at the root of the problem, supplements containing retinol may be able help.

Hair loss, or alopecia, can happen at any time during our lives and can have various causes. Though it's relatively uncommon early in life, many of us will experience some degree of age-related alopecia as we approach menopause.

For women, alopecia means a gradual hair thinning due to a reduction in the number of strands. As a result, you may notice more hair on your pillow or in the shower drain, or less bulk in your ponytail and a widening part line. Thankfully, there are actions you can take to manage this condition.

Seasonal hair loss, more specifically hair loss that begins in the summer months, is a common concern among many women. In fact, even Google Trends supports this phenomenon with a marked increase in searches for “hair fall” beginning toward the end of summer and peaking well into the middle of autumn. So what’s really going on?

By understanding the link between healthy hair and the hair growth cycle, we can better recognize how our hair evolves through the seasons and whether hair loss in summer is real. While it’s unrealistic to think you can completely avoid shedding throughout the year, we’ll also take a look at a few hair loss treatments you can try at home to make sure your shedding doesn’t become extreme.