Generally speaking, you need a balanced diet that includes proteins, fresh fruits and vegetables and essential fatty acids to grow long, healthy hair. When you don't get the nutrients you need from your everyday diet, vitamin supplements can help to prevent deficiencies that slow your hair growth. Most hair grows at the rate of about 1/2 inch per month, but when your hair is unhealthy it can break off as fast as it grows in. Vitamins can improve your hair condition and help you retain more length, but megadoses of vitamins won't make your hair grow faster and can have negative results.
Hair Facts
Hair is made from keratin, a protein that grows out of follicles in your skin. Although the protein that makes up hair is dead, follicles at the root of the hair connect to living tissue and blood vessels. Sebaceous glands in the follicles secrete sebum, a natural moisturizer that promotes hair growth and conditions the hair. When your body does not get the nutrients it needs, organs including the skin don't function properly, and your hair can become dull and brittle or shed excessively.
Vitamins
If you have nutritional deficiencies, vitamin supplements can improve the way your body functions and restore your hair health and your normal growth rate. For example, vitamin B complex helps your body metabolize protein into amino acids. Vitamins A and C improve skin and scalp tone, and help your body secrete healthy sebum. Vitamin E and other essential fatty acid oils work internally to moisturize your hair helping you to retain more length. Trace minerals like calcium, sulfur and selenium also play a role in hair health by working with vitamins to keep your skin and hair healthy. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium.
Dietary Reference Intakes
Dietary Reference Intakes by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences include the Recommended Dietary Allowance, and Tolerable Upper Intake Levels for vitamins and minerals. Water soluble vitamins like B and C have higher upper intake levels because your body excretes them through urine, however, megadoses of water soluble vitamins can still have negative effects. For example, too much vitamin C can overstress your kidneys. Oil-based vitamins such as vitamin A and D are stored in your body fat and can build up to toxic levels if you take too much.
Considerations
Factors including illness, bad eating habits or prescription medications may affect the levels of different nutrients in your body. If your hair is unhealthy and growing at a slower rate than normal, your health care provider can determine whether you have a nutritional deficiency by giving you a complete blood count test. Your health care provider or a registered dietician can give you advice about safe dosages of each supplement you take.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Hair Disorders
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Hair Follicle Anatomy
- UAB Health System: Hair Loss
- National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements: Nutrient Recommendations; Dietary Reference Intakes
- Institute of Medicine of the National Academies: Dietary Reference Intakes; Vitamins
- MedlinePlus: CBC (Complete Blood Count)
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