Low Carb = Help with Hair Loss?
 

I've completed 6 days of low carbing and the first thing I have noticed is how little I am shedding. I typically lose mass amounts of hair in the shower, to the point my hair is very thin now.
I combed my hair after washing it tonight and only 2 hairs came out. I thought, there is no way! I ran my hands through my hair.. and nothing came out.

I tried googling and most of the results say that low carbing encouraged hair loss, but I am having the opposite happen.

Has anyone had Low Carbing help with hair loss?

Hello!! I've had just the opposite happen!!! I'm very encouraged to hear that your hair loss has stopped! That's awesome :)

I've recently lost 72 pounds from Jan to now and I'm losing a lot of hair. I mentioned this at my physical on Monday and my doctor said my body is trying to adjust to the changes of weight loss and extreme exercise. I'm pretty low carb too, no flour, sugar or fruit, and mostly veggies, protein shakes, beans and soy as I'm a vegetarian.

I'm glad that you posted this because it's getting a little scary for me and I'd like to know if this happened and then slowed down for people. Keep up the good work with your weight loss! :cheer:

Funsize -- what may be happening is that your body is reacting positively to the low carb and your hormones are getting adjusted quickly.

I hadn't thought about whether my hair falls off when I am more low carb or if it falls off less and I just sat for a minute to think and if I had to make a decision one way or another, I think I lose LESS hair on low-carb than I do on higher carb... just judging on what is on my hairbrush, shower... My boyfriend complains about my shedding hair but he hasn't recently.

I hadn't thought about that at all. I wonder if I'll get more hair in my head now. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

After doing some research it seems like excess testosterone causes excess DHT... and the DHT is what makes our hair fall out/thin.

So if I can "normalize" my testosterone by not eating sugar then it seems like it should help minimize hair loss.

I am just surprised so many have the opposite effect! I wonder if it's because a certain nutrient is missing in their diet?

I have the same problem, really bad, I tried a vegan diet once and lost it in gobs. Then over the past few months while my budget has been really tight I went a lot of weeks without meat and just eating pasta and frozen dinners (fridge was broke but I have a little chest freezer), so it started falling again, very noticeable in the brush, but worse in the shower.

Anyway, back during the vegan thing I went to a naturopathic doctor who was also and m.d., he did muscle testing and blood tests then told me that in addition to the PCOS androgen imbalance, my body was not processing the amino acids in the vegetables correctly to make protein, so it was using my hair follicles and ova for protein. He said that a lot of people who are of northern decent need a diet that includes at least 6 ounces of red meat per week. (BTW for all you die hard vegans who figure I was doing it wrong, I was very health conscious and combined my vegetable matter to get full advantage of the different aminos in each, thus the naturopathic doctor.)

I just started the Atkins induction diet this past week, so I don't notice a halt to the shedding yet, but my hair is quite long, so sometimes a little loss looks bigger because of the length. Sometimes, I use Nioxin, but after several months of use it started giving me dandruff so now I use it a couple times a month, hopefully the low carb diet will make it unnecessary.

I notice a definite improvement pcos is an insulin problem as well so stop your body from releasing insulin as in eating sugar or too many carbs balance your hormones and the hair should stop from falling out some have even claimed to cure themselves and reverse their symptoms.

I also did a vegan diet for only like a week or so and noticed losing way more hair so maybe that was my problem too and recently I am trying to stay away from sugar of all sorts except fruit like apples or berries but I'm thinking of maybe cutting those out as well for a while just to see what happens. I may start eating only veggies and meat on a regular basis and see what happens. I definetly notice it slowing though since I have cut out most sugar cept a little fruit and like one piece of ezekiel toast a day I'll try without very soon.