How Probiotics Can Help With Your Hair Loss

Hair loss is a common medical condition for both men and women. Hair loss as well as hair thinning can occur due to a variety of reasons.

Androgenetic Alopecia or male pattern baldness is responsible for hair loss in almost 95% men, while one in every four American women experiences some form of hair loss due to factors such as genetics, illness, aging, and hormonal imbalances.

The bacteria living in your gut and body play an important role in maintaining your overall health by aiding digesting, enhancing nutrient absorption, boosting immunity, reducing the risk of heart diseases, and helping to regulate blood sugar levels.

Modern research has shown that some natural remedies can be effectively used to stop and prevent hair loss. Initial findings in many studies indicate that probiotics or the friendly bacteria found commonly in yogurt and kefir may be just what you need to stop hair loss.

Here is everything you need to know about how probiotics can help reduce hair loss.

How Probiotics Work to Reduce Hair Loss

Here are some ways probiotics work to reduce hair fall, to promote hair growth and help maintain overall hair health:

1. Reduce Inflammation

A 2010 study published in Experimental Dermatology concluded that probiotics can reduce stress-induced skin inflammation that helps promote hair growth.

It is a known fact that inflamed hair follicles cannot support hair growth. Probiotics have the ability to counteract this effect by stimulating the anti-inflammatory component of the immune system to release cytokines and hormones that disrupt the damaging pro-inflammatory cycle.

2. Probiotics help by Stimulating Hair Growth

The anagen stage of hair growth is essentially when all the action happens. Probiotics help to mimic the peak health and reproductive fitness characteristic of young age. This helps to combat hair loss due to age.

3. Strengthen Immune System

A study on thyroid health found probiotics to demonstrate a significant increase in the body’s T-cells. These cells are known to keep your body healthy by regulating the functionality of your immune system and aiding in its ability to decide what bacteria, fungi and viruses to fight off.

The chances of developing an autoimmune disease are significantly increased when you do not have enough of these T-cells.

Your immune system misclassifies your body’s healthy cells as foreign pathogens and begins to attack them. This may lead to alopecia areata (patchy hair loss) when the immune system specifically attacks the hair follicles.

However, according to a 2012 research conducted at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, probiotics help keep your immune system healthy and functioning properly by gently stimulating it.

4. Reduce Stress

Stress as a result of surgery, illness, childbirth, medications or lifestyle factors can promote hair loss, which can quickly escalate if not brought under control.

Your hair cycle can come under shock to switch from growth phase to shedding phase when your body comes under duress in the form of stress and anxiety.

According to a research conducted at the University of Missouri, published in Scientific Reports. Certain probiotic strains can actively help manage stress by communicating effectively with the brain. This can help reduce hair loss by reducing the presence of cortisol, also called the stress hormone.

Probiotics for Increasing Hair Health

Probiotics ensure a healthy gut balance by promoting the growth of healthy bacteria in your body. These bacteria are primarily located in the gut, while they can be found in mouth, skin, vagina, penis, and anus as well.

One of the fascinating things is that 80% of the body’s immune cells are found in the gut as well, and recent studies indicate that probiotics may have a huge helping hand in stimulating the immune system and fighting off infections.

Hair loss is largely influenced by your diet, lifestyle, and environment, while for some people it may be genetic as well. Hair follicles are unable to sustain hair growth activity, due to malnutrition, inflammation, and environmental pollutants, and as a result die off.

Probiotics when supplemented into the diet enhance the immune system by triggering a positive immune and metabolic reaction.

As a result, your body is better equipped to fight off environmental pathogens, increase nutritional absorption, and eliminate or reduce inflammation. These features collectively help in dramatically improving hair health.

Probiotics can Boost Hair Growth and Numbers

Probiotics have the power to increase the number of hair that grows as per a study conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scientists conducted an experiment on two groups of mice where one group was given a probiotic-enriched diet in the form of yogurt, and the other was given a regular diet.

A study was done on mice. It  concluded that mice group having a probiotic-enriched yogurt diet got hairy. They showed a dramatic increase in overall body hair. They also had a significant increase in active hair follicles.

Probiotics have been shown to enhance the overall health of hair as well. Hair shine is directly linked to your die. Studies that observe them to have a positive effect on blood pH levels. This thereby results in a healthy shine.

Probiotic suppliments may also work as an inexpensive and highly effective solution to battling dandruff.

A study published in the International Journal of Trichology was interesting. It showed that subjects supplementing their diet with probiotics found a remarkable reduction in symptoms of dandruff, and experienced an accelerated recovery rate of the inflamed skin.

Participants with skin sensitivity and impaired immune system also showed improvements.

Probiotics can Increase Hair Thickness

Thinning is one of the first signs of hair loss where your once beautifully thick hair, loses all its volume. Thinning hair marks the primary area for total or near-total hair loss.

Thick, strong hair is a mark of robust health, as well as a mark of beauty and vitality. Probiotic supplements led to thickening of hair in a number of participants as published in PLoS One.

Which Probiotic Strains to Choose?

Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are two common probiotic strains studied in modern science and found in many brands of supplements.. They are also commonly found in multiple probiotic supplements. Lactobacillus has shown some significant benefits towards hair repair, growth, and prevention against hair fall.

Make sure the primary strain in your supplement is Lactobacillus based. Some helpful strains include Lactobacillus Plantarum, Lactobacillus Rhamnosus, and Bifidobacteria Bifidum.