We all know the dangers of a diet that's high in fat. But a new study from researchers at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) in Japan has now found having a fat-heavy diet can also 1hair loss.
In the average healthy adult, the hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) (毛囊干细胞) 2themselves regularly, which is why your hair grows back when you cut it and also why it becomes longer. As with most things in the human body, though, aging doesn't do the HSFCs any 3. As you get older, the stem cells lose their ability to reproduce as 4 as they once did, leaving the hair to thin and/or fall out.
In the study carried out by TMDU's department of stem cell biology, mice that had been given a high-fat diet (HFD) were more subject to inflammatory (炎症的) responses in the body which, 5, blocked follicle regeneration, leading to hair loss. What was surprising was that the 6 in the hair follicles could happen in as little as four days spent on a high-fat diet and that the problem seemed to be worse in older mice.
"High-fat diet feeding makes hair 7 faster by reducing HFSCs, especially in old mice," explains Hironobu Morinaga, the study's lead author. "We compared the gene expression in HFSCs between HFD-fed mice and standard diet-fed mice and 8 the fate of those HFSCs after their activation."
It's not just the 9 content of your food that can damage your hair as what you consume can really affect how your hair grows and even whether men will keep it, as Dr Alia Ahmed, who specializes in the study of skin, explains. 10 shortages are often the root cause of many hair problems, adds Dr Ahmed. "Iron, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, etc. — there are so many nutrients involved in hair 11," she says. "It's not just genetics."
If you've got a sweet tooth, for example, you may need to think about 12 the sweet food. Not only is sugar bad for your hair, but it can cause your blood sugar levels to rise dramatically, which, in men, can raise the levels of the hormone androgen (雄性激素), leading to follicle 13 and potential hair loss.
But don't make the 14 of substituting sugar for artificial sweeteners. Take diet drinks that replace processed sugar with artificial sweeteners like aspartame, for instance. In their analysis of aspartame, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has listed hair thinning and hair loss as one of the main side effects of 15 of aspartame.
