While traveling to a fabric show last year, I was reading a health and fitness magazine. There was a great article about the benefits of not eating red meat for 30 days or more as a way of cleansing your digestive system. I’ve given up the “red stuff” before so I thought I would give it a try. After 2 months I noticed that my bald head was sprouting. Coincidence? I continued my vegetarian diet for several more months and then slowly introduced fish and chicken. My hair continued to thrive. It came back in a very unflattering and unnatural shade of black but who was I to complain? Eventually I got brave enough to dye it and even got it cut! This past December I began to eat red meat again. After 6 weeks of meat in my diet, I noticed a rather large bald spot on the back of my head. I gave the surrounding hair the “tug” test and sure enough the hair was coming out in my hand. My derm injected the spot and the shedding has temporarily halted. I’ve been trying to sort out this connection in my mind. Internet research is mixed. Vegan sites claim that red meat can cause hair loss while other sites claim that a diet without red meat can cause your hair to shed. I’d like the real experts (those of us without hair) to weigh in on this issue. Has anyone who has lost/re-grown/lost their hair connected these events to a change in diet? I’m not suggesting to anyone a change of diet. Our autoimmune systems are very individual and Alopecia is very unpredictable! Thanks in advance for sharing.
While traveling to a fabric show last year, I was reading a health and fitness magazine. There was a great article about the benefits of not eating red meat for 30 days or more as a way of cleansing your digestive system. I’ve given up the “red stuff” before so I thought I would give it a try. After 2 months I noticed that my bald head was sprouting. Coincidence? I continued my vegetarian diet for several more months and then slowly introduced fish and chicken. My hair continued to thrive. It came back in a very unflattering and unnatural shade of black but who was I to complain? Eventually I got brave enough to dye it and even got it cut! This past December I began to eat red meat again. After 6 weeks of meat in my diet, I noticed a rather large bald spot on the back of my head. I gave the surrounding hair the “tug” test and sure enough the hair was coming out in my hand. My derm injected the spot and the shedding has temporarily halted. I’ve been trying to sort out this connection in my mind. Internet research is mixed. Vegan sites claim that red meat can cause hair loss while other sites claim that a diet without red meat can cause your hair to shed. I’d like the real experts (those of us without hair) to weigh in on this issue. Has anyone who has lost/re-grown/lost their hair connected these events to a change in diet? I’m not suggesting to anyone a change of diet. Our autoimmune systems are very individual and Alopecia is very unpredictable! Thanks in advance for sharing.
Susan Beausang
4Women.com