Internal health issues can cause hair loss and damaged hair. Overall health, including emotional health, affects the condition of your hair. Have you experienced pimples or a greasy face when you’re stressed or tired? When you don't feel well and are stressed, your body's immune defense is weak and the immune system thinks that you are being attacked. In response, your immune system tries to protect your body from danger by producing excessive sebum and miscommunicating with your body parts.

Internal health issues can cause hair loss and damaged hair

Your scalp becomes easily greasy with excessive sebum, inflammation around follicles and roots mix with product buildup, chemicals, block capillaries and cut off blood vessels. Often times, your skin regeneration cycle increases, which together with excessive sebum creates flakes (dandruff, seborrheic dermatitis) and your hair growth cycle becomes shorter. Have you ever experienced slow hair growth? Does your hair stop growing at a certain length, even though you do not cut it? At the end of the day, your scalp is undernourished, inflamed and hair roots are cut-off from blood flow. In this state, moisture and nutrients cannot be properly delivered to hair strands leading to weak, dry, damaged hair. An impaired root system causes hair to fall out easily when you brush or shampoo. Analogously, dead grass comes off easily when you rake it, simply because dead grass lacks a deep root connection to the nutrients in the soil.

 

 

Excessive sebum, inflammation around follicles and roots mix with product buildup, chemicals, block capillaries and cut off blood vessels.

In addition, hormonal imbalances (such as menopause, birth control pills, hypothyroidism, prostate enlargement, postpartum among others) can affect the natural regeneration activity of hair growth. As well, nutrition deficiencies, such as iron and protein, can cause abnormal hair growth. Crash diets can also cause hair loss. Omega-3 and 6, Biotin or Iron supplements have the ability to assist in replenishing nutrients.

Lastly, some hair loss has its origins in heredity. Genetic hair loss is called Androgenic Alopecia (AGA). Some genes trigger inflammation around follicles (perifollicular microinflammation) and shrink follicles leading to thinning hair and hair loss. Some men and women produce more DHT hormones (dihydrotestosterone) and experience hair loss (male pattern hair loss, though it may affect women too). For these genetic situations, some anti-hair loss drugs composed of DHT-blockers suppress DHT production can remedy hormonal imbalances.

To sum up, damaged hair is caused by broken cuticle structures. Most hair treatments and products do not actually repair damaged hair long-term. Rather, they disguise hair damage. Unhealthy hair results from chemical treatments, damaging hair care routines, excessive/extreme styling, hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies and heredity.

Damaged hair is caused by broken cuticle structures.