Pennies-per-day supplement may stop male and female hair loss — even stimulate regrowth
by Ken Winston Caine
Cleveland Clinic medical researchers think they have uncovered a major nutritional factor in several common types of hair loss plaguing both men and women.
Even better, they report that a pennies-per-day nutritional supplement can regrow lost hair.
However, the supplement they use, elemental iron, can be dangerous, even fatal, so don’t rush out and buy a bottle of cheap iron pills.
Iron toxicity can build up without obvious symptoms. Iron supplements are best taken with periodic medical monitoring.
About 15 percent of people are super sensitive to iron and can quickly develop toxicity. If you don’t know whether you are one, ask your doctor to test you. And ask also for a ferritin test to determine your true iron levels.
Oft-ignored, minor deficiency of iron implicated in balding
Medicine has long recognized that severe iron deficiency could lead to hair loss, but the Cleveland Clinic researchers contend that even slightly lower than optimum blood levels of iron seem to be implicated in commons types of hair loss.
The ferritin test detects even low-level early-stage deficiencies.
It’s those low-level, early deficiencies that, when treated, are likely to result in regrowth of hair, the researchers said.
The doctors reviewed 40 years of studies and found what they believe is a pretty convincing link between even minor iron deficiency and hair loss.
At their clinic they routinely test for iron deficiency in cases of hair loss in both men and women, and treat minor deficiencies through supplementation — with good results, they say.
Their findings are reported in the the May issue of the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology.
Doctors conventionally haven’t paid attention to minor iron deficiencies. They’ve tended to treat only the more severe iron deficiency anemia.
The Cleveland Clinic researchers believe the low level deficiencies require attention.
They stopped short of recommending all doctors routinely run ferritin tests in cases of hair loss. They called for more research.
A number of things can cause iron deficiency, including menstruation, hemorrhaging, cancer, insufficient dietary intake, poor metabolism of iron, and more.
Dark green vegetables are a good natural source of iron
Most people only need a few milligrams of iron daily in their diet to maintain healthy levels.
If you need more iron, consider getting it from food sources, rather than taking elemental iron pills.
Most dark green vegetables contain a highly assimilative form of iron. People eating diets rich in dark green vegetables rarely have iron deficiencies.
A kinder, gentler supplement
Beet root powder capsules provide a relatively safe form of supplementation. Beets contain no more iron than most other iron-containing vegetables, but the form they contain is easily used by the body. And beets contain a number of other friendly, synergistic compounds, vitamins, enzymes and minerals that act as blood builders and which aid in iron assimilation.
Nature’s Way manufactures high-quality, inexpensive beet root powder capsules. Two capsules, three times a day is the usual recommended dose.
More:
• Nutritional doc Leo Galland on the dangers of iron supplementation.
• Medicinal qualities of beet root from acclaimed science writer Stephen Nottingham’s book, Beetroot. Scroll down to find modern, scientific information.
• How iron is metabolized – various types, etc.
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- Not Exactly
May 5th, 2009 08:12
Ken – I was curious about something you mentioned, in saying that dark green vegetables are a good, easily available source of iron. From what I understand, something like, say, spinach, actually has iron that isn’t easily digestible in the body (non-heme). In fact, fresh spinach may leech iron from the body due to the oxalic acid in it (which binds to iron already in the body). This can be counteracted by eating the spinach with iron absorption enhancers (like meat, or fruits and vegetables with vitamin C, for example).
Not sure if this is true of all dark greens, but just thought you might want to amend your entry to include the above information.
May 7th, 2009 14:56
Eric, you raise an interesting point.
Afer a quick review of the literature to refresh my memory, I note that indeed, as you said, the iron in spinach is poorly absorbed due to its oxalic acid content. This is not true of all dark green vegetables, though.
GaiaGarden.com summarizes in plain English what I believe is the current scientific-nutritional consensus on this.
The article (at http://www.gaiagarden.com/arti.....naemia.php) advises about self-treating anemic conditions and I quote:
“Iron is better absorbed from some foods than from others. Specifically, it is best absorbed from animal foods like liver, red meat and fish. In the presence of fructose (fruit sugar) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) the iron will form soluble complexes that are readily absorbed so it is good to eat fruit and or green vegetables with your iron-containing foods. In fact, nature often combines relatively high levels of iron with vitamin C as in the case of peppers, kale, broccoli and other dark green vegetables.
“Absorption of iron is inhibited by the presence of phosphates, phytates and oxalates with which it forms insoluble complexes. These occur in eggs, spinach and unrefined cereals, especially whole wheat.”
If you find studies that counter that, please let me know.
And thanks for raising the issue of spinach not being a good source of iron.