by Lisa Drayer
THE BEAUTY DIET RX
To Fight Hair Loss or Thinning Hair
Follow the nutritional guidelines for growing healthy hair; the lifestyle tips for lovely, luxuriant locks; and the healthy hair maintenance tips in this chapter.
If your iron status is questionable, load up on iron-rich foods (see the sidebar on iron at the end of this chapter). Also consider cooking in iron pots.
Make sure you are getting an adequate amount of protein and zinc in your diet each day.
Take a multivitamin to ensure adequate intake of vitamins and minerals, however, be careful with supplements. Occasionally hair loss is caused by oversupplementing with individual vitamins or minerals.
Avoid losing a lot of weight suddenly.
Drink my beauty beverage, green tea. Some studies have shown that green tea may influence the serum levels of certain hormones that are linked to at least one form of hair loss, androgenic alopecia, which is common in women and men.
Hair loss ranges from extensive and permanent (going bald) to mild and temporary (hair thinning). Genes have a great deal to do with hair loss, as do hormonal shifts. For example, while you are pregnant, the percentage of hair on your head that is in the growing phase goes up dramatically. After childbirth, more follicles than usual enter the hair's resting phase all at once. When hair cycles all at once, it all falls out at the same time. This can be alarming, but it is completely normal. Fortunately you still have the same number of functioning hair follicles, and the hairs rebalance their phases in a few months at most. While your hair is growing in, it will be thinner than usual, but this is temporary. A similar syndrome can occur after you stop taking birth control pills or switch types of birth control pills.
Iron's Role in Beauty
Recommended Dietary Allowance
WOMEN
MEN
18 mg (ages 19 to 50)
8 mg (ages 19 and above)
8 mg (ages 51 and above)
As you probably know by now, iron is a key beauty nutrient. The mineral plays important roles in the health of your hair and nails. There are two types of dietary iron: heme (derived from animal foods) and nonheme (derived from plant foods). The heme variety is easier to absorb; your body will take in up to 35 percent of the iron from animal sources. The nonheme variety is more difficult to absorb; your body takes in only 2 to 20 percent of the iron from plant sources. Vitamin C enhances your absorption of nonheme iron, while calcium can decrease it.
Five Good Whole-Food Sources of Heme (Better-Absorbed) Iron
1. Chicken liver, cooked, 3½ oz.
12.8 mg
2. Oysters, 6 cooked
4.5 mg
3. Beef, chuck, lean, braised, 3 oz.
3.2 mg
4. Clams, cooked, ¾ cup
3.0 mg
5. Turkey, light meat, roasted, 3½ oz.
1.6 mg
Five Good Whole-Food Sources of Nonheme (Harder-to-Absorb) Iron
1. Soybeans, boiled, 1 cup
8.8 mg
2. Lentils, boiled, 1 cup
6.6 mg
3. Blackstrap molasses, 1 tablespoon
3.5 mg
4. Spinach, fresh, boiled, drained, ½ cup
3.2 mg
5. Raisins, ½ cup
1.5 mg
In addition to age and hormone shifts, causes of thinning hair include:
Too much styling, straightening, curling, coloring, or blow-drying. Hair loss due to overly tight hairstyles is called traction alopecia.
Physical damage to the follicles, such as burning or scarring
Illness (such as anemia or thyroid disease) or infection (including fungal infections)
Disorders that interfere with the body's ability to digest food and absorb vital nutrients
Dropping pounds quickly and being undernourished
Some medications (including chemotherapy)
An autoimmune reaction called alopecia areata, in which the body attacks the hair follicles and hair falls out. Total hair loss is called alopecia areata totalis, while the loss of all the hair on the body is called alopecia universalis.
Stress, either physical or emotional
Most causes of hair thinning are temporary, so with proper treatment hair will grow in again. Massaging the scalp can help stimulate blood flow to the scalp and may help hair grow in more rapidly.
Expert Advice: Topical Nutrients for Hair
According to Dr. David Kingsley, author of The Hair-Loss Cure: A Self-Help Guide, and a hair and scalp specialist in New York City, certain nutrients can help the cosmetic appearance of your hair when used in a shampoo or conditioner. Some products, however, just add "natural" ingredients that do little, if anything, for your hair except increase the price of the product! Here is a list of some beneficial ingredients, according to Kingsley:
Collagen is used as a conditioning agent.
Castor oil is used as a moisturizer in hair conditioners.
Olive oil has conditioning benefits, particularly for very dry, coarse hair.
Plant proteins (wheat proteins) have conditioning and hairstrengthening benefits.
Vitamin B3 (niacin): when applied topically, niacin-based products, such as nicotinic acid, have been shown to improve hair growth in a small study for women when compared to a control group.
Vitamin B5 (panthenol) helps provide moisture to the hair shaft.
Vitamin E (tocopherol acetate), a natural antioxidant, has UV protection properties.
How to Maintain Healthy Hair That Is Full of Bounce and Shine
Like your skin, your hair is exposed to the elements every day. Following are some simple hair care tips that will keep your locks lovely and luxuriant.
Shampoo Your Hair Properly. Combination shampoo/conditioners are less effective than separate products. Shampoo with warm water to open the pores in your scalp and rinse with cool water. A cool rinse (with either water or vinegar and water combined) will close down the cuticle and add shine. Keep in mind that excessive shampooing can strip minerals and natural oils from the hair.
Use Leave-In Conditioner. This helps reduce frizz by rehydrating your hair during the day. Some conditioners, such as Kiehl's, contain UV filters to protect hair from sun damage.
Don't Twist Your Hair to Wring out the Water. Towel-dry your hair and resist rubbing it or creating any sort of friction. Use a hand towel and squeeze your hair dry, working your way up from the ends to the roots.
Use the Blow Dryer in Moderation. Blow-drying more than three times a week will damage hair. Try to avoid very hot blow dryers and avoid very hot settings on heated flat irons and curling irons. Air-dry your hair when possible.
Wear Your Hair in a Loose, Easy Style. Avoid tight braids or heavy ponytails—these can create bald spots or wide part lines on scalp. Every time you pull your hair back into a tight ponytail or bun, the pressure breaks hair shafts all along your hairline. The short remnants of broken hair pop up as frizz.
Have Your Hair Trimmed Every Six to Eight Weeks. It won't make your hair grow faster, but it will stop split ends from splitting up the hair shaft.
Use Chemicals on Your Hair in Moderation. Lightening your hair color may make your hair drier and frizzier. The chemicals used for curling or relaxing hair chemically alter the shafts, and long-term use of these chemicals can do irreversible damage to the hair or cause hair loss. Combining processes—for example, getting your hair colored and relaxed at the same time—means double the stress for your hair. Limit hair treatments as much as possible and avoid mixing chemical processes.
5
Nutrition for Long, Shapely, Strong Fingernails
Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.
—Gwyneth Paltrow
Your fingernails are an essential detail of your appearance. Essential detail sounds like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp, but when you think about it, success always depends on the details. Details can make the difference between chocolate pudd
ing and pot de crème au chocolat. Even if you spend six hours getting dressed, a detail like spinach in your teeth can ruin your appearance.
Beautiful fingernails say good things about you. They show that you pay attention to details, that you care about cleanliness, and that you successfully manage your time so you can spend a few minutes on keeping your hands attractive. At the very least, you'll want healthy, smooth, clean fingernails that indicate you care about your personal grooming. You may want crisp, polished nails that show you are a professional, no-nonsense kind of person. Perhaps you would like long, elegant nails that give you an air of glamour or sophistication.
Your fingernails also speak volumes about your health. In their natural state, the shape, color, and strength of your nails can change due to many different health factors. Most important to this discussion: fingernails are a very good indicator of your nutritional status. Problem nails can be a sign that your body is not getting all the nutrients it needs.
A Beautiful, Natural Nail
When you stop to think about fingernails, they make a lot of sense. They provide a tough covering for our sensitive fingertips and extend the capabilities of our hands like little tools at the ends of our fingers.
The fingernail itself is a hard covering made mostly of keratin, the same protein found in skin and hair. The part you see is called the nail plate. The skin underneath the nail is called the nail bed. Healthy fingernails are pink because of the circulation in the blood vessels of the nail bed.
The skin at the bottom of each fingernail is called the cuticle. The cuticle overlaps the nail plate. Be kind to your cuticles, because underneath them is the fingernail factory called the matrix. New cells for your nails are produced in the matrix. As they grow, they push the older cells out toward the ends of your fingers. This process squashes the older cells so they become hard and flat, forming your fingernails. Unlike your hair, which grows in stages, fingernails are constantly growing.
BEAUTY MYTH
Those White Spots on Your Nails Are Due to Calcium Deficiency
White spots on the fingernails (scientific name: leukonychia) are extremely common and harmless. Usually they are caused by trauma to the nail—for example, you bumped your finger without noticing. Temporary injury to the cuticle—for example, pushing it back too roughly—also can cause a white area in the nail that becomes apparent as it grows out. Slamming a car door on your fingers, a rough manicure, or excessive nail biting can result in white spots. Since a normal fingernail takes months to grow out, you may not notice the white spots until some months have passed since you unknowingly hurt your nail.
If you have noticeable white spots or bands on all of your digits, it could be a sign of a zinc, protein, or calcium deficiency. Sometimes nails that appear white accompany disease states, such as cirrhosis of the liver. However, white spots are rarely the first signs of such conditions and usually appear once major symptoms have already occurred.
The white half-moon shape at the bottom of each fingernail is called the lunula. The skin that surrounds your fingernails on all three sides is called the nail folds. Sometimes the nail folds become swollen or irritated.
You can expect your nails to grow about a tenth of an inch each month. If you're waiting for your nails to grow out, you'll have to be patient. It takes about six months to grow a complete fingernail, but the rate is very individual. Fingernails grow faster when you are young, and they grow more quickly on your dominant hand (if you are right-handed, the fingernails on your right hand grow faster).
The ideal fingernail is strong and resilient—tough but not hard. Natural fingernails should be able to bend instead of break. If you leave the edges alone so they grow out straight, the fingernail will be stronger—plus you'll be less likely to get an ingrown nail.
Growing Your Own: Nourishing Your Nails
Healthy fingernails are pink, firm, and somewhat lustrous. They do not have any strange tint or color. They do not have ridges, pits, white marks, or dark lines. If your fingernails look strange—discolored, clubbed, thick, or with pronounced lines or indentations—this may be a sign of illness. If your fingernails look basically normal but are dry or brittle, this may be a sign that you are not optimally nourished. Your nails may not be getting enough nutrients if you are a super-picky eater, you go on crash diets, or you do not properly digest foods and absorb nutrients.
Recent studies have shown that the health of your nails correlates with the strength of your bones. Women with osteoporosis have less protein in their fingernails. If your diet does not include enough protein and other nutrients to grow strong fingernails, you may have other, less visible problems as well, like weakened bones.
If you already have an excellent diet, adding nutrients will not help your nails. If your diet has room for improvement, now is your chance to reverse any nutritional issues you may have. Although companies market dozens of dietary supplements that are supposed to enhance the growth of your nails, I would much rather have you try my Beauty Diet, which provides you with a wide spectrum of nutrients without any danger of side effects. The Beauty Diet can offer you strong, beautiful, healthy nails in six months—plus, eating well to take care of your nails will help make your whole body strong and gorgeous!
Nail-Boosting Nutrients
Following are the major components of a nail-boosting diet:
WATER
If you have been reading this book from the beginning, you already know that water is a true beauty beverage, as it supports every process and every system in the body. A quick, nonscientific test for dehydration is to press on a fingernail and wait to see how quickly the nail bed returns to pink (from white). If the fingernail doesn't return to its usual pinkish color in less than two seconds, this could be a sign of dehydration. Over the long term, dehydration can make your nails brittle. Make sure you drink enough water to keep all of your cells plump and moist.
PROTEIN
A protein deficiency can show up as white bands across all of your nails. Fingernails are composed mostly of protein, so to grow long, strong, attractive nails you must eat some quality protein every day. As you read in the last chapter, keratin—the main component of hair and fingernails—is made of amino acids, particularly cysteine. However, this does not mean you need supplemental cysteine. Eating a variety of different protein sources will help ensure you take in adequate amounts of amino acids for growing fabulous fingernails. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, the highest amount of protein is found in salmon, yogurt, walnuts, and oysters. Other good sources of protein include fish, shellfish, turkey, chicken, beef, lamb, soybeans, eggs, nuts, and dairy products. (For more information about protein sources, see Chapter 1.)
VITAMIN B COMPLEX
The B vitamins include thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine (B6), biotin (B7), folic acid/folate (B9), and cobalamin (B12). While rare, deficiency of vitamin B12 can cause hyperpigmentation of the nail plate. The B vitamins work together in the body and are vital to many different processes, including good circulation and cell growth. There are studies indicating that supplemental biotin can strengthen nails, but the articles do not clarify whether the participants started out with an underlying deficiency of biotin. It makes sense that giving biotin to people who are deficient would help their fingernails. If you already consume plenty of B vitamins—which are readily available in many foods—you probably don't need extra biotin. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, the best source of thiamine (B1) and biotin (B7) is walnuts, the best source of riboflavin (B2) and pantothenic acid (B5) is yogurt, the best source of niacin (B3) is wild salmon, the best source of folate (B9) is spinach, and the best source of cobalamin (B12)—which is available only from animal sources—is oysters. Spinach, walnuts, and salmon are all good sources of pyridoxine (B6).
CALCIUM
Nails contain calcium, albeit at a much lower concentration than our bones do. Most Americans, particularly women, do not get enough calcium. While there is no scientif
ic evidence that calcium intake significantly alters nail quality, individuals taking calcium supplements sometimes comment that their nails are less brittle or smoother, or that they grow faster, according to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, the best sources of calcium are yogurt, sweet potatoes, and spinach. Good sources of absorbable calcium include milk products, most types of tofu, some dark green leafy vegetables, turnip greens, and canned fish such as salmon and sardines that include bones. (For more information, see Chapter 6.)
IRON
If you are not getting enough iron, your fingernails will show it. Iron-deficiency anemia—which is not uncommon in women—makes nails brittle. If this could be your problem, eat more iron-containing foods. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, the best sources of iron are oysters, spinach, and tomatoes. Other animal sources of iron include clams, lean beef, turkey, duck, lamb, chicken, pork, shrimp, and eggs. Good plant sources of iron include soybeans, lentils, beans, and bran. (For more information, see Chapter 4.) You can enhance your body's ability to absorb nonheme iron by consuming vitamin C in the same meal.
THE BEAUTY DIET RX
For Fabulous Fingernails
Drink plenty of water to hydrate your fingernails from the inside out.