Hair loss, for men and women, can be one of the most devastating diseases of civilization. The thought of one's outward appearance being changed, forever, is a hard pill to swallow. It can lead to anxiety, depression, and an overall failure to thrive. It's no wonder that hair loss is a multi-billion dollar industry with more and more products flooding the market everyday.

The problem with chosing any one drug or product is that the etiology of hair loss has many variables. Hair loss can manifest in almost any disease state, deficiency, or hormonal imbalance. Therefore we need something that will positively effect all the systems in our body, instead of focusing on one specific area. In this post I will try to demonstrate that the best way to combat hair loss, in all forms, is to adopt a carnivorous lifestyle.

Blood Sugar & Insulin

The starting point, as with any disease of civilization, is the dysregulation of insulin by high blood sugar. A high carbohydrate diet leads to elevated blood glucose, which ushers in the master hormone insulin. When this happens chronically, we acquire high blood sugar and insulin resistance. Studies show that men who experience advanced hair loss tend to have high blood insulin levels. It is no wonder why many type two diabetics also see a marked reduction in hair growth.

To be clear, not everyone that has high blood sugar and insulin resistance will lose their hair. For reasons that are not totally understood, non-balding types can withstand high levels of insulin as well as DHT without any effect to their hair. However, they will usually pay for these hormonal errors with other diseases of civilization such as acne, which seems to have similar etiology (see last paragraph).

Women are also susceptible to this kind of alopecia. Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS, is a hormonal imbalance that affects about one out of every ten women and is synonymous with hair loss. PCOS sufferers tend to have hyperinsulinemia (high insulin), that is thought to cause their ovaries to secrete excessive amounts of androgens (testosterone, DHEA). This influx of "manly" androgens causes embarrassing unwanted side-effects, such as facial hair, irregular periods, and hair loss. Why a woman would get PCOS instead of just becoming insulin resistant is unclear to me.

Fatty Acids

By no surprise whatsoever, refined vegetable oils (rapeseed, soybean, canola), starches, grains and sugars induce inflammation by way of blood sugar and high insulin. Besides creating more cortisol and oxidative damage, we light the fire under the enzyme delta 5-desaturase. Delta 5-desaturase is the enzyme responsible for converting omega-6 fattys acids (the most abundant fatty acid in the diet) into the essential fatty acid, arachidonic acid. Arachidonic acid can then be metabolized down to pro inflammatory agents prostaglandin E2 and leukotrien B4. All of this means more inflammation and more hair loss.

While meat contains arachidonic acid, the key is limiting the delta 5-desaturase enzyme. We can do this by keeping our blood sugar and insulin low, thus not encouraging arachidonic acid production to spiral out of control. Arachidonic acid is necessary for proper functioning of our brains, nervous system, and is an important constituent of our cell membranes, so we don't want to inhibit it, we do however want to limit its harmful characteristics.

Another important aspect of fighting inflammation and promoting optimal conditions for hair growth would be the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids and more specifically the active ingredients eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). While the body can synthesize small amounts of EPA and DHA from another omega-3 fatty acid, alpha linolenic acid, it does so at an inefficient rate of about 1%. Grass fed meats will help balance the fatty acid pathways by adding valuable anti-inflammatory omega-3s to your diet. If grass fed is unavailable or not economical I personally do not have a problem downing some high quality krill or fish oils to help offset the problems of excessive omega-6's in the diet.

A diet with no starches and sufficient omega-3's will effectively retard delta 5-desaturase by cutting off excessive inflammatory signaling. This should lessen sebum production, improve health, and most importantly improve chances of correcting hair loss.

Cortisol & Stress

Stress means accelerated hair loss. When the body is stressed it diverts energy away from unimportant things, like hair growth, to fuel your fight or flight response. This helped us in our hunter gatherer days, but now since chronic stress has become the standard way of living, it is becomming a large problem. Stress in my experience can be one of the most aggressive forms of alopecia and must be tackled at all costs.

Sex and adrenal hormones are all synthesized from the same place, cholesterol (fat). When your body is constantly under stress, we are producing large amounts of adrenaline and cortisol. Hormone production favors cortisol and adrenaline (for survival) leaving less cholesterol to form testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. If it wasn't bad enough that we're stressed out, our sex life takes a dive without these hormones around. Testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone are all hair promoting hormones that can't take a backseat to cortisol if we want to stop alopecia in its tracks.

Hans Selye, M.D., author of The Stress of Life describes in his book that the adrenal glands (located above the kidneys) are surrounded by fat. In an experiment Seyle exposed a large number of rats to environmental and physical stressors over long periods of time to test the resistance of the animals in repeated intervals. This is what he wrote:

". . . in one experiment we placed a hundred rats in a refrigerated room where the temperature was near freezing. (This causes the animals stress). Thanks to their fur during the first 48 hours they developed the typical manifestations of the alarm reaction. This was proved by killling ten animals at the end of the second day; all of them had large, fat-free adrenals, small thymuses, and stomach ulcers."

Seyle concludes that the adrenals use large amounts of fat during stress. The reason the adrenal glands are surrounded by fat is in order to have the raw materials to synthesize hormones. When the fat is dried up, from chronic stress, we begin to deteriorate and soon after run into adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is yet another condition known to cause rapid hair loss.

Thyroid

More stress and more cortisol equals less active thyroid hormone, T3. Thyroid is critical for maintaining hair and alopecia is usually one of the first symptoms of a low thyroid condition. It's important to remember that the adrenals are instrumental in the proper functioning of the thyroid. Most do not see relief from hypothyroidism until they get their adrenals back online.

Controlled starvation (calorie counting) can also lead to a sluggish thyroid. This happens by the body slowing down its metabolism (thyroid) to create homeostasis for how little food is coming in.

DHT (Dihydrotesosterone)

Thought to be the biggest culprit of hair loss, dihydrotesosterone (DHT) seems to be the medical hair loss industries public enemy number one. Drugs like Propecia (finasteride) try to inhibit this hormone by disabling the enzyme that converts testosterone to DHT, 5-alpha reductase. What is the problem with this? Men have DHT for a reason. It is 10 times more androgenic than testosterone and is literally what makes a man, a man. When we inhibit DHT, we lose our libido, lose our body hair, and eventually end up with erectile dysfunction. Some men report life long side effects after taking Propecia, possibly because of all the hormonal pathways that the drug disrupts.

So why is DHT found to be elevated in men who are starting to bald? The answer seems to lie with sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). SHBG is a hormone that "binds" to testosterone leaving it unable to do its metabolic job. Since insulin resistance correlates with lower SHBG we would have higher amounts of unbound free testosterone in the blood. From there the the testosterone can be converted into excessive amounts of DHT through 5-alpha reductase. You can see that rather than the main problem, high DHT is just another symptom of insulin resistance.

Candida

Candida, an overgrowth of fungal bacteria in one's lower intestines, is insidious. While often overlooked by most doctors the mechanisms by which this infection will ruin your health and hair are numerous.

Our gut is responsible for the detoxification of foods, the detoxification of environmental compounds (xenoestrogens), vitamin synthesis, enzyme synthesis, and regulation of hormone levels. When your gut is not healthy, your body is not healthy. Candida through many mechanisms throws a wrench in the most important systems in the body. Nutrient deficiencies, hormone masking, and messed up digestion are all the calling cards of candida. Candida could possibly be the hardest battle for anyone facing hair loss.

A good at home self diagnosis of this kind of digestive damage is a heavily coated, white tongue. A coated tongue usually means something is not good in the gut, liver, or in general the body's ability to detoxify. Halitosis (chronic bad breath) can also be an indication of digestive and detoxification issues. So even if you don't think things are that bad, maybe a loved one or friend will tell you that they are.

Candida acts on almost every topic we have talked about so far:

• Candida needs a high blood sugar, high insulin environment to flourish
• A stressed digestive system is a stressed body. The ways in which candida can help the body release more cortisol are almost too numerous to list
• By hormone masking, candida is able to sit in receptor sites of thyroid hormones making the body think that it has enough when in reality it has too little. Causing normal serum levels, but persisting thyroid symptoms

A high carbohydrate diet weakens the immune system and encourages yeast growth. Since candida feeds on glucose, it seems like the most reasonable thing to do to get rid of it, is to stop feeding it. It is interesting to note that while everyone agrees that candida feeds on glucose, virtually no one recommends ditching carbohydrates completely, go figure.

Oxidative Stress

High blood sugar, high insulin, and other environmental factors (notably heavy metals) will produce large amounts of free radicals. When this cycle is repeated throughout life, the body is in a state of what's called oxidative stress. Oxidative stress not only exerts its negative effects on the hair bulb, slowing down the anagen phase, but also cause significant damage to your blood vessels and nerve endings.

Some even go as far to say that oxidative stress is impart responsible for aging. While this system of dysfunction starts with high blood sugar and insulin, I would speculate that oxidative stress is secondary to carbohydrate consumption. We should also note that healthy fruits and vegetables seem to be just as pro-oxidant as other carbohydrates. The solution is pretty simple here, we can minimize oxidative stress by not eating carbohydrates which rapidly oxidize.

Acne Connection

While I don't find myself agreeing with what most Cordain (author of the Paleo Diet) says, he wrote a pretty good paper on the etiology of acne. If you notice most of what may cause hair loss also is related to excessive sebum production, which seems to be involved in the development of acne.

"Dietary Influence on Androgen-Mediated Increases in Sebum Production Sebum production is stimulated by androgens, and, when excessive, can be pathogenetically involved in the development of acne. Accordingly, hyperinsulinemia may promote acne by its well-established androgenic effect. Both insulin and IGF-1 stimulate the synthesis of androgens in ovarian, and testicular, tissues. Further, insulin and IGF-1 inhibit the hepatic synthesis of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), thereby increasing the bioavailability of circulating androgens to tissues. Cross sectional studies have demonstrated inverse relationships between serum SHBG and both insulin and IGF-1. Additionally, sebum production is also stimulated by insulin and IGF-1. Direct injections of recombinant IGF-1 in humans elicit both androgenesis and acne lesion formation. Higher serum androgen, insulin and IGF-1 concentrations may also be associated with the presence of acne in women. Taken together these data are suggestive that the endocrine cascade induced by diet-induced hyperinsulinemia enhances sebum synthesis and the development of acne."

Conclusion

I hope I have successfully demonstrated how complex hair loss can be. I wholeheartedly believe that most will never want to attempt an all carnivorous lifestyle and would prefer to just lose their hair instead. If one is committed, it may be possible to keep your hair while achieving great health at the same time.

*Thanks to MoxieKat for being my editor for this post!