We lose about 50-100 hairs every day and our hair grows back at about half an inch per month on average. Our hair grows fastest in the summer with the heat and, conversely, it grows slower in the cold winter months. Isn't that interesting? Now, more rapid hair loss starts at around age 40, whether you're a man or woman, and it tends to accelerate when we get to our 50s. The human adult body has an average of five million hairs and only about 100,000 to 150,000 of those hairs are actually on our scalp.

Hair loss is an issue that both my husband and I have faced for different reasons. We have battled with it and overcome it. This is also a question a lot of people have. Now, for my husband, he started losing his hair when he was young. He wasn't in his 40s or 50s, he was more like in his late 20s and 30s. For him, it was more a matter of nutrition. We know this because when we improved the way we eat and took certain supplements, it stopped his hair loss. For me, it was hypothyroidism. It's very common for women who are going through menopause to lose their hair – either it falls out or it starts getting thinner. This is because of the various changes in our hormones when we begin menopause. Hypothyroidism often develops around menopause or can even develop during pregnancy. Low levels of thyroid hormone can also result in hair loss in both men and women. Not only hypothyroidism, which is when your thyroid underproduces hormones, but even hyperthyroidism can also be the cause of hair loss.

The symptoms of hair loss include a receding hairline, thinning hair and hair that falls out in patches. All of us grow new strands of hair to replace the ones that have naturally shed and fall out so there's no reason to worry about a few strands coming off with brushing or that go down your drain after a shower. Hair loss is only a potential problem if it gets more serious – if your hair starts noticeably thinning or balding or when you start getting patches – but even then, it could still be a normal part of life. However, that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do about it even if it's normal. A lot of times, that just means that, in our society today, we are very used to doing very unhealthy things and having unhealthy habits is normal. Of course, our genes and our hormones play the biggest parts but there are still things you can do to improve your hair as much as possible. We can't control our genes but there's a lot that we can control. Our lifestyle is often the trigger for our genes. We may have the genes for hair loss, but it is our lifestyle that triggers it to go off.

When men go bald, it's usually through a receding hairline and loss of hair, especially on the crown of the head. At around age 40, about 2/3 of Caucasian men are noticeably bald. For women, it's usually just a general thinning of the hair all over the head and a moderate loss of hair around the crown or hairline. It also happens between the ages of 30 and 40 and it becomes more apparent during and after menopause. About 50% of children with a parent who is balding of either sex – men or women – will inherit the dominant baldness gene. Besides age and genetics, the main culprit in balding appears to be an overabundance or overactivity of the male hormone DHT (Dihydrotestosterone) within the hair follicle. I won't go into that but the activity of this enzyme tends to increase as people, especially men, age. It also causes the hair follicle to degrade and it shortens the growth phase. Some of these hair follicles die but most of them shrink and just start producing weaker hairs that become thinner. Sometimes, to the point where they fall out from normal daily activities. Another important hormone that affects hair loss is progesterone and menopausal women commonly find improvement when they use natural progesterone and estrogen for excessive hair loss.

I'd like to review some of the root causes of hair loss but before I do that, I wanted to just go ahead and share with you that the slides for this wellness webinar can be found at www.Arukah.com/hair. It'll have the slides, links and all the various recommendations as far as the herbs, supplements and diet we're going to be talking about.

First of all, one of the major causes of hair loss is stress. Stress is one of the root causes of so many issues. I mean cancer, hair loss, hypothyroidism, migraines – many common things like the common cold. The flu is aggravated by stress when you don't take care of yourself enough because you're stressed out. You start not sleeping right, not eating right and just lowering your immune system because of all of the negative energy that comes with stress. The effects of stress can definitely cause hair loss and thinning in both men and women. Generally, this type of hair loss or thinning is reversible after you have brought your stress levels down and you have dealt with your stress sufficiently. There are also various autoimmune disorders and other systemic diseases that can lead to hair loss. This includes many conditions ranging from psoriasis – which is a skin disorder – as well as thyroid disease like hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism, as well as cancer. Also, these things – psoriasis, thyroid disorder and cancer – are also stress induced or at least aggravated by stress. Stress is the route to some of these disorders that can cause hair loss. Stress may be a direct or indirect cause of hair loss but stress is very important to deal with if you want to be healthy or want to heal from anything. You have to de-stress your life – stop worrying, stop taking so much on, stop pushing yourself so much, forgive yourself more, forgive others more.

Other reasons for hair loss and thinning include:

Whether you have a temporary or permanent hair loss condition, there are a lot of complementary or alternative or natural therapies that can help you improve your hair and scalp health. They may or may not completely reverse permanent baldness, but there are many treatments that can encourage small but significant growth. For example, my husband was able to stop his hairline from receding by giving his body better nutrition. As for myself, I was losing hair because of hypothyroidism and I not only stopped the hair loss, I started growing back my hair like it was before I started getting hypothyroidism. It really depends on what is causing it. If it's malnutrition, you can stop it by giving your body proper nutrition and you may even be able to reverse it. If it's because of an unnatural hormone imbalance such as hypothyroidism, then you can reverse it as I did. And if it's a natural part of just aging as in menopausal hormone imbalance, then you can stop or slow it and maybe even improve it.

Root causes can include:

It may very well be because of heredity, stress, aging or whatever natural things that could be causing your hair loss but if you are taking any of the following types of medications, it may be the medications that could be causing the hair loss as well. This includes:

So these types of medications could also be causing hair loss. If that's the case and you want to stop it, try to figure out a way to manage your health and healing without these pharmaceutical drugs. It's absolutely possible.

A whole foods, nutrient-rich diet is so important for healthy hair growth – for stopping hair loss, reversing hair loss, etc. There are a lot of good food choices that can help us stop and regrow our hair and these are some of the best.

The first thing I'd like to talk about is organic foods. It's so important that we eat organic as much as possible. This is because organic foods are, as much as possible, free of chemicals. I know there's talk about how they're coming up with “organic chemicals” but they’re still much better than conventional foods. There have been a lot of experiments and tests that prove that eating organic foods reduces the types of endocrine disruptive chemicals in your body which can interfere with hair growth. These endocrine disruptors increase production of certain hormones. They decrease the production of other hormones. They imitate hormones. They turn some hormones into others, interfere with hormones signaling – they tell your cells to die prematurely. They compete with essential nutrients, they bind to essential hormones and they accumulate in organs that produce hormones. These are the dangers of these hormones and organic foods are going to be filled with a lot less of these dangerous chemicals that affect your hormones and the absorption of nutrients. Another good food for hair loss is pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds are very high in zinc. Zinc is necessary for healthy hair. Research has shown that a zinc deficiency is linked with hypothyroidism and hair loss. Another excellent food – one of my favorites for hair loss – is wild caught fish. Wild caught as opposed to farm raised. Wild caught fish like salmon are high in omega3 fats and this decreases inflammation while supporting hair growth and hair thickening. Omega3 is a very important nutrient for so many things. Not just for hair loss. Many things that's so good for you.

Another great food is bone broth. Bone broth is high in protein and collagen – which is great for your hair, skin and nails. Bone broth has amino acids and is just the perfect food for encouraging healthy hair growth. Great for your guts. Great for your immune system because it's good for your gut. Bone broth is such an awesome food. What I do is I purchase bones from the store and I just cook it in my slow cooker. I'll just cook it all day and then I'll use the broth and I'll cook it again for another day, all day long. We'll use it for soups. We'll use it for making rice. Bone broth is a superfood because of the xxxxxxxx and it's so lacking in our modern diet today while our ancestors certainly ate a lot more bone broth anyways.

Green tea also helps to promote detoxification and it has antioxidants that promote hair growth. Then there's super seeds such as chia, flax and hemp seeds which are high in fiber and healthy fats. They can also help aid in hair growth. Also, believe it or not, caffeine. Technically not food but caffeine has been shown to spur hair growth. According to research, caffeine can stimulate your hair shafts and help them grow faster by damping down the effects of DHT which is a substance that infamously slows hair growth. I believe the healthiest way to get caffeine is through consuming white tea. It's the highest in antioxidants. It's also the least cooked or processed. Of course, there's caffeine in coffee. If you're going to drink coffee, the light roast, not the darker roast, would have the most caffeine. It's important to get organic coffee because it's such a major crop and it's, very often, contaminated with chemicals. Organic foods are very important for preventing and reversing hair loss.

Now, these are some foods that you want to avoid or minimize, as much as possible, if you want to regrow your hair and stop hair loss. These are going to be foods that you want to avoid just for general health and if you want to heal from anything – like the common cold.

First of all, you’ve got to avoid trans fatty acids. Unlike good fats, trans-fatty acids have been shown to increase inflammation and the production of DHT which can cause hair loss. you especially want to stay away from Hydrogenated oils like corn oil, soybean oil, vegetable oil which are loaded with trans fats. In my family, we only use olive oil, avocado oil and coconut oil. We don't cook with olive oil, normally. We just put it on salads. We eat it uncooked. We do cook with avocado oil and coconut oil but we don't use it a lot. We don't fry a lot of our food because fried food is just not healthy. Next is sugar. You definitely want to avoid sugar – especially white sugar – because it plays a role in hormone imbalance. It also contributes to insulin resistance, increases DHT and causes inflammation, all of which can lead to hair loss.

Another thing you definitely want to avoid is processed foods. You want to minimize them as much as possible. Fast foods, junk foods. These are often loaded with unhealthy fat, sugar and sodium. They're very counterproductive to healthy hair growth and just overall health in general. So, no more Doritos, McDonald’s, candy, chips – stuff like that. Alcohol can increase inflammation and also cause liver toxicity which leads to hair loss. Heavy drinking as well as smoking have both been linked to increased risk of hair loss. I do drink wine and alcohol just once a week. It's part of our jewish tradition to drink a glass of wine every shabbat with a meal and that's it. Don't overdo it. Just do it on special occasions, basically. Also, caffeine. Now, I know I did say that in small amounts, organic coffee or white tea can help stimulate hair growth but if you overdo it, caffeine can cause dehydration and hormone imbalance that can contribute to adrenal fatigue and disruption of the adrenal gland and your thyroid hormones. It also promotes the production of DHT which can cause hair loss so, avoid these things like the plague.

Now I'd like to share the top 6 herbs and supplements recommended by Dr. James Balch, a holistic medical doctor and his wife, Phyllis Balch, who is a nutritionist and herbalist. I really like a lot of their suggestions when it comes to herbs and supplements.

First is Saw palmetto. You can take 320 to 400 mg daily. Another thing I like about the suggestions is they believe in heroic doses. One of my teachers, Master Herbalist Richard Schultz, used to recommend heroic doses when it comes to herbs and supplements. That's the kind of dosage that you need for healing anything. You can get these slides and resources for this lesson at Arukah.com/hair. Saw palmetto is a natural DHT blocker that can greatly improve your hair growth.

Another thing is Silicone or orthosilicic acid. You can take 10mg of that daily to support hair growth. Silica is also great and you can get that from the herb, horsetail grass. I drink horsetail grass on a regular basis. Also, Biotin is really good for your hair. You can take 2000 to 3000 mcg daily. Next, you can take EFAS or Omega3. Earlier, we talked about Omega3 from wild caught salmon but for a supplement, I would take 4000 mg of fish or flaxseed oil. You can also take evening primrose oil and borage oil that has 200 mg of GLA (Gamma-linolenic acid)daily but I think the most important, personally, is that omega3 oil from fish.

Now, I'm giving you the top six and you might be wondering, “Well, which should I take?” My personal approach, especially if I'm really, really serious and if it's really really a problem, is I would take all of these six supplements – just take them all. Next is MSM. You can take 3000 mg daily and also Fo Ti. Fo Ti is a common herb in Chinese herbalism. You can take 500 mg three times daily of Fo Ti. This Chinese herb is used by practitioners of oriental medicine to slow or stop hair loss and it's mainly used in formulas with other herbs. Now, going back to MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane). This is the mineral sulfur which helps promote hair development. Those are the top six.

Now I'd like to talk about some nutritional supplements you can take to combat hair loss due to malnutrition. This is a really big part of what helped my husband stop his hair loss. We started taking Richard Shultz's Superfood plus pattern – I provide a link for it when you download the notes at Arukah.com/hair. The one thing is, though, Richard Schultz’ superfood platter is geared towards people who are vegan because he recommends a vegan diet. It has a lot of nutritional yeast for the B vitamins. I personally do not like nutritional yeast because it doesn't taste very good to me, at least not with a superfood powder. I like to drink my superfood powder in watered down juice. That's how my children take it, too. We take this superfood powder, instead of vitamins. We used to buy Richard Schultz’ formula, but because we take it so much, we started just making it ourselves and we omitted the nutritional yeast. We didn't put the nutritional yeast in ours because we're not vegan, we do not do well in the vegan diet. I had serious health issues twice because of trying to go vegan so I do not believe the vegan diet is ideal for all people at all times. It can be good and beneficial for healing for a short time, but not for the long run. I disagree with Richard Schultz on that but I do love his herbal formulas and his super food formulas.

If you're going to make your own so you can get the lowest price on superfoods, I would suggest getting the herbs from pacificbotanicals.com. They have a specific part of their website that is geared towards superfoods and I just go ahead and buy all of them – almost all of them anyways. I'll change it up a little bit. Sometimes, I'll omit one or two here and you could just rotate if you only buy one at a time but it's best to get all of them. The way we do it is we get all of them, all the superfoods and mix them together and then take it in some watered down juice. My children take, I think, a teaspoonful and I will take a tablespoonful. When I'm pregnant, I'll do 2 tablespoons full. Very safe, very nutritious and very healthy. This will help you make up for the nutrition that you may lack from a poor diet or from poor absorption of nutrients from your diet. I'm going to talk more about the actual ingredients in the superfoods formula in a superfoods video which I plan to create. For now, just go ahead and download the resources. You can get a link to either Richard Schultz’ Superfoods formula or the pacific botanicals page that lists all the superfoods they sell.

Next thing that's really important to get the maximum amount of nutrition to fight hair loss is to consume full spectrum enzymes. You can take them with each meal to improve the absorption of foods and nutrients. There's also foods that have natural enzymes such as papaya and pineapple and others but, of course, it's really easy to just take a full spectrum enzyme. I really like this brand displayed in the notes – Bluebonnet. They have the full spectrum enzymes. You can get that from amazon or elsewhere online. For hair loss due to menopause and hormone imbalance because of menopause, I would recommend this natural progesterone cream – Wild Yam Progesterone. I really like this brand also – Wise Women Essentials. This is helpful for women with low levels of progesterone, especially women in menopause. Now, I'm going to create a program specifically for women and menopause but this is a really good thing they can take for hair loss due to menopause. Now, for hair loss due to hypothyroidism, I'm going to create a series on that as well because it's a really important subject to me since I suffered from it. I already have a video out on hyperthyroidism. You can search on my website or my youtube channel for those. I also linked to it in the resources section in the notes for hair.

Now, let's talk about rosemary essential oil. You can apply 3-5 drops per one ounce of shampoo daily and rub that into your scalp whenever you shampoo your hair. This will improve scalp circulation. There are those who believe that poor circulation in the scalp is one of the factors of hair loss. Just measure out how many ounces of shampoo or in your shampoo bottle. For every ounce I would add five drops of rosemary essential oil. Rosemary is one of the top essential oils when it comes to enhancing hair thickness and growth. It's believed to increase cellular metabolism that stimulates hair growth. There's research that's been published in 2015 that showed rosemary oil appears also to work as well as minoxidil, which is a conventional topical hair loss treatment. So this is a really good one – Rosemary Essential Oil.

B complex and B12. B complex supplements help combat the effects of stress and contain vitamins in the B family that contribute to healthy hair. You can take a 50 mg of B complex twice daily. B vitamins aid and healthy stress management. Biotin (B7) helps to thicken your hair naturally, and vitamin B5 or pentatonic acid supports your adrenal glands. A B12 deficiency may be at the root of hair loss and stress depletes B12. You can take 200 to 400 mcg of B12 sublingual form daily. Personally, I take both B complex and B12 when I need both. B12 is just so important. I have a lot of stress in my life. I have nine children to take care of, a home school and I run several businesses. Zinc is a mineral that's required for hair development. Remember earlier I talked about eating pumpkin seeds because of its zinc content. With the supplements, you can take 30 mg daily along with 3 mg of copper to help with hair growth.

Earlier, we also talked about how bone broth is really good to consume to help with hair loss but you can also get your daily dose of bone broth from a protein powder or a collagen powder. That's what we take. At home me and my children take collagen powder. Bone broth powder is rich in protein collagen, gelatin, glucosamine, chondroitin, key minerals often missing in the average diet. These vital nutrients support and promote healthy hair growth as well as a wide range of additional health benefits. I make bone broth but I don't do that every day. I'll do it once a week but about every other day, we will take a collagen powder and I'll mix it in with tea, a smoothie or a juice. My children and I all take collagen that way.

Now let's talk about Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is an adaptogenic herb and this helps your body adapt to deal with stress, balance hormones, and reduce cortisol levels – also known as the aging hormone. This can all help encourage healthy hair growth. Ashwagandha is actually part of my daily intake of herbs and supplements for hypothyroidism which is, as stated earlier, a cause for hair loss especially for me. You can take 500 mg daily. They also have Ashwagandha tea.

Now, let's talk about the last four naturopathic herbal supplements that can help with hair loss. First is Pygeum. You can take 100 mg twice daily and this addresses the cause of hair loss by blocking the DHT binding sites and improving prostate health. There's also pumpkin seed oil which you can take 8 g or one tablespoon daily. This inhibits the DHT formation throughout the body and contains fatty acids that support thick hair. Remember, we talked about zinc from pumpkin seeds earlier? Also, aloe vera juice – half a cup twice daily and in your shampoo as well as taking it internally twice daily. Aloe Vera juice can help naturally thicken hair. Lastly, Rhodiola, 500 mg daily. This is another awesome adaptogenic herb like Ashwagandha to help with stress and just cultivate hair growth.

Don't forget to download the resources at Arukah.com/hair. You'll get the slides for this wellness webinar as well as links to the various things I talked about. If you are interested in personal health coaching you can go ahead and visit my website at Arukah.com/start/coaching or if you visit the website, go on the top menu, you can click on Get Healthy and then go down to Personal Coaching. I'd love to chat with you and answer any of your questions with some holistic answers.