Is there a connection between Smoking, Tobacco and Hair Loss? Let's discuss this today.
Smoking and it’s connection to hair loss
We all have read and know about smoking tobacco and how it causes lung illness and cancers. But the effects of smoking are not limited to the lungs in our body.
Many studies have come out about tobacco smoke containing more than 7000 chemicals and at least 69 are known to cause cancer. When you inhale these toxic chemicals they travel from your lungs and enter the bloodstream. From the blood, they transfer to other parts of your body affecting many aspects of your health.
One of the side effects known of smoking is hair loss. It is still not exactly clear how and why it damages hair follicles but studies have revealed several possibilities.
Let's dig deeper into this topic and learn about the factors damaging our hair due to smoking.
How Does Smoking Trigger Hair loss?
The researchers found out that 425 out of 500 smokers had some degree of hair loss whereas only 200 out of 500 nonsmokers showed signs of hair loss.
According to the Hamilton- Norwood Scale, Deep recession is identified as Grade 3 and at Grade 4, there's balding at the vertex.
According to the research, 47 percent of smokers suffered from Grade 3 hair loss and 24 percent of the people suffered from grade 4. Only 10 percent of nonsmokers reach grade 3 or grade 4.
The researchers concluded that nicotine and other chemicals are responsible for triggering hair loss but more research is needed to strongly back this theory.
Smoking can also cause oxidative stress and reduces blood flow to your hair follicles contributing to hair loss
According to several scientific studies, there are several surprising ways cigarette smoke can trigger hair loss, including:
1. Poor Blood Circulation
The hair follicles in our body and scalp need oxygen, nutrients, and minerals to promote healthy hair growth. The toxic chemicals in your cigarette smoke can affect your blood circulation real bad, shrinking the blood vessels and the blood flow. When your follicles don't receive the blood they need for nourishment, the hair growth cycle is affected. Our hair growth cycle consists of four cycles: The Growth Phase (anagen), the Transitional (catagen) Phase, the Resting (telogen) Phase, and the Shedding Phase (exogen). Any disturbances to this cycle can trigger hair loss.
2. Weak Immune System
Smoking can damage our immune system causing diseases or illnesses that cause hair loss. A weak immune system can also cause bacterial or fungal infections on the scalp damaging hair follicles.
3. Environmental Pollution
It's not just cigarette smoke damaging your hair follicles, the environment in which you breathe is also important. If you regularly smoke in a car or at your home, the air and the environment around can turn toxic. A polluted environment can trigger hair loss and the carcinogens in smoke-filled hair can block the mechanisms that produce the proteins that hair requires.
The best way to reverse the hair loss caused by smoking is to quit smoking. Once you stop exposing your body to tobacco and smoke, many illnesses can be reversed slowly. So the decision is yours! A healthy good life or a life full of diseases and bad health.
https://www.hairclub.com/blog/3-surprising-ways-cigarette-smoke-can-cause-hair-loss
https://www.healthline.com/health/smoking/does-smoking-cause-hair-loss#how-to-quit