Why Changing Your Diet Is The Best Way To Stop Hair Loss, Hear My Friend’s Story With Alopecia

 

Why changing your diet is the best way to stop hair loss, hear my friend’s story with alopecia:

A close friend of mine woke up one morning to see his pillow full of hair. He didn’t think much about it until it started happening every single day. He was losing chunks of hair on a daily basis and he began feeling very unattractive.

He loved his hair and was not willing to give up on it.

He went to his doctor and was diagnosed with alopecia, or in other words, baldness caused by his own immune system attacking his hair follicles. His doctor prescribed him with Corticosteroids which are anti-inflammatory drugs that are prescribed for autoimmune diseases. My friend began drug therapy and after 3 months on the treatment he gained a lot of weight and acne began covering his face. He was feeling bad to begin with, and now his new reality made him feel even worse.

His doctor then prescribed him with other medical alternatives but they caused him itching, redness and made him feel really bad.

After a year, my friend was entirely bald. He had lost all of his hair. He had almost lost all of his hope as well, but as a very last option he decided to change his diet. And after 4 months of adhering to the new diet he was not only feeling better but his hair was actually growing back again! It seemed to him like a miracle!

I myself, knowing the power nutrition found the results absolutely outstanding. We both cried of excitement when his hair completely grew back in a matter of months.

As with other autoimmune disorders, the immune system, which is supposed to attack and destroy foreign substances when they enter the body or cells that are unhealthy, but for some reason recognizes the person’s own tissues as foreign or as unhealthy and attacks and destroys the persons own tissues leading to their destruction.

Why the body attacks its own cells is still unknown, although there are a few hypothesis, but what is known is that autoimmune diseases are on the rise and they are a major health problem.

Statistics show that in the United States, 23.5 million people are suffering from autoimmune diseases today, that’s more than heart disease! But actually, the numbers are much higher than the statistics show because the statistics only consider 24 autoimmune diseases out of the suggested 65 diseases which scientists consider to be of autoimmune basis.

People who have autoimmune diseases are also at an increased risk for infections.

So what happens to the body in an autoimmune disease?

In health, the immune system’s role is to protect our body from foreign substances, like harmful bacteria and viruses. It’s also responsible for destroying cells in our body when they become sick or lose control like cancer cells. The immune system also becomes activated when we eat foods that we are intolerant or allergic to or when we consume unnatural processed foods. The immune system becomes suppressed  when we consume foods with large amounts of pesticides and preservatives that contain toxic metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury.

When the immune system is over or under active, it may not be able to deal with the work load it has.

This is why diet can play an important role in helping. Why? Because our diet either supports our immune cells or damages them.

Lets have a look at the best food practices to adopt that support your immune system as well as prevent hair loss and even support hair regrowth when suffering from alopecia:

  1. Reduce the amount of animal protein consumed to once a week and eat vegetable sources of protein instead like lentils, beans, nuts and seeds. In my book titled The Guerrilla Diet & Lifestyle Program, which is based on my research into the ideal diet for humans, I wrote a whole chapter on the theory behind reducing meat products in your diet but, another study reveals the potential reason behind meat’s link to chronic inflammatory immune response is in the meats excessive amounts of a special sugar called Neu5Gc. [1] found in beef, pork, lamb, and bison Because humans do not produce this sugar, the body treats it as a foreign substance, setting off a mild, but continuous inflammatory immune response.
  2. Consume foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids from non animal sources. We do not need to consume animal or fish products in order to get sufficient omega-3 polyunsaturated essential fatty acids in our diet. The more of these foods we consume, the higher our risk of suffering from common Western world diseases. In fact fish produces these fats only once they feed on plants that produce omega-3 fatty acids. The omega 3 in fish oils is actually produced from plant-based products. The healthiest omega-3 fatty acid rich foods include flax seeds, walnuts, chia seeds, beans, tofu and squash, as well as kale, spinach and algae. From these foods we can convert the precise quantity of omega-3 fatty acids that our body needs and no more.
  3. Completely remove sugar rich foods, refined foods and fried food from your diet. These are pro inflammatory in their nature. In The Guerrilla Diet & Lifestyle Program book in the second of 16 healthy dietary guidelines I talk about how pro-inflammatory foods promote cytokine and eicosanoid production which activate other immune cells and promote inflammation. By significantly reducing the amount of pro inflammatory foods consumed, we achieve similar results as taking anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and Ibuprofen. Pro-inflammatory foods include highly processed or refined foods. Processed or refined foods are not assimilated by the body. They cannot fulfill the body’s nutritional needs and they just burden the body with excess toxins.
  4. Consume plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables which are rich in nutrients that play crucial roles in the development and expression of immune responses. Nutrient deficiencies can cause immunosuppression and increased susceptibility to infection and disease. Pay special attention to sufficient consumption of vitamin C which promotes phagocytic activity, and supports healthy T-cell function two of the cell types of the immune system. Vitamin C also provides antioxidant activity to support healing at sites of inflammation. Excellent sources of vitamin C include broccoli, kale,leafy green vegetables, asparagus bell peppers and fruit. The fat-soluble vitamins A, E, and K are also important. Deficiency in these vitamins impairs antibody function and T-cell activity. Vitamins A and E are also an important antioxidants which along with other antioxidants support a healthy inflammatory response, support healing and maintain a healthy gut lining which is responsible for selecting which substances pass through the digestive tract lining into the body and which do not.
  5. Consume vitamin B rich foods, like nuts, carrots, chard, romaine lettuce and tomatoes. Deficiency in B vitamins results in reduced levels of antibody production, impaired T-cell functioning, decreased levels of T-cells, reduced phagocytic activity and lowered lymphocyte counts.
  6. Remove milk and dairy products from your diet completely. Cows milk has a different protein molecule than found in human milk. Cows have casein as their major protein which is a much larger molecule than the whey protein found in human milk which humans were designed to consume. This big molecule can damage our digestive tract and lead to an immune reaction.
  7. I also recommend checking iron status in a simple blood test to see if there is anaemia, especially for women and children, and if there is iron deficiency, talk to your doctor about iron supplementation.
  8. Once you follow these guidelines you will also lose weight which plays a very important role in supporting healthy functioning of the immune system.

Once you change your diet, you change your health destiny and reduce the effects of inflammation and the autoimmune disease on your livelihood and your self esteem.

Feel free to comment below and let me know what you liked best about this article.

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photo credits: arianne leishman

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