Kilos aren’t the only thing that intermittent fasting can help you shed. A new study shows that the wildly popular weight loss method can also inhibit hair growth.
Here’s everything you need to know.
What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting is essentially a time-restricted diet, where the day’s caloric needs are consumed in eight to twelve hours, with participants fasting the rest of the day.
Studies tracking participants on such diets for short periods of three months to a year have shown benefits such as weight loss, increased insulin sensitivity and better diabetes control.
The reported benefits of intermittent fasting have made it popular worldwide. According to a 2023 survey conducted in the United States, more than 12% of all respondents went on this diet. (‘2023 Food and Health Survey’ by the International Food Council).
What are the disadvantages of intermittent fasting?
As intermittent fasting has become one of the biggest fad diets on the planet, researchers have tried to better analyze its results. Not all results have been positive.
Earlier this year, data presented at a conference organized by the American Heart Association found that people who ate all their meals in less than eight hours per day had a 91% higher risk of death from heart disease. The researchers analyzed a database of more than 20,000 American adults, and ages eight to 17, to reach these results.
Other studies have linked intermittent fasting to disruptions in a person’s sleep cycle, which comes with its own ill effects as well as a host of gastric problems.
And what about hair loss?
The latest study, published Friday (Dec. 13) in the journal CellAmong the first to provide evidence of a link between intermittent fasting and hair loss.
“…commonly used intermittent fasting regimens inhibit hair follicle regeneration by inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death) in activated hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs)…”, the study, titled “Intermittent Fasting Suppresses Interorgan Communication, Regenerates Hair Follicles”. generates” says.
The researchers found that mice subjected to an intermittent fasting regime showed slower hair regeneration than mice with constant access to food. Based on a small clinical trial, they found similar results in humans but cautioned that it was likely to be less severe because humans have a much slower metabolic rate and different hair growth patterns than mice.
How is the problem of hair loss when fasting sometimes?
The researchers found that intermittent fasting inhibits hair growth because HFSCs are unable to cope with the oxidative stress associated with switching from using glucose to fat, as occurs during intermittent fasting when the body burns fat for energy. (This is also why intermittent fasting helps with weight loss).
HFSCs go through phases of activity and dormancy, and hair regrowth depends on these cells being activated. While HFSCs from control mice (which had constant access to food) became activated after hair cutting and remained active until their hair grew back, intermittent fasting mice saw their activated HFSCs undergo apoptosis during extended fasting periods.
“During fasting, adipose tissue begins to release free fatty acids, and these fatty acids enter the newly activated HFSCs, but these stem cells do not have the correct machinery to use them,” said Bing Zhang, senior author and stem cell biologist. Dr. Westlake University in Zhejiang, China cell press.
That said, larger studies are needed for a greater understanding of the process. “The human population is very heterogeneous, so the effects may vary among different people,” Zhang said.
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