We’re all familiar with the array of shampoos, conditioners, masks and more that claim to deliver our best-ever hair, but did you know a smart approach to nutrition can also help support strong and healthy* hair?
In our skin care routines we combine topical skincare and nutritional support to enhance results – so why wouldn’t we take the same approach to hair?
“The health of hair begins below the surface, and comes from the scalp level,” explains Lorraine Perretta, head of nutrition at Advanced Nutrition Programme™. “Hair begins growing deep in the skin, where shampoos and conditioners can’t reach. This is where nutrients play an important role, supporting hair as it begins growing.”
It may be covered by our hair, but the skin on our scalp functions in the same way as the rest of the skin on our body. Maintaining the health of the skin on our heads requires just the same vitamins and nutrients that are integral to skin health from our faces to our toes.
Rather than noticing your skin’s health in a glowing complexion, when your scalp is healthy, you see the results most clearly in the health, strength and growth of your hair.
“When your skin suffers your scalp suffers,” adds Perretta. “Treating hair like you treat your skin and taking a 360 approach is very beneficial. If you are looking for great hair care, you have to start from the inside.”
Ensuring our diets include optimum levels of proven, beneficial nutrients and vitamins, and supporting this with targeted supplements helps maintain skin health from the inside out – providing the body with everything it needs to build healthy skin, healthy scalp and ultimately healthy hair.
Research suggests that alongside factors such as stress, nutritional deficiencies often appear first in our hair and skin. Diets lacking normal, healthy levels of nutrients can sometimes contribute to thinning or weak hair and sometimes hair may even stop growing in response to poor diets and deficiencies.
Ensuring the body has a plentiful supply of nutrients through the diet and supporting this with oral supplements can help maintain scalp and hair health.
Read on to discover some of the nutrients integral to ensuring your skin and hair are strong and healthy.
Beneficial bacteria
The strong connection between gut health and skin health is an exciting and emerging field of skin science. What’s more, recent studies are revealing that this connection extends to our hair.
Supporting the gut with a diverse diet and beneficial bacteria supplements can help encourage balance in the microbiome: which has several benefits for hair. Irritation and gut permeability increase when our gut biome is not balanced, and this can prevent hair follicles from working correctly. Ensuring a diverse balanced microbiome can help return hair to its regular function.
When the microbiome is balanced, the gut supports the production some of the nutrients needed for hair growth (including B-vitamins) and is thought to maintain conditions in the body that encourage healthy hair growth.
Additionally, a healthy gut microbiome ensures that other nutrients in the diet are properly absorbed into the body – meaning a healthy gut can enhance the impact of other nutrients in the diet or taken as supplements.
Supplements such as Skin Clear Biome™ and Skin Youth Biome™ from Advanced Nutrition Programme™ contain a diverse array of beneficial bacteria to support the gut.
Diversity is crucial when it comes to the microbiome, and the taking either Skin Clear Biome™, Skin Youth Biome™ or both encourage diversity and balance in our gut. For those looking for hair results, make these part of your regime.
Omegas
Omega-3 fish oils are an essential daily nutrient, with a huge variety of roles and benefits supporting the body and skin alike. In addition to supporting skin hydration and health across the whole body, including the scalp, emerging research suggests omega-3 supplements directly help support hair strength and growth.
Studies show that omega-3 and 6 supplements can increase hair density and reduce hair loss, delivering essential proteins and nutrients and decreasing inflammation of hair follicles.
Advanced Nutrition Programme’s Skin Omegas + combines these ingredients with vitamin A.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A plays a vital role in supporting normal skin health and turnover and it is also important for our hair. Deficiencies in vitamin A can lead to problems such as hair loss, so ensuring we are getting optimum levels of the vitamin is vital.
Skin Omegas + and Skin Vit A+ from Advanced Nutrition Programme feature the ingredient in impactful, safe doses, alongside additional ingredients to optimise results.
When your skin has enough vitamin A, it functions in a normal and healthy way. Vitamin A also helps cells to regulate sebum (oil) production, meaning those with greasy scalps should consider adding vitamin A to their hair health routine
. Studies have also shown that normal sebum levels help to keep hair healthy as it grows.
B-Vitamins (Biotin) - the H Vitamin
There are many different types of B-vitamin, but when it comes to hair one type gets a lot of hype: biotin. The buzz is so intense that biotin sometimes gets dubbed vitamin H, for its emerging benefits supporting hair health.
Biotin helps to support the structure of our body’s keratin – which is the substance our hair is made from. Alongside biotin, other B-vitamins support blood circulation, creating red blood cells. These cells deliver nutrients vital for hair health to the scalp.
This ingredient forms part of Advanced Nutrition Programme’s sophisticated skin supplement system, Skin Ultimate. This skin box provides biotin alongside other nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants specifically synergised to support skin, hair and nails health.
Vitamins C and E
As antioxidants, vitamins C and E help to protect the skin from free radical damage, and in doing this helps it to maintain overall skin health.
Vitamin C is a vital co-factor in the production of collagen, and collagen is important to the structure of our hair – and a strong foundation means stronger hair. In addition, vitamin C helps support the absorption of iron: another nutrient which is needed for hair growth. You can find potent vitamin C levels in Advanced Nutrition Programme’s Skin Vit C – where the combination of vitamin C, zinc and acerola berry are combined to supercharge efficacy.
In trials, supplements of vitamin E have been shown to support hair growth by as much as 35%, with the result attributed to the antioxidant action of vitamin E on the scalp.
Vitamin D
The “sun vitamin”, vitamin D is essential for general health and evidence suggests it has a specific role in the health of our hair.
While the precise link is not yet fully understood, hair loss is one of the signs of a vitamin D deficiency. Research suggests that vitamin D is involved in the creation of hair follicles, which are the structures that make individual hairs.
This ingredient is paired with vitamin A in Advanced Nutrition Programme’s Skin Vit A +.
Iron and Zinc
Many nutrients interact to help support healthy hair, and iron and zinc are just two examples.
The iron in our blood is important for helping blood cells to carry oxygen and nutrients around the body. Haemoglobin, the iron in blood vessels essentially works as a transportation system, delivering oxygen to all the cells in our body. This includes the cells that stimulate the production of hair. Without enough oxygen, are cells can’t perform as they are supposed to, meaning hair growth and health can be compromised.
Zinc is known to help support hair health. With roles in cell growth and tissue repair, zinc supports normal skin health, as a result this can then support hair health from the scalp. Taking a sophisticated multi-vitamin that contains both these ingredients, plus other nutrients could help to support your skin, scalp and hair. Advanced Nutrition Programme’s Skin Vitality features 28 ingredients selected to support skin, hair, nails and wellbeing – and includes both iron and zinc.
Advanced Nutrition Programme™ believe that “your future skin starts from within” - discover how your future hair may start from within with their array of award-winning supplements.
