Everyone is afraid of something, and hair loss can worry more than one. Unfortunately, if the chips of baldness are also followers of intermittent fasting, they will have to make a choice. This diet, which limits meal hours during the day, could slow hair growth. This is what a new experience conducted on mice suggests by a team of researchers from the University of Lac de l’Ouest in Zhejiang, China.
An article by the BBC Science Focus tells us that the mice following an intermittent fasting had better metabolic health (the way the body eliminates fat and sugar), but that their restrictive food mode had a link with the slowdown in the regeneration of their hair. A similar process could occur in humans and their hair, but not so severely, the metabolic system being much slower and the hair growth structures being different.
The biologist and principal author of the study, Bing Zhang, reassures: “We do not want to scare the followers of intermittent fasting. They just have to be aware of potential unexpected effects. ” Fasting is known for its many health benefits, especially in terms of blood supply in the body and muscle tissues, as well as its metabolic benefits. But the effect of fasting on the hair was a great mystery until this experience.
And in humans?
Bing Zhang and his team sought to find out more by examining the regrowth of hair in shaved mice, then subjected to different diets. Some mice followed a “normal” diet, while others could only eat for 8 hours, before 16 hours of fasting. While mice on the normal diet saw their hairs repel after 30 days, those who have fast showed only partial regrowth of the hairs … and after 96 days.
According to the team of researchers, the slowdown in hair growth would be due to stress undergone by the sir cells of the hair follicles, these openings on the surface of the skin through which the hair grows. They would be unable to deal with the stress associated with the passage of the absorption of glucose with that of fat. The hair follicles would go from an active phase to a dormant phase; However, the hair only grow when the follicles are in active phase.
For normal diet mice, the follicles have become active around 20e day. On the other hand, for the mice subjected to an intermittent fast, the long periods of fasting led to the death of the follicles, preventing the regrowth of their hair. After these results, the team carried out a small clinical trial on 49 young adults (humans) in good health. Result: a limited diet involving 18 hours of fasting per day would reduce hair growth by 18% on average.
However, researchers think that the results could be different with a larger sample. They plan to continue this research by collaborating with hospitals to study the impact of fasting on other skin cells in the skin. One of their main objectives is to identify the links between fasting and wound healing speed. If your gluttony holds you from fasting potential, your hair will thank you!
