Are Your Hormones Causing Your Hair Loss?

Thinning hair and hair loss can be a major concern for men and women alike.  It can affect confidence and self-image.  One very common but often ignored cause can be the balance of your body's hormones.

When your hormones are in their optimal balance and you have proper nutrition healthy hair growth is promoted.  Women tend to be more susceptible to hormonal imbalances than men due to the many different stages that their bodies go through such as the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and menopause.

As you can see from the picture, the pituitary gland controls all of the other hormone producing parts of your body, including the thyroid, the adrenal glands, and sex hormone producers.  This is important to know because each of these areas can influence the quality of your hair.

Both over-active and under-active thyroid can lead to hair loss.  Hyperthyroidism is often also associated with weight loss, increased anxiety, sweating, sensitivity to heat, and difficulty sleeping.  Hypothyroidism symptoms include fatigue, sensitivity to cold, dry skin, depression, and puffiness around the face. 

It has long been known that stress can lead to hair loss.  If the adrenal glands are overworked, due to excessive stress, the increase in cortisol can lead to hair loss, but also increased facial hair in women.  The parathyroid hormones are associated with your ability to manage stress and can lead to thinning hair, muscle cramps and alterations in skin pigmentation.  

Testosterone is often associated with balding in men, so it stands to reason that if a woman's balance between estrogen/progesterone and testosterone is off it could lead to similar symptoms.  One common such cause for this imbalance is use of birth control pills.

For further investigation of what your cause might be do not hesitate to contact us.

The Role of Vitamin D in Pregnancy

You no doubt have heard a lot of talk about the health effects of Vitamin D, but how does this vitamin relate to fertility and pregnancy?  In a way that is a bit of a trick question because Vitamin D is really not a vitamin but a hormone.

From a structural stand point it looks very similar to the sex hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone.  Looking from a functional side, Vitamin D is used to send messages to cells and triggers a change in those cells, just like other hormones.

So what specifically does Vitamin D do?  One of its major functions is to "prime" or prepare cells for other hormones to be able to work properly.  This is where Vitamin D's role in conception comes in.  For ovulation and conception to occur, not only do your major hormones (estrogen and progesterone) need to be in proper balance, but so to the role playing hormones, such as the thyroid hormones, cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, and yes Vitamin D. 

The level of circulating Vitamin D can play a role in resolving fertility issues associated with poly cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and lack of ovulation.  Of course there is the other side of the fertility issue.  Low levels of Vitamin D leads to decreased sperm motility and production.  So guys should be tested for Vitamin D levels also if there are fertility problems.

What about when you are pregnant?  One study reports evidence that Vitamin D plays a role in implantation, normal placental development and prevention of eclampsia.

You can imagine, if Vitamin D is so important to hormone activity, just how important it would be to the developing baby.  Studies have demonstrated a healthy levels of maternal Vitamin D in pregnancy are associated with a decreased likelihood of asthma, respiratory infections, Type I diabetes and even multiple sclerosis. 

Knowing and monitoring your Vitamin D levels pre-conception and throughout pregnancy makes sense and is easy to do with a simple at-home finger stick test that we order through our office.