7 Best Foods for Healthy Hair

Starting a hair-healthy diet today will mean a more gorgeous head of hair within six months to a year, depending on how fast your hair grows. Add these seven foods to your diet for shiny, lustrous locks.

Eggs
Eggs are rich in biotin, a B vitamin essential for hair growth and overall scalp health. People ask me about biotin for hair health all the time — usually, they've heard about it on a shampoo commercial or read a magazine article that recommended biotin supplements. Because our bodies make their own biotin in the intestines, and it is plentiful in many common foods, deficiency is very rare. But in those few cases in which people are very ill and don't have use of their intestines, biotin deficiency causes hair loss. So yes, biotin is important for hair health, but you don't need to take supplements. Just eat a balanced diet that includes some high-biotin foods: eggs, peanuts, almonds, wheat bran, salmon, avocados, and low-fat cheese.

Pork Tenderloin
Tasty pork tenderloin is rich in B vitamins — folate, B6, and B12. These vitamins are involved in the creation of red blood cells, which carry oxygen and nutrients to all body cells, including those of the scalp, follicles, and growing hair. Without enough B vitamins, the cells can starve, causing shedding, slow growth, or weak hair, which is prone to breaking. Not a fan of pork? Wild salmon (fresh or canned), shellfish, beans, chicken, oatmeal, eggs, peanut butter, fat-free and low-fat dairy foods, and fortified whole-grain cereals are also good sources of B vitamins.

Spinach
This leafy vegetable is excellent for your body for many reasons, not the least of which is hair health. The power players here are folate and iron. Folate is a B vitamin that aids the creation of red blood cells, and iron (which spinach is high in) helps the red blood cells carry oxygen. With iron deficiency, a condition known as anemia, cells can't get enough oxygen to function properly. The result can be devastating to the whole body, causing weakness, fatigue, and maybe even hair loss. One large-scale study found that premenopausal women who had severe hair loss were more likely to have low iron reserves (as measured by a test for a form of iron called ferritin) than women with sufficient reserves of iron. Women of childbearing age are more likely to experience iron deficiency because they lose a significant amount of iron in the blood that's shed during menstruation. Before menopause, women may want to consider taking a multivitamin that contains iron.

Lentils
Along with tofu, soybeans, starchy beans, and black-eyed peas, lentils are a great vegetarian source of iron-rich protein, which I recommend for two reasons. First, protein is necessary for all cell growth, including hair cells. Hair gets its structure from hardened proteins called keratin. Without enough protein for keratin, hair grows more slowly, and the individual strands that do grow are weaker. Second, the iron found in animal foods (called heme iron) — such as lean beef, turkey, chicken, or pork — is more easily absorbed by the body than the iron in plant foods (non-heme iron). So, if you are a vegetarian, it's especially important to fill your plate with the most iron-rich plant foods. Additionally, you should combine your iron-rich vegetables with foods high in vitamin C, because vitamin C improves the body's ability to absorb non-heme iron.

Bell Peppers
Red, yellow, and green bell peppers are a colorful, delicious source of vitamin C, which is necessary for hair health for many reasons. Besides helping the body use non-heme iron — the type found in plant foods — to ensure that there is enough iron in red blood cells to carry oxygen to hair follicles, vitamin C is also used to form collagen, a structural fiber that helps our bodies (quite literally!) hold everything together. Hair follicles, blood vessels, and skin all require collagen to stay healthy for optimal growth. Even minor vitamin C deficiencies can lead to dry, splitting hair that breaks easily.

Sweet Potatoes
Beta-carotene in foods is converted to vitamin A in the body, and vitamin A is necessary for all cell growth, including hair. A deficiency can lead to dry, dull, lifeless hair and dry skin, which can flake off into dandruff. Be aware that you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to vitamin A: Too much can cause hair loss. My advice is to add more beta-carotene-rich foods like sweet potatoes, carrots, kale, butternut squash, cantaloupe, dark green lettuces, asparagus, and pumpkin to your meals rather than take vitamin A supplements. If you should choose to take a multivitamin, check the label to make sure that your brand supplies no more than 50 percent DV of vitamin A in the form of retinol. Retinol is listed on supplement labels as palmitate or acetate, and should never exceed 2,000 IU. The other 50 percent or more should come in the form of beta-carotene (or carotenoids), which is converted to vitamin A only as we need it.

Oysters
The mineral zinc is involved in tissue growth and repair — and that includes hair growth. It also helps keep the oil glands around the hair follicles working properly. Low levels of zinc can cause hair loss, slow growth, and dandruff. But the amount you get from eating foods rich in zinc — such as oysters, crab, clams, liver, lean beef, most nuts and seeds, peanut butter, wheat germ, fat-free yogurt, and cheese — is plenty to keep your tresses gorgeous. Aside from a multivitamin that provides up to 100 percent DV, I don't recommend taking extra zinc supplements because excess zinc can inhibit the body's ability to absorb copper, a minor but necessary mineral.