A quick Google search on keto hair loss will reveal to you many stories of people who’ve suffered some sort of hair issue while on a low carb high fat ketogenic diet. Is it true that keto diets cause hair thinning and hair loss? There can be several different reasons your hair is thinning out on your low carb diet.
By trying various natural hair loss remedies, and pinpointing any problems with your nutrition, you give yourself a better chance at getting to where the problem originates from.
There are so many factors to consider here when it comes to keto hair loss. Let’s look at 9 possible scenarios that may or may not be connected to your ketogenic diet.
Table Of Contents:
1. Keto Hair Loss + Rapid Weight Loss
If you’ve recently started a keto diet, have started losing weight, and now you’re noticing hair loss, it could be from the weight loss. This would be considered Telogen Effluvium, a type of hair loss that stems from drastic or rapid weight loss in men or women. The good news is that this type of hair loss will almost always be temporary and things usually get back to normal in acute cases of Telogen Effluvium.
As described by the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology,
If there is some “shock to the system”, as many as 70% of the scalp hairs are then shed in large numbers about 2 months after the “shock”. This sudden increase in hair loss, usually described as the hair coming out in handfuls, is acute telogen effluvium.
This temporary hair loss is tied to yo-yo dieting. It makes 90% of your head’s hair growth go into a “resting phase.” Normally, only 10% of the hair on your head is in the resting phase. This hair loss connected to keto diet weight loss slows the growth phase down as well. It can last up to 6 months. Anything longer than that would be considered chronic Telogen Effluvium. The type of hair loss connected to ketogenic diets is more often the acute kind if you read other people’s experiences.
If your hair problems are a result of rapid keto weight loss, then it’s usually a couple months before things get back to normal. Biotin has been used successfully by many in this circumstance to help support their hair growth after a bout of shedding and thinning. Telogen Effluvium caused by keto weight loss is a temporary annoyance that is best ignored. Hair follicles are still there waiting to sprout again, and usually do as you’ll witness from hair stubs coming in.
2. Biotin Deficiency & Keto Hair Loss
A biotin deficiency could cause hair loss on a ketogenic diet. If you’re doing a completely proper keto diet, and have been for a long time, there’s always the chance that your body is giving you a sign that a low carb high-fat diet is not right for you. However, there is proof showing that keto diets cause biotin deficiency. Because of this, if you feel great other than this annoyance of hair loss on a keto diet, then I’d look into upping your biotin intake. Either by eating more biotin foods or taking a biotin supplement. Before drawing any conclusions, I’d try to see if it’s the biotin deficiency causing the hair loss or thinning on your keto diet.
This study performed on mice showed that ketogenic diets can cause biotin deficiencies. It increases biotin bioavailability and consumption which results in exaggerated biotin deficiency in biotin-deficient mice. Here’s the concluding statement to the mice and biotin study:
Therefore, biotin supplementation is important for mice that consume the ketogenic diet. It is suggested that individuals that consume the ketogenic diet have an increased biotin requirement.
B Vitamins & Minerals During Keto Adaptation
Sometimes it’s all the B vitamins you’re missing out on. Not just biotin. If you’re not consuming extra B vitamins or minerals when becoming fat adapted in the beginning stages of your keto diet, this could be a good reason why you’re suffering keto hair loss. As a solution, add some nutritional yeast (for the B vitamins), minerals and trace minerals (trace minerals help proteins form in the body) and see what happens.
Best B-Vitamin Sources:
Our post on the best keto supplements includes 3 great options for getting sufficient B vitamins. These include nutritional yeast, spirulina powder, and a great quality whole food B vitamin. Click Here to go to that article!
3. Alopecia & The Ketogenic Diet
Alopecia is a hair loss related autoimmune condition that comes in many forms. All forms of alopecia can be tied to hyperthyroidism, but there really is no exact cause known. It can come from other places. If it’s the thyroid, proper treatment will make the hair loss go away and reverse itself. Taking vitamins like a wholefood multivitamin or biotin can be great for your hair health on a keto diet, but if you have an underlying autoimmune condition, it probably can’t be fixed with vitamins. It needs a lifestyle change and restored thyroid health.
Many things can activate an autoimmune disease on the brink of getting triggered in your body. If this is the case, then something in your lifestyle (maybe even the keto diet) activated it. With this form of hair loss, it is said to resolve itself on its own as long as you take care of the problem.
4. Thyroid Disorder & Hair Loss
Hypothyroidism is a form of autoimmune disease. It can come from leaky gut or from other factors. Make sure to take care of your thyroid and get tested if you think your keto hair loss could actually be from thyroid issues. On top of taking care of your thyroid, you can improve your hair with vitamins, minerals and foods rich in biotin, zinc, iron, magnesium, vitamin B12 and vitamin E.
5. Lack Of Calories Makes Hair Suffer
If the hair issues really are because of your low carb ketogenic diet, it could mean that you’re not consuming enough calories. It’s not good to eat low carb and low fat, thus dropping your calorie intake. If you’re not eating enough, your body will focus its energy on your vital organs and let up on things like strong hair follicles on your head. You need to consume enough calories.
If you’re missing out on calories because you’re new to the keto diet (or perhaps your meals are not big enough if you’re doing intermittent fasting/keto), then you’re not going to have the basic nutrients to feed and support the proteins of the body. This will affect your thyroid gland as well.
Avoid accidentally doing a low calorie diet. A low calorie diet is when you’re not consuming enough calories to meet your nutrient needs. Weak hair or hair loss, brittle nails, and low energy levels are good indicators to know if you’re getting enough nutrients from food or not.
The solution? Eat enough food with enough nutrients. You want nutrient dense foods, with a sufficient level of protein (learn more about how to calculate sufficient protein levels for you in the next keto hair loss factor).
If you are getting enough calories, maybe try mixing in some high carb days. “Carb ups” is the process of shocking your body in a good way that keeps it guessing and doesn’t get it too accustomed to the low carb diet. There’s another form of this where bodybuilders on a keto diet will time their carbs around their workouts. A feast and famine cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD) will usually solve this problem for you in the most natural way. You get to enjoy a “carb up” day 3 or 4 times per month, usually followed by a fast to complete the “feast and famine” keto diet cycle. This occasional high carb day seems to be the cure for many’s hair problems on ketogenic diets.
Carnivore Diet Plan:
While carb-ups seem to be an effective way to solve hair thinning on a keto diet, this experience will give you an additional perspective: Two men lived on fat and protein for a year and did not need any carb-ups to fix their hair problems. After one year on a meat only diet, their hair got thicker. There is a “Carnivore Keto” version of this carnivore diet plan in case that is something you’d want to consider for your keto diet or even the keto hair loss.
6. Lack Of Dietary Protein Bad For Hair
Not consuming enough protein is a good indicator as to why you’re losing your hair on a keto diet. It’s simply nutrient deficiency. If you’re not hungry, they say it’s good to listen to your body and lay off the food, but at some point you’re going to need to fulfill your nutrient requirements, especially protein when it comes to hair and nail health.
In the following keto hair loss video presentation by Dr. Berg, he starts off with some good news, saying that if you’re losing hair on keto or intermittent fasting, it’s most likely going to come back and grow more.
If your keto diet doesn’t include enough protein, this can cause hair loss and hair thinning.
When on a keto diet, although it’s not a high protein diet (unless you’re doing the Melissa McCarthy style high protein keto diet), it’s also far from a low protein diet. An optimal ketogenic diet, as one practiced and talked about in Dr. Mercola’s, Fat For Fuel, is a low carb, moderate protein, high fat diet.
Low stomach acid:
If you have low stomach acid, you won’t digest your protein properly. This could be a key reason why the protein you eat does not end up in your hair. Heart burn, indigestion, bloating and gas are good indicators of this. And a daily quick shot of apple cider vinegar should solve the problem.
In my personal opinion, I’d much rather eat too much protein (and get kicked out of ketosis), than eat too little and suffer the consequences from protein deficiency. How much protein should you eat? Opinions vary, but on average you should have at least 0.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight. 90 grams of protein for a person who weighs 180 would be a safe number almost on the high side (we don’t need as much protein as we think).
A quick calculation for sufficient protein consumption: 0.37 grams of protein (not total grams which includes fats, water, etc.) X your body weight. So, 180 X 0.37 (minimum) or 0.7 (maximum) will give you a good amount of protein to shoot for each day if you weigh 180 pounds.
Our keto macros blog post shares three different options for calculating your protein macronutrient targets for a well-rounded ketogenic diet.
7. Adrenal Fatigue & Iron Deficiency
Iron deficiency can cause hair loss. Ferritin is a protein that helps us have adequate iron levels. There’s a connection between adrenal fatigue and iron deficiency.
If you have low ferritin levels (and thus low iron), this can cause symptoms that are similar to hypothyroidism such as hair thinning, hair loss, breathlessness, GI issues, etc. (source)
8. Gut Health & Low Carb Diets
Leaky gut syndrome is a sneaky health issue that causes major health problems. Among them, autoimmune disease. While adopting a new keto lifestyle, you should pay extra attention to your gut health as it’s easier to avoid gut healthy fibers if you don’t eat enough low carb vegetables.
Taking a good look at your nutrition and current lifestyle factors (sleep, sun exposure, prescription medications) will help you pinpoint everything contributing to your leaky gut, and therefore, your autoimmune disease symptoms such as hair thinning and hair loss.
It’s another of the many health factors to look into, as it can be connected to your keto hair loss. Health supplements including collagen, l-glutamine, and zinc can help with gut health, but this requires a lifestyle change more so than added products to get to the real root of the gut health problem.
9. Stress And Keto Hair Loss
The last thing on this list could easily be the first. If you’re dealing with hair issues on your keto diet, it may be best to reevaluate the advantages of lugging around that stress versus giving in to whatever keto-related thing is making you stress. For example, if you’re so strict with a keto diet that you haven’t eaten high carbs in months, it’s probably a good idea to loosen up on yourself. This, in fact, could be your problem as carb loading has been known to help many people on a keto diet. And it will help lessen your stress.
If you’re losing your hair, stressing out about it unfortunately makes things worse. What I think helps (if you’re a guy), is watching a bunch of Jason Statham movies, so you can see that pulling off the bald look is very doable. But chances are it is a temporary issue. Just wait it out and forget about it after taking care of any of these 9 possible causes for the fallout.
If this hair loss has come on 1 to 3 months after starting a ketogenic diet, then rest assured this is temporary. One thing you can do to ensure a speedy return to normalcy is the following 5 natural hair loss remedies. They can all be done concurrently.
5 Ways To Fix Your Keto Hair Loss
#1. Essential Oils For Ketogenic Diet Hair Loss
Rubbing a little mixture of coconut oil, castor oil and rosemary oil into your hairline to strengthen the hairs coming in, and taking a biotin supplement to further support this hair coming in is not a bad idea. Biotin is not something you can use topically. Use hair strengthening essential oils (and maybe a dab of some lavender essential oil on your temples for stress).
Good Oils To Use:
- Castor Oil
- Almond Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Rosemary Oil
- Argan Oil
- Cedar wood Oil
- Lavender Oil
There are many more than just these oils listed above that are recommended to help prevent hair loss and to strengthen and invigorate your hair follicles.
#2. Light Head Massage & Brushing
You can do the oils and the massage together to tackle 2 natural hair loss birds with one stone. Besides the head massage, light brushing can also help stimulate your hair follicles. If you have pimples on your hairline, this could be a sign of something else going on inside, like an overtaxed liver. Take care to be extra gentle during bouts of acne in these areas and make sure to use a natural hair loss shampoo like the coffee one in the next point I’m about to describe, to keep your hair and scalp clean.
Head massage for keto hair loss
#3. Caffeine Shampoo For Hair Loss Prevention
I got one of these coffee shampoos from a local farmer’s market in Thailand. The Thai company that has made this exact same formula for over 20 years. They gave me a couple travel pieces to go along with the bottle. I think it’s one of the best hair regrowth products simply due to its fresh coffee aroma. Plus, it’s good to know that the caffeine helps invigorate my scalp and works as a great hair loss remedy. This is its selling point.
I’m not sure of its dht blocker capabilities, but I think it’s one of the best shampoos for hair loss prevention simply due to the lack of chemicals and its potential effectiveness. It’s free of all the sulfates, and unreadable chemicals and colors, and it contains a few of the best essential the oils for hair regrowth.
Here is one of the better coffee shampoos I’ve seen on Amazon, but it’s not as good as this one I got at the farmer’s market. Amazon has everything, but not a big selection of natural coffee caffeine shampoos.
Update: Here are pictures of the shampoo for thinning hair I got at the farmer’s market:
The Anantra brand here is formulated for hair regrowth. Here are the shampoo ingredients:
- castor oil
- olive oil
- coconut oil
- ginger oil
- other extracts great for keto hair loss prevention.
They key with a good shampoo to help instead of hurt the issue of hair loss going on, is to not use one with a bunch of ingredients you can’t pronounce or even spell if your life depended on it. These to me signal something unnecessary. It may not be worth it to pay for extra bubbles or a for a fake, “nice scent” at the cost of your health, or in this case, keto hair loss.
Even if it’s because of keto and it’s temporary, you want to stop using these cheap products that can damage your health in many ways after a while. It doesn’t help your case for healing your thyroid either. One of the very first things they recommend those suffering any autoimmune condition to do, is to stop the use of all chemical products, from the bathroom to the kitchen to the laundry room.
#4. Derma Roller – A Natural Regrowth Solution
The derma roller can be used in conjunction with essential oils, or alone. It comes in different micro-needle lengths, from 0.25 mm to 1.5 mm in length.
Micro-needling works by stimulation of stem cells and inducing activation of growth factors. They go right down and help stimulate hair follicle growth. In this randomized blinded study on the effect of micro-needling with derma rollers in Androgenic Alopecia, they concluded that yes, it works. And it works really good.
Results from the micro-needling study:
There were significant results.
Hair counts – The mean change in hair count at week 12 was significantly greater for the Micro-needling group compared to the Minoxidil group (91.4 vs 22.2 respectively).
Here’s an image from the study:
Image Source: Derma Roller Study
The study concluded that “microneedling is a safe and promising tool for hair stimulation and also useful to treat hair loss refractory to Minoxidil therapy.”
As far as hair counts, the mean change in hair count at the 12 week mark was “significantly greater for the Microneedling group compared to the Minoxidil group.”
Best Derma Roller To Buy?
It comes down to the needle length. They vary. In the study mentioned above, they used a dermaroller with 1.5 mm sized microneedles.
Here’s a good one:
No products found.
How To Use?
This is a good presentation showing how to do a proper dermaroller procedure with essential oils for hair loss:
In the study, the microneedling procedure was done on a weekly basis for 12 weeks.
What they did was they rolled the dermaroller over the affected areas of the scalp “in a longitudinal, vertical, and diagonal directions until mild erythema was noted (which was considered as the end point of the procedure).”
#5. Biotin Foods For Healthy Hair
Read below about yolk…
Biotin has shown to be effective at sparking hair growth and the regrowth of thicker hair. And ketogenic diets have been shown to make you deficient in biotin. The solution? Eat more biotin foods and/or take a biotin supplement if you’re on a ketogenic diet.
Here are some of the top biotin supplements currently available online.
Adults only need 30 micrograms of biotin daily (source), so taking a biotin such as the ones with 500 mcg are not needed if you’re eating plenty of biotin-containing foods. However, if your keto diet is still causing a deficiency and you’re still noticing hair thinning symptoms, a biotin supplement ranging anywhere upwards of 10,000 mcg per day is a popular route that many take.
Foods High In Biotin
Other than a biotin supplement, a handful of biotin rich keto foods like cheese, egg yolks, nuts, fish, meat or organ meats should be enough. Biotin is found in non-ketogenic diet-friendly foods also, like bananas.
Skipping The Yolk Causes Biotin Deficiency:
“Egg whites contain avidin, a protein found in raw and lightly cooked egg whites. The avidin in egg whites has been shown to bind biotin in the small intestine and prevent its absorption.”(source)
Keto Hair Loss Prevention
Doing these five natural hair loss remedies at the same time could help you hold on just long enough while you take care of the real underlying issues causing this autoimmune condition of hair loss. They provide great support for keto hair loss and for any other general reasons for hair loss.
CONCLUSION
When it comes to the ketogenic diet and hair loss, it more than likely is an acute case of telogen effluvium, and it will be temporary. However, due to the study on mice, it might be wise to start getting more biotin. If it’s truly keto hair loss, chances are your hair will stop shedding and grow back strong once this current resting phase is over. Biotin can be key for some. Waiting it out works for many too. Most seem to get their luscious hair back either through carb ups, biotin supplements or simply by letting the body adjust.
Up Next: 9 Best Keto Supplements Of 2019 (Vitamins & Minerals)
While waiting this out and practicing a keto diet, just do your best to not think about it, temporary or not, a good counteractive measure you can take right now is a combination of natural hair loss remedies. From coffee shampoos to essential castor oil mixtures, these will all help you have healthier hair and could potentially help stop hair loss as well.
Related Reads On Our Site:
- The 6 Best Exogenous Ketones Of 2019 – One MCT oil powder and 5 BHB salts.
- 5 Incredible Health Benefits Of Collagen – collagen can only help with keto hair loss, too.
- The 5 Best Keto Meal Replacement Shakes Of 2019 – These can be lifesavers.
Additional Information on Hair Loss and Keto:
- Roland Peralta interview with Dave Asprey after a 15 year struggle with hair loss
- Dr. Dan Pompa on How To Fix Hair Loss and Hormone Imbalance
- Early facial signs of hypothyroidism
- Keto Health Expert Louise’s personal experience with keto hair loss
Thank you for the great article. Do you have any information that would suggest the time frame to wait it out? I’ve been on Keto for about 4-5 months when I noticed the increased hair loss. Has been extreme for about 2-3 weeks now. Felt great otherwise on Keto, only started carbing up with healthy carbs in past week to see if it would help with the hair loss. Feeling pretty rotten with all the carbs however… Supplementing with whole food vitamins, collagen, etc.
Hi Sheri, thanks for the comment and the compliment, it’s much appreciated thank you. Sorry for a few days late response.. it’s been a busy week as we’ve just moved. From what I know about hair growth and its cycles, the shedding stage is part of the resting phase or the “telogen” phase. They say it can last a few months. For me, my hair stopped shedding after a couple months. I was shedding a ton, but ended up just forgetting about it in order not to stress about it, and it was probably a few months after it started that it stopped. You just reminded me of it actually. I got a funky hairline going, but it’s a maturation thing and that started long before keto. Sounds like great supplementing there, I’d just wait it out. If it’s from keto and not from nutritional deficiency then it’s the stress of the new diet that did it. And the shedding is not immediate, so makes sense it happened months into it. This type of hair loss is usually temporary and naturally reverses itself in time so should be back to normal from all my research and experience with it. Good luck!!!
Do you have a name for the Thai company?
Hi Linda, yes thanks for the reminder! It looks like their name is Anantra. Their shampoo is called “Caffein Hair Grower Shampoo”. Don’t mind the misspelling of caffeine. That’s common in Thailand. And don’t mind my dog Choco too! I just took a couple pictures of the bottle and updated the post. Hopefully that helps, thanks!
I have not been able to locate this particular brand shampoo. Do you have the name of the company?
Hi Lorena, the shampoo I took a picture of is from a local business in Thailand and I don’t think they sell this in the US. When looking online I haven’t found one as good in the states, but I’m sure there is a local business or 2 that make a nice natural shampoo similar to this one. I hope so at least. I posted it so you can see the ingredients. I wish you luck on the search!
I’ve been on Keto now for almost 4 months and I’ve been losing hair every day all day like a lot that I never noticed when I was eating regular and high carb and even sugary foods. I take 10,000mg a day of biotin for about a month and so far all I can say is my nails are stronger but my hair is still falling out?!?! I’m just not sure how long it will take for my hair to stop falling out? I don’t however do carb days I do very strict Keto. I use high quality shampoos as well and.I condition my hair. Thanks
Wow! Thanks John. Just wondering where you were while I was on my Keto :P
Just a bit of backgroud on my Keto journey.
I was on Keto for about 3 months (dec – feb). Am in Canada since Nov’17 and it was extreme winter while I was on Keto. This is my first winter and hence it was new to my body (i mean hair). The hair loss was major and it was very depressing. I would lose about 25-50 strands of hair (am not even kidding) each time I run my hand through my hair. Washing my hair became a nightmare. I decided to consult a doctor. He said it might be due to iron deficiency and suggested a blood test. The test revealed high uric acid in my blood and that scared me even more and eventually I stopped my Keto.
I did lose about 10kg on the journey (yay!) and I really felt gud about myself. I would like to restart it again (now that it is summer here :) ) but would love some advice or tips for hair loss and the uric acid problem. Hair loss is much less now.
Note : I have dermatographic urticaria (skin condition that causes my skin to flare up) and I did take biotin (10,000 mcg) and Vitamin D supplements during my Keto. But it didn’t seem to help.
Hi Karthika, Thanks for the compliments and for the comment! That’s great that you were able to assess how keto works for you and make a change. I can’t really comment on your uric acid issue, but I would suggest you look into intermittent fasting. There is a ton of information on it online and it’s really easy to do. It’s more natural too considering it’s only been within our recent human history that food has been so convenient and available to us 24/7. It makes me feel great and I think it’s the real secret to weight loss too. Thanks again for coming by the blog and have a great one!
Hi, great article! I found this website trying ti locate this shampoo, https://anantraecobeauty.com/, but it would not provide ability to shop. Do you still purchase this at the Farmers Market? If so can you inquire if they are willing to provide information to sell and ship or have another website providing products to purchase? Thank you! Sandy
Hi Sandy, yes that’s them! My barber had a great hair loss shampoo, all natural, with great essential oils. It doesn’t have coffee, but it’s also a great one so I am using that one right now. However yes this farmer’s market is still active. I will look for Anantra next time I go (they are not there every week). And I will ask about how to buy from their website. And also if they will ship to the states. If they don’t, I don’t mind buying some products of theirs for you and shipping them out to you in the states. You can email me or message through contact page to talk further about this. Next market is in a week, so I’ll check it out and let you know. Thanks for coming by the blog Sandy!
Hi Sandy, here’s an update. I talked to the owner yesterday and she said you can go to their Facebook page at facebook.com/anantraskincare. She said as long as you pay for the international shipping she’s happy to send you an order to the states or wherever you may be. Also you can contact her direct by email. If you want her email address you can contact me on the contact page here and I can give you her personal email. Hope that helps have a good one!