Are you increasingly finding your hair in the sink or comb? The culprit may not be stress or genetics, but sugary drinks according to a new study which claims that these drinks are linked to hair loss in young men.
Hair Loss
Male pattern baldness seems to appear earlier and earlier, but also to be more frequent. Many studies have established a link between hair loss and the Western diet. Researchers at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) refer specifically to sugary drinks: soft drinks, industrial iced tea, fruit juices, energy drinks, etc.
Drinking too many sugary drinks promotes hair loss
Researchers recruited 1,951 men between the ages of 18 and 45 in 31 Chinese provinces. Participants had to answer questionnaires about their eating habits, health, and hair. An analysis of the data showed that high consumption of sugary drinks was associated with an increased risk of developing baldness.
“Several potential direct and indirect mechanisms may explain this association,” write the authors of the article, published in Nutrients on Jan. 1, 2023.
According to the researchers, the high sugar content of soft drinks or industrial iced teas causes an increase in serum glucose concentrations. This activates the polyol pathway (a metabolic pathway that converts glucose to sorbitol and sorbitol to fructose, ed), thereby reducing the amount of glucose available to keratinocytes in the outer sheath of hair follicles. This makes it more difficult for hair follicles to grow, resulting in hair loss.
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In addition, high sugar intake is often associated with high fat intake. A high-fat diet has been found to promote hair loss also.
A study to convince young people to cut down on sugary drinks
Heart disease, obesity, liver problems, etc. Drinking sugary drinks in excess has been linked to many health problems. “Reducing consumption of sugary drinks has become a thorny issue confounding governments and health institutions around the world,” the authors write. Their findings could be a lever for prevention among young people.
“Highlighting that consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages may have a potentially negative effect on appearance may attract the attention of the young population and encourage a decrease in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption,” the researchers argue. However, the researchers acknowledge that further long-term and intervention studies are needed to confirm the link between hair loss and the sugary drinks they highlighted.
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References
The Association between Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Male Pattern Hair Loss in Young Men
