Multivitamins and hair growth: Myth or directly related?

There has been a large push on ‘safer’ multivitamins for all ailments of life. Hair loss is also a heavily advertised condition where multivitamins are suggested to bring the necessary change. In this article we will dwell deeper into Multivitamins and if they really do help in managing hair loss.

Multivitamins are heavily used in Australia with major brands like Blackmore or Swisse promoting the same ingredient with apparent better results. Over 8 million Australian take Multivitamins of some sort on a day to day basis. The vitamins are actually not approved by FDA, that is, it may have helped ‘some’ users or there is no established long term study to prove a correlation between Multivitamin and improvement of a condition. Furthermore, we generally extract the needed multivitamins from our food source as long as it is a balanced diet. On the other hand, if we happen to add multivitamins tablets to our diet, the excess will either be excreted or might even cause harm.

There have been studies that showed link between hair and certain vitamins such as Biotin, Vitamin D, Iron etc. However, these multivitamins will only help with your hair loss if the underlying cause is the lack of nutrients. This will require a full blood test. If your diet has been average and not malnourished, the chances are that vitamins will not bring back your hair. An article in health and beauty blog takes a deeper dive into hair loss and multivitamins deducing a lack of correlation.

Male pattern baldness (alopecia) is rarely caused by lack of multivitamins but due to accumulation of DHT in the scalp. A research conducted in USA investigated the effects of multivitamins namely vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, iron, selenium, and zinc on hair. The results showed no significant improvements with any of them except Vitamin D. It is fair to say Vitamin D deficiency does cause hair loss and taking extra supplement might help.

As a qualified Pharmacist and after researching hair loss extensively, I can conclude that Multivitamins show little to no improvement in alopecia. The main reason for hair loss is accumulation of DHT in the scalp which prevents essential nutrients from reaching the hair follicles. Eventually this causes the hair to thin and fall out. FT Clinics has developed products that does not feed into ‘might work’ but rather is backed with scientific research.