Alcohol and Hair Loss - How They Are Linked - Sunlight Recovery

Hair loss and alcohol consumption are common among Americans. By the age of 35, two-thirds of American males experience some degree of hair loss, and out of the total population with thinning hair, 40% are women. While there’s no direct link between alcohol and hair loss, the effects of excessive drinking on the skin, including that of your scalp, have long been established.

To understand why so many people are experiencing hair loss, it’s necessary to look at various factors, including genetics, environmental factors and their health. Find out how alcohol abuse can impact your hair health and what you can do to overcome alcoholism and improve your overall wellness.

What Is the Link Between Alcohol and Hair Loss?

It’s no secret that the toxins in alcohol have an effect on your liver, heart and skin. But what does alcohol do to your hair? To avoid the repercussions of consuming alcohol, it’s best to drink responsibly and stay within the guidelines set out by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. It suggests men consume no more than 4 drinks in a single day or no more than 14 drinks per week. For women, this limit is lower, at no more than 3 drinks in a single day or 7 drinks per week.

In a recent review, researchers looked at past studies that examined links between alcohol consumption and the development of spot baldness. While they weren’t able to conclude that drinking alcohol causes alopecia areata, they did acknowledge that the effects of drinking, and particularly alcohol’s metabolites, are potential risk factors for this skin disease.

When you drink excessively, there are negative effects, such as dry skin, lack of nutrition in your diet, poor quality of sleep and increased estrogen levels, that can heighten the chance of hair loss. When your hair or scalp is dry, the hair becomes brittle and breaks more easily. This is also true if your diet doesn’t contain the necessary nutrients to support healthy hair growth. When your scalp is dry and inflamed, the follicles become irritated and can’t support the root of the hair properly.

Does Binge Drinking Cause Hair Loss?

Binge drinking can cause hair loss because of the effects of this behavior on the body. Binge drinking frequently results in severe dehydration, which can cause your hair follicles to dry out. Eventually, this causes your hair to thin because the roots have insufficient support.

Building upon past researchers’ findings on the association between alcohol and premature aging, a 2022 study sought to understand the degree to which alcohol consumption exacerbates aging. They found a strong correlation between heavy drinking and DNA telomere shortening — a common biomarker of aging.

How the Effects of Alcoholism Can Cause Hair Loss

Can alcohol cause hair loss? Effects of excessive drinking such as dehydration and its resulting nutritional imbalances can cause damage to your hair follicles to the point that they can no longer support the root of your hair. Over time, this leads to hair thinning and, in extreme cases, hair loss.

Studies show chronic alcohol abuse is a risk factor for malnutrition. Those abusing alcohol may be drinking instead of eating meals and, as a result, lack the nutritional intake necessary to support their body’s proper function. Deficiencies in folic acid, vitamin B12 and zinc are common among heavy drinkers and are deficiencies associated with hair loss.

There’s also a link between stress and alcohol abuse, which is another potential contributing factor to hair loss among alcoholics. Whether people abuse alcohol because of stress or experience stress as a result of their drinking patterns, the effect on hair loss is the same. A study from Harvard University determined that stress has biological effects, including the impairment of hair follicle stem cells. Eventually, the impairment of the follicles results in hair loss.

Common Deficiency Causes

When you eat a balanced diet, nutrient deficiencies are uncommon. However, certain health conditions and medications impact how your body stores and uses its vitamins and minerals. For example, some heartburn and acid reflux medications alter how your body absorbs vitamin B12, and diuretics taken for blood pressure have been known to reduce the body’s available magnesium, potassium and calcium.

Nonetheless, the primary cause of nutrient deficiency is a lack of nutrient intake. The cause of reduced nutrient intake can be due to food scarcity, excessive vomiting, health conditions such as anorexia and chronic diseases affecting intestinal absorption.

Without the right amounts of certain nutrients, your body doesn’t have what it needs to properly maintain and regrow its hair. This malnutrition eventually leads to hair loss.

How Excessive Drinking Causes Malnutrition

To understand the alcoholism and hair loss relationship, we need to evaluate how excessive drinking impacts the body’s nutritional balance. Alcoholism affects how the body absorbs and stores vitamins and reduces its ability to metabolize and activate them.

Numerous vitamins and minerals contribute to hair growth, including iron and zinc. Vitamin A, vitamin C and a handful of B vitamins are also essential. While iron carries oxygen to the hair follicles, stimulating growth, the cells that actually become hair follicles require vitamin D. Without vitamin C, the body can’t absorb the amount of iron it needs to support cellular processes.

We’ve already established how alcohol and hair loss are related because of how alcohol consumption reduces the appetite, but this problem can remain after you’ve stopped drinking. Some heavy drinkers experience alcoholic ketoacidosis. In addition to dehydration and abdominal pain, people with this condition routinely experience up to a 3-day period where they’re unable to eat without extreme nausea. This lack of nutrition from short-term starvation adds to the obstacles alcoholism poses to maintaining proper nutrition.

Will Your Hair Come Back After Quitting Alcohol?

There are no guarantees your hair will grow back after quitting alcohol because the hair loss could be due to various factors beyond alcohol abuse, such as genetics. However, if your hair is thinning exclusively due to the effect alcohol has on your nutritional habits and lifestyle, it’s probable that your hair will grow back when you quit drinking alcohol and make healthy changes to your habits.

You can talk to your doctor about what supplements or vitamins you should take to support regrowth of your hair, such as vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and zinc. It may also be beneficial to work with a dietitian to ensure you’re eating a well-balanced diet that provides your body with all the nutrition it needs.

Studies are also underway on how to stimulate or reawaken hair follicles to increase the likelihood of regrowing thinning hair in men and women. Tests focused on utilizing JAK-STAT, a cellular signaling pathway, inspire confidence in researchers seeking a safe, highly effective treatment for hair loss. With other advanced technology, it’s possible to use a patient’s stem cells to grow new hair follicles in a lab that could be grafted onto the scalp.

Seek Help If You Suspect You’re Drinking Excessively

If you’re consuming more alcohol daily or weekly than the national guidelines suggest, you may have a problem. Alcohol abuse is a serious issue that requires professional intervention for the best outcomes. The team at Sunlight Recovery can offer you the support to start your journey to recovery and improve your mental and physical health.

We offer inpatient and outpatient care, including addiction detox. Addiction detox is a valuable part of our programs that enables you to stop consuming alcohol in a safe environment with medical support as you go through withdrawal.