If your hairbrush or shower drain has been telling an alarming story lately, you are not alone, and looking into nutrition for hair loss is a genuinely sensible place to start. As a registered dietitian, I speak with clients almost every week who are shedding more than they would like and want to know whether their diet is helping or quietly working against them. The reassuring truth is that hair is remarkably responsive to how we eat, and correcting the right nutritional gaps can make a real difference for many people.
Before we dive in, a gentle but important note: nutrition works alongside medical care, not instead of it. Hair loss has many causes, some of which have nothing to do with diet, and a few of which need proper medical attention. If your shedding is sudden, patchy, rapid or accompanied by other symptoms, please see your GP or a dermatologist. What I share here is designed to support your hair from the inside, ideally hand in hand with the right clinical assessment.
For deeper context, see: 5 Nutrition Changes That Actually Help with PCOS (From a Dietitian Who Gets It).
How Hair Growth Works and Why Nutrition Matters
To understand why food matters, it helps to know a little about how hair grows. Each follicle cycles through a growing phase (anagen), a brief transition, and a resting-then-shedding phase (telogen). At any moment, most of your hairs are growing while a smaller proportion rest and fall out, which is why losing some hair every day is completely normal.
Hair is also, biologically speaking, non-essential. When your body is under stress or short of nutrients, it prioritises vital organs and treats hair as a luxury it can pause. This is exactly why nutritional gaps show up in your hair, sometimes weeks or months before you would notice them anywhere else. Give your follicles the raw materials they need, consistently, and you support their ability to stay in that healthy growing phase.
Iron and Ferritin: The Most Common Culprit
Of all the nutritional factors I look at, iron is the one I flag most often, especially with women who menstruate. Iron carries oxygen to your follicles, and your ferritin level (your stored iron) appears to be particularly important for hair. You can have a normal haemoglobin and still have low ferritin, which is why I always encourage clients to ask for ferritin specifically, not just a standard anaemia check.
To support healthy iron levels through food:
- Red meat, poultry and fish: provide haem iron, the form your body absorbs most easily.
- Lentils, beans, tofu and dark leafy greens: good plant (non-haem) sources.
- Vitamin C alongside plant iron: peppers, citrus or tomatoes at the same meal boost absorption noticeably.
- Mind the blockers: tea, coffee and calcium-rich foods can reduce iron absorption, so keep them slightly apart from your main iron sources.
A word of caution: please do not start iron supplements on your own. Too much iron is harmful, and supplementing without a confirmed deficiency can do more harm than good. This is a case where a blood test should come first.
Protein: The Building Block of Every Strand
Hair is made almost entirely of a protein called keratin, so it should be no surprise that inadequate protein is a recognised cause of shedding. When intake is too low, the body diverts its limited protein towards essentials and pushes more follicles into the resting, shedding phase.
Most people in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium do get enough protein, but I regularly see gaps in clients who are dieting hard, eating very little, or following a plant-based diet without much planning. Aim to include a source of protein at each meal:
- Animal sources: eggs, fish, poultry, lean meat, dairy.
- Plant sources: lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu, tempeh, edamame, nuts and seeds.
If you eat plant-based, combining a variety of sources across the day helps you cover all the amino acids your follicles need. Protein is one of the simplest and most impactful areas to get right for your hair.
A simple way I help clients check this is to look at the palm of their hand: a protein portion roughly that size at each main meal, plus protein-containing snacks such as yoghurt, hummus or a handful of nuts, usually gets most people comfortably to where they need to be. You do not need to weigh anything or count grams obsessively. What matters is that protein appears reliably throughout your day rather than being crammed into a single evening meal, because your body uses it far more effectively when it is spread out.
Zinc, Vitamin D and Other Key Nutrients
Beyond iron and protein, a handful of micronutrients play supporting roles, and deficiencies in any of them can contribute to shedding.
- Zinc: essential for the hair growth cycle and tissue repair. Find it in shellfish, meat, pumpkin seeds, chickpeas and cashews.
- Vitamin D: linked to follicle cycling, and deficiency is very common in northern European winters. It is worth checking your level, as food sources alone (oily fish, eggs, fortified foods) rarely fill a real gap.
- Selenium and vitamin A: both matter, but here more is emphatically not better. Excess selenium or vitamin A can actually cause hair loss, so avoid high-dose supplements.
- B vitamins and omega-3s: support overall scalp and follicle health as part of a varied diet.
The theme running through all of this is balance. Correcting a genuine deficiency helps; loading up on high-dose supplements "just in case" can backfire, sometimes badly.
Biotin: Myth Versus Genuine Need
No conversation about hair would be complete without biotin, the star ingredient in countless hair-growth gummies. Let me be honest with you, because my clients appreciate straight talk here. True biotin deficiency is genuinely rare, and in those uncommon cases supplementing does help. But if your biotin levels are normal, taking more will not grow you thicker hair, no matter what the packaging promises.
There is also a practical catch worth knowing: biotin supplements can interfere with certain laboratory blood tests, including thyroid and heart tests, producing misleading results. That alone is a good reason not to take high doses casually. Save your money, eat biotin-containing foods such as eggs, nuts and wholegrains as part of a balanced diet, and put your energy into the nutrients that are far more commonly deficient.
Crash Dieting, Rapid Weight Loss and Telogen Effluvium
One of the most common patterns I see is hair loss that begins two to three months after a period of stress on the body, whether that is a crash diet, rapid weight loss, illness, surgery or major life stress. This is called telogen effluvium, and it happens when a shock pushes a large number of follicles into the resting phase all at once, so they shed together a few months later.
Very low-calorie diets are a frequent trigger. When you drastically cut food, you often cut protein, iron, zinc and essential fats at the same time, and the body responds by pausing hair growth. The good news is that telogen effluvium is usually temporary and reverses once you return to adequate, balanced nourishment, though it can take several months for the regrowth to become visible. If you are trying to lose weight, doing so gradually and with enough protein and micronutrients protects your hair along the way.
Key Foods to Prioritise for Healthier Hair
Rather than chasing single "miracle" foods, I encourage my clients to build meals that naturally cover the nutrients follicles depend on. A hair-supportive plate looks a lot like a genuinely healthy one:
- Eggs: protein, biotin and zinc in one convenient package.
- Oily fish: salmon, sardines and mackerel for protein, omega-3s and vitamin D.
- Lean red meat: a strong source of absorbable iron and zinc.
- Lentils and beans: plant protein, iron and fibre.
- Leafy greens: iron, folate and vitamin C together.
- Nuts and seeds: zinc, selenium (a Brazil nut or two goes a long way) and healthy fats.
- Colourful fruit and vegetables: antioxidants and the vitamin C that helps you absorb iron.
Consistency matters far more than perfection. A varied, mostly whole-food diet built around these foods gives your follicles what they need day after day.
When It Is Not About Diet, and How I Can Help
I always want to be honest about the limits of nutrition. A great deal of hair loss is simply not caused by diet. Genetic (pattern) hair loss, thyroid disorders, hormonal shifts including postpartum and menopause, PCOS, certain medications and autoimmune conditions all cause shedding that no eating plan alone will fully fix. This is why getting your bloods checked matters so much. A simple panel including ferritin, full blood count, thyroid function and vitamin D can reveal whether nutrition is truly part of your picture or whether something else needs addressing first.
That is exactly where working together adds value. At Hanzi Nutrition I help clients make sense of their results, close any genuine nutritional gaps in a safe and evidence-based way, and build an everyday eating pattern that supports their hair alongside any medical care they are receiving, rather than reaching blindly for supplements. If you are worried about shedding and want a calm, personalised plan instead of guesswork, I would be glad to help. You can book a consultation with me, and together we will give your hair, and the rest of you, the steady nourishment it needs.
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