Can Bone Broth Cause Hair Growth?
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Maybe you can remember the time as you got out of the shower, looked down and saw a pile of hair trapped in the shower drain. The feeling of panic and concern was real! Or when you noticed your hair thinning and not being able to wear the hairstyles you could in the past. In this article, you're going to learn about the power of bone broth and why it can cause hair growth AND help preserve the hair you do have.
Bone broth is not only for women though. The power of bone broth can be realized by both women and men.
Not only that, but the other bone broth benefits include helping with other health challenges like leaky gut syndrome dull and dry skin, wrinkles and fine lines and weak bones--to name a few.
It's never been more clear that we must focus on our body's natural healing abilities and how to keep it primed and ready to do that now and in the future.
Bone broth, an ancient remedy to keep a strong and healthy body and head of hair, will be an effective tool in your health toolkit and very well can help your body to cause hair growth.
Check out our review of the best bone broth for our top picks.
Is Bone Broth a Superfood?
The variety and accessibility of food in today's modern world is not what your ancestors, like your grandmother, experienced in their world.
In fact, because of food not being as plentiful, past generations used all parts of an animal, not just the meat, for their daily sustenance.
Although many speak of sustainability in our food supply, the truth is modern society typically only uses meat from animals. The other parts of the animal like the bones and joints are unfortunately discarded.
What did your ancestors do with these discarded parts of animals?
Well, they may have not known exactly why these parts were valuable but did they did know they held important nutrients to help stay healthy and also the value of the flavor of them too.
With this in mind, typically the women would simmer the bones and joints for long periods of time in water to pull out the valuable nutrients and collagen protein and create a comforting rich broth.
They would use the bone broth to add flavor to foods, contribute more nutrients to their family's diet, help keep their families satisfied when food was scarce and heal illnesses (ever hear of chicken soup referred to as Jewish penicillin?).
Now we know more about why the makeup of bone broth is healing.
Not only does bone broth offer collagen protein but it also contains many of the amino acids and minerals your body needs to maintain good health, lose weight, build a strong immunity and help to hold off the effects of aging. They also help in other ways like maintaining and building muscle mass and getting a good night's sleep.
Let's move on to learn more about amino acids, bone broth and hair growth.
Amino Acids, Collagen Protein and Bone Broth
Amino acids play an important part in your normal and routine bodily functions. Research shows that the amount of the essential amino acids and non-essential amino acids you consume or your body makes will play a pivotal part in the production and quality of proteins.
These amino acids come together (and are typically synthesized by other nutrients like zinc or copper for example) and either join together to form short chains called peptides or longer chains called polypeptides or proteins.
Importantly, collagen protein is made up of a chain of amino acids (glycine, proline, alanine and glutamine) and this combination is found nowhere else in nature.
It's important to note that collagen is the most abundant protein in your body and is especially concentrated in your skin.
Therefore, the more amino acids you consume, the better chance you'll have of keeping your bodily functions running as expected but also to help create or maintain collagen protein.
Since your scalp is skin, one can assume that the number of amino acids and collagen in your body will determine the health of your hair.
As we mentioned, bone broth is rich in amino acids. For reference, this chart gives you a good idea of the differences in amino acids in the broth based on simmering time:
Hair and Amino Acids
Expanding on the concept of amino acids creating proteins, a hair follicle is primarily made up of keratin, a certain protein that provides structure.
With this in mind, proline is the main amino acid in keratin.
Although there are no human studies to date that prove amino acids in bone broth can cause hair growth, we can assume that consuming bone broth should help provide the important building blocks needed to create protein and new hair.
Bone Broth is a Free Radical Killer
You may have heard the term free radicals. They are compounds that are created in your body and can cause damage to your cells, cause inflammation, break down collagen protein and affect your DNA.
Where do free radicals come from?
They can come from outside and internal sources such as air pollutants, smoking, an unhealthy diet, alcohol, chemicals, stress, processed foods and lack of quality sleep--to name a few.
As you age, the presence of free radicals increases while defense mechanisms decrease. As a result, not only is skin affected, but hair can be damaged as well.
All is not lost though, you can help your body fight free radicals. The way to fight free radicals is with antioxidants.
In fact, initial studies have shown marine (fish) collagen is especially effective in fighting free radicals.
Also, the amino acid glycine can help keep free radicals from being created. Co-incidentally, glycine is one of the key amino acids in bone broth (and is also key for restful sleep).
Therefore, if you consume bone broth, you're helping to fight free radicals that damage hair and other parts of your body.
Collagen, Bone Broth and Your Scalp
As we mentioned, collagen is heavily concentrated in your skin. Furthermore, unfortunately during the aging process, your body slows down collagen production to the tune of 1% each year and even faster during and after menopause.
Because collagen protein provides structure to your body, as collagen production slows, and lifestyle choices damage existing collagen, you'll start to notice wrinkly, 'crepey' and sagging skin.
Although there is not definitive research, there are studies that show that adding collagen to your diet through dietary supplements or healthy food and increasing the amino acids that build collagen can help strengthen your skin's/scalp's structure.
A stronger scalp means it can hold hair follicles longer, avoiding premature hair loss.
Bone broth offers the best of both worlds--amino acids and collagen protein. So you can support your body in making new collagen with relevant amino acids (along with other nutrients like vitamin C, copper and zinc).
Thus, bone broth helps to keep your scalp healthy, strong and able to grow and maintain hair follicles.
Healthy Minerals and Vitamins
Not only does bone broth offer collagen, but it's also rich in minerals and vitamins necessary to grow and maintain healthy hair.
A research paper published in 2019 discusses the important roles of nutrition and diet and how both affect hair loss.
To clarify, bone broth offers the following minerals and vitamins:
Even Selma Hayak believes in the anti-aging magic of bone broth, her hair looks amazing! Listen to what she has to say about how bone broth helps her keep youthful and healthy-looking hair.
Where Can You Buy Bone Broth?
You have two choices in how you get quality bone broth.
1. You can make homemade bone broth--it's not difficult, just time-consuming.
If you'd like to make bone broth at home, here are bone broth recipes that you can make with beef bones, make chicken bone broth or fish bone broth.
What's convenient is you can make it at home and freeze it for ongoing use.
The downside of making bone broth at home is that it's time-consuming and you'll have to keep on top of it so you have a consistent supply.
2. You can also buy ready-made bone broth or convenient bone broth protein powder. These can be your main source of drinking bone broth or you can supplement homemade with these forms so you never run out.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Your confidence level may have been affected by a loss of hair due to aging and/or menopause. Or, you may want to avoid the problem altogether.
It's not realistic to think bone broth can take you back to have a full head of hair as you did in your youth. However, bone broth helps support your hair with the necessary amino acids and collagen protein to keep what you have and to cause hair growth.
Additionally, bone broth is super easy to make at home so you can refrigerate or freeze for daily use. Or you can stock your pantry with ready-made or bone broth powder so you never run out.
In closing, bone broth is a superfood as far as your hair is concerned. If thinning hair is a concern for you, add bone broth to your daily routine and see the results in your lush and youthful-looking hair!