According to recent research, intermittent fasting, despite having positive effects on health and weight loss, could have an important side effect involving hair.
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The intermittent fasting it is very widespread and some studies underline that it has various advantages such as weight lossbetter control of blood sugar and an even longer lifespan. But one study recent suggests that it may have an undesirable effect: a slower hair growth.
The study
The data revealed that while fasting regimens benefit metabolic health, they can delay hair regeneration.
We don’t want to scare people away from practicing intermittent fasting because it is associated with many beneficial effects; it’s just important to be aware that it may have some unwanted effects.
The team tested two fasting regimes:
- time-limited feeding, in which you ate for 8 hours and fasted for 16
- alternate-day fasting, where you fasted every other day but ate whatever you wanted on the days you didn’t fast.
The results were unexpected. When scientists undertook this study, their working hypothesis was that fasting would accelerate hair growth, but the opposite was observed.
The culprit of this effect, according to scientists, is the hair follicle stem cell (HFSC) response). These cells are essential for hair regeneration, but during fasting they struggle against it oxidative stressthe damage caused by unstable molecules called free radicals. The stress resulted from the body’s switch from burning glucose to fat during fasting. This change caused free fatty acids to flood into HFSCs, leading to programmed cell death, or apoptosis.
The team plans to further understand this by studying how fasting affects wound healing and other stem cells in the body.
We also want to understand how fasting affects skin wound healing and identify metabolites that could help HFSC survival and promote hair growth during fasting.
For now, the message is not to abandon intermittent fasting. Rather, the study reminds us that even healthy habits can have side effects. Slower hair growth might seem like a small price for metabolic health, but for some, knowing the potential risks could influence how they approach their fasting journey.
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