One week we’re led to believe we need to be eating goji berries and flax seeds, and the next we should be having kale smoothies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But, this week, it’s caffeine that’s being hailed as the latest super food for hair growth.
A recent study by the Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, Korea, has claimed that moderate caffeine consumption – around three to five cups a day – can lower the risk of illnesses from type 2 diabetes to Parkinson’s disease.
These results aside, previous lab research also shows that caffeine may be the espresso your hairs need to stimulate their growth, thus preventing hair loss.
In a study published in the International Journal of Dermatology, researchers found that caffeine encourages the hair shaft to grow by blocking the effects of DHT, a hormone known to damage follicle growth. However, you’d need to be drinking between 50 and 60 cups of coffee a day for your hair to receive an adequate dose!
These findings also echoed the results of an earlier study by the journal, which found that caffeine boosted the length of individual hairs by between 33 and 40 per cent.
However, until there’s robust clinical evidence that caffeine helps to avert hair loss, I’d advise people wanting to give their hair a kick to stick to increasing their intake of essential fatty acids, protein, iron and Vitamin C before they start drinking 50 cups of coffee a day.
There are also a range of hair care products from the likes of Tricomax, Revivogen, Garnier, Alpecin and Plantur 39, which contain caffeine, so it may be worth testing a couple of these before the more curious of you find yourself rubbing coffee on to your scalp!