Mane Issues

If you are losing a lot of hair, get your blood glucose level checked.

- Anu Sharma

There are few things that feel worse than pulling a clump of hair out of your sink. One plummets further into the depths of despair seeing strands of hair stuck to the shower walls or strewn all over the house.

We lose around 100 strands of hair on a daily basis, but if it is falling out at an high rate, there is still no cause for panic. It may be explainable and curable. Besides, it is not uncommon for hair to thin with age.

Low iron and low thyroid levels can also cause hair to become thinner and fall out more than usual. Nevertheless, if blood tests have ruled out low iron levels, stress or even the dreaded thyroid condition, then diabetes could be the culprit. Hair loss and diabetes, both of type 1 and type 2 kind are closely connected. Though both have different causes, warning signs, and treatments, they share one symptom, i.e, alopecia areata, which occurs all over the body, including the head, legs, arms, eyebrows, and eyelashes. In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease, white blood cells attack growing cells in the hair follicles, making them small and at the same time slowing down hair production. In type 2 diabetes, the scalp’s blood vessels get damaged with less oxygen and nutrients reaching the follicles. As a result, hair starts thinning. There is no new hair production and regrowth may be at a slower than normal.