You and I know that smoking is bad in general; it comes with different problems, like the development of lung cancer and respiratory illnesses.
A study in 2018 showed that tobacco smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, and at least 69 are known to cause cancer. When you breathe in these chemicals, they can travel from your lungs to your bloodstream. From your blood, they can spread to other parts of your body.
People don’t realise that hair loss is also a side effect of smoking. This is to say that smoking and hair loss has a connection. Smoking can harm your hair follicles, increasing your risk of hair loss. It can induce oxidative stress and decreased blood supply to your hair follicles, leading to hair loss.
Smoking can cause blood flow to hair follicles to be disrupted
Although the hair on the surface of your scalp is dead, the blood veins beneath it ensure that your hair receives the oxygen and nutrients it needs to develop. They are also in charge of removing waste from the scalp.
Toxins in cigarette smoke may injure these blood arteries and cause structural damage. If that wasn’t terrible enough, these poisons could impede your heart from working correctly and the vessels from performing their functions.
These poisons can induce atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque around the arteries over time. This plaque might restrict the arteries if it hardens. This injury can reduce the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the hair, both essential for follicle development.
Other ways smoking can contribute to hair loss;
Smoking may cause various bodily changes that contribute to hair loss. The following are some of the factors;
- scarring of your hair follicles due to increased levels of cytokines changing enzyme levels that control tissue remodelling in your hair growth cycle.
- promoting the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines.
- signalling proteins that promote inflammation and scarring of your hair follicles due to increased levels of cytokines
- The hormone estradiol is hydroxylated more, and the enzyme aromatase is inhibited, resulting in reduced estrogen levels.
When you stop smoking, you can reverse some of the damage smoking has done to your body.
Although it is unclear whether hair loss induced by smoking can be reversed, but some people with thinning hair can achieve noticeable hair regrowth if a medical condition causes it.