Any new introduction of the fact that smoking have bad effects for the human body is no longer needed. Most of us have known that cigarettes contain many toxins which can damage every inch of our body inside and out, and our hair is not an exception. In short, by one way or another, smoking may cause  hair problems such as hair loss.

So how does smoking cause hair loss?

Recent studies have found sufficient evidence to claim there is a significant link between smoking and hair loss. It also shows that the ways by which smoking causes hair loss are multi-factorial, since the hair loss is caused by the effects of smoking : as a result of tobacco toxins directly affecting the scalp, the risk of premature aging, or because smoking causes several diseases which may cause hair loss.

• Cigarette contains thousands of chemicals which many of them are toxic .

If you have seen the structures of a cigarette ( or its ingredients), those may scary you to the point where you have no idea about why people keep smoking.

Regarding to its connection with hair loss, here are some examples that show how it can damage your hair.

One example is smoke genotoxicants damage the DNA of hair follicles. For your information, your hair grows from these follicles–a kind of structures underneath the scalp, and the structures responsible for hair growth. So once it was damaged, it may cause your hair grows very slowly, or even worse it will never grow again.

Smoke induced imbalance in the follicular protease or anti-protease systems which control tissue re-modelling during the hair growth cycle;

A good blood circulation helps the hair to grow healthy. The toxic chemicals in a cigarette may harm cells at the hair roots which damage the blood circulation, consequently hair grows unhealthy and it causes some hair problems such as hair loss

• Smoking may worsen age-related hair loss

Premature aging.

Hair loss is a sign of the aging process and it can be accelerated by smoking. A survey was conducted and it shows that smoking causes several signs of premature aging process. In this case, the hair structures of smokers are less productive and hair grows slower when it is compared with normal hair condition of the non-smokers at the same age.

Worsen hair loss

The study take more than 700 Taiwanese men aged 40 and over as the samples, and it seems like the more they smoke, the worse the baldness is likely to be.

• Smoking causes many diseases which increase the risk of hair loss

Hair loss is also a sign of your health problem, in many cases hair loss is caused by some diseases, and smoking is a well-known cause for more than 50 different diseases. Even if smoking is not the biggest cause of those diseases, at least it worsen them.

Disease related with smoking and its effects for your hair

Autoimmune-related Hair Loss

This is also called alopecia areata and basically is a result of an overactive immune system where the body gets confused, they may see the hair as foreign and targets it by mistake then cause hair loss.

Lupus

Smoking affects the immune system, that’s why the other autoimmune disease such as lupus can also cause hair loss. It is also in case of mistaken identity: overzealous immune cells attack the hair. Unfortunately, once hair loss is caused by this disease, the hair will be very difficult or even worse will not grow back.

More prove that will show the connection between smoking and hair loss are still in research process. But so far, we are convinced that smoking brings harm to our hair and through one way or another it does cause hair loss. So apart from how small or big the possibility of hair loss which is caused by smoking, if you are a smoker, you must choose between maintaining an unnecessary habit and its bad effects on your body or having a healthy hair and healthy body at the same time. You take the start while you stop smoking.