Why Are So Many Women Losing Their Hair?
August is National Hair Loss Awareness Month, but if you're experiencing hair loss, awareness probably doesn't feel like the problem. Once you realize you're losing hair, observation can turn into obsession, a fixation with tracking your hair line and density. Anabel Kingsley , consultant trichologist and brand president of the Philip Kingsley Clinics and product ranges, has clients who stay awake long into the night, comparing photos before and after shedding events.
"I have a lot of women in tears in my office," Kingsley tells Flow Space . "That's all they think about." These women can become depressed, isolated, paranoid — convinced their thinning hair is all other people see.
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Your hair loss is rarely as obvious as you think, Kingsley says, but that doesn't make it any less upsetting. Studies have linked hair loss with depression and found that more severe hair loss has a worse impact on mental health. For women, having thinning hair or noticeable hair loss flies in the face of our definitions of beauty and femininity. "It can be devastating," Kingsley says. "It shouldn't be underestimated how much of a huge psychological impact that hair loss can have."
The Shedding
Hair loss has always been common in women — about one-third experience it at some point in their lives, a number that rises as we age. By 50, up to 40% of women will have noticeable hair loss.
Recently, Kingsley says, her office has been busier than ever. Part of it is that more women are speaking up about hair loss, shrugging off the stigma and reaching out for help. But Kingsley also points to the explosion of GLP-1s, which have been linked to hair loss .
Your body categorizes hair as "non-essential tissue," Kingsley explains. So, when you enter a calorie deficit or experience high metabolic stress, it deprioritizes hair production — an energy-intensive process, since hair cells are the second-fastest-dividing cells in the body. Instead, your body diverts its limited calories elsewhere, pushing hair follicles into a two- to four-month resting phase before hair eventually sheds.
Weight loss medications can also contribute to hair loss by making it harder to get enough of the nutrients your hair needs to grow and thrive. Iron , ferritin, vitamin B12, vitamin D , and zinc all play an important role, along with adequate protein and complex carbohydrates to fuel your follicles. If a GLP-1 significantly reduces your food intake — and, in turn, your intake of these essential nutrients — shedding can follow.
Other common causes of hair loss include:
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Gut issues .Trichologist Allyssa Robbins , whose recent TikTok on the "epidemic" of hair loss went viral, partially attributes this phenomenon to poor gut health. Regardless of the issue — "leaky gut," inflammation, bacterial overgrowth or an infection — if your digestive system isn't working properly, it won't be able to absorb the nutrients needed to maintain healthy scalp and follicle function.
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Insulin resistance.Elevated levels of insulin can increase DHT (dihydrotestosterone), a hormone that shrinks hair follicles, which can lead to hair thinning and, over time, permanent loss.
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Hormonal shifts.Estrogen is a hair-supportive hormone. When it starts fluctuating during perimenopause, you may notice more shedding . When it drops more permanently during menopause, it leads to a shorter hair growth cycle. That naturally results in finer, thinner strands and less regrowth.
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Stress.Chronic stress, and specifically the stress hormone, cortisol, can push hair follicles prematurely out of the growth cycle into the resting-and-shedding phases. Stress can also impact eating and sleeping routines and trigger scalp issues like dandruff. "All of these things can then have a knock-on effect on our hair," Kingsley says. Rising stress in the US may have something to do with increased hair loss: in one 2024 study , 75 percent of Americans reported experiencing a physical or mental health symptom of stress in the last month, with stress and chronic stress rising faster in women, especially women of color.
The Regrowth
With hair loss, these triggers are often intertwined, so it's rarely "just stress" causing you to shed. "It can be a catalyst, but it's usually not the whole story," Robbins explains. And actually, that's a good thing. You can't soothe chronic stress overnight, but nutritional deficiencies and hormonal issues? Those are factors you can start addressing now while working on mental health over the long term. Just keep in mind: Hair regrowth is more of a marathon than a sprint and it can take three to six months to see improvement.
The process has to start with a blood test, ideally ordered by a trichologist or a dermatologist who specializes in scalp and hair who knows what to look for in your results. When you're trying to restart hair growth, you don't want to fall in the lower end of "normal" for essential nutrients like iron (or ferritin, a protein that stores iron and releases it when needed). You actually want to be more in the "optimal" category, because hair growth requires a lot of fuel. A specialist will also be sure to test for nutrients like zinc, something general practitioners tend to overlook.
Between blood tests and a thorough scalp examination, a specialist can determine what kind of hair loss you have and a treatment that addresses the primary cause. It requires a personalized approach because hair loss is highly individual. Even minoxidil — the go-to, FDA-approved treatment for hair loss — isn't appropriate for everyone. While it may mitigate shedding and help with regrowth, it doesn't address the root cause (pun intended).
A trichologist may also recommend diet or lifestyle changes, hair growth serums or strategies for washing and styling that can revitalize your scalp and make hair appear fuller even before it grows back. With so many hair loss products on the market, though, experts emphasize caution. Most hair loss supplements are too generalized to address specific nutritional deficiencies, and any hair loss serum should have clinical trials to back it up, Kingsley says.
Whatever products you use, keep washing your hair every one to three days to keep your scalp healthy — even if that's when you notice the most stressful shedding.
"Your health is tied to your hair growth — and your hair loss," Robbins says. "I tell people to eat for the hair that they want, because sometimes the diet that you have — the lifestyle that you have, right now — is the reason why your hair loss got to this point."
"The Accessory We Never Take Off"
Hair loss is both mentally and emotionally challenging. "Hair is the accessory we never take off," says Kingsley. "We dress our outfits around our hair. We touch it. Every time you look in the mirror, it's visible." Losing our hair rattles our self-image and our mental health, and the more you fixate on it, the more it feels like others do too.
While hair loss can feel isolating, it's far more common — and treatable — than you might think. "I've shed my hair in excess many, many times," Kingsley says. "I've had postpartum hair loss, stress-related hair loss, weight-loss related hair loss…" Whatever the cause, she wants women to know it's rarely a permanent story. It's just a chapter, she adds reassuringly. "You're not alone."
