What Are the Causes of Hair Loss & the Loss of Skin Tone?

When your diet is lacking in vitamins and nutrients, this can take its toll on your hair and your skin, resulting in thinning hair or even loss of hair and skin that begins to lose its tone and youthful glow. In addition to vitamin deficiencies, age and menopause can result in loss of skin tone and hair. Certain diseases and conditions, such as autoimmune disorders and endocrine (thyroid), as well as anemia (iron deficient blood), can result in hair loss.

Skin and Aging

• Skin thins significantly as you age. When a woman's estrogen levels drop, it impacts her hair and skin. Skin thins approximately one percentage point per year post menopause. Skin thinning results in skin wrinkling and poor elasticity, notes the Cleveland Clinic. As you age, you must moisturize your skin regularly and wear sunscreen. Drinks lot of fluids to keep your body and skin hydrated.

Features

• As your skin ages and thins, the skin loses its ability to regenerate new skin cells and this leads to increased amounts of dead skin cells on the surface of the skin. Thin skin is less elastic than plumped up skin, which you had in your youth, and is far more fragile.

Effects

• A woman's body slows production of elastin and collagen, which are supportive proteins and which keep the skin firm. When estrogen is present in adequate levels, it makes your skin thicker and less likely to sage and wrinkle. You may notice that you aren't healing as quickly as you used to and are bruising more easily. Age spots, sometimes called liver spots, may appear on your skin, as can small growths that are called skin tags. As you get older, you produce less sebum or natural skin oil and your skin becomes dry and then wrinkled.
  The adrenal glands do produce estrogen after a woman's ovaries stop working; however, the amount that is produced is not comparable to the estrogen that was produced prior to menopause.

Prevention/Solution for Hair

• Safeguard the health of your hair by taking vitamin E, which improves circulation; vitamin C, which prevents hair loss; the B vitamins, which promote hair growth and hair health because they transport oxygen; folic acid, because it keeps hair healthy and on your head instead of down the drain; magnesium, sulfur, zinc, beta carotene and flaxseed oil, because these are all essential for healthy hair, notes Dr. George Obikoya of Vitamins-nutrition.org.

Culprits

• Fungal infections can result in hair loss, as can over-processing your hair, subjecting it to too much heat, wearing cornrows or other hairstyles that put stress on your hair, which is called traction alopecia, including wearing a hat that is too tight. Alopecia areata is a condition that can cause you to lose your hair. This is considered an auto-immune disease and is sometimes linked to stress. Your hair should grow back although that is not always the case.