Aug 26 2010
World renowned hair loss expert, Dr. Larry Shapiro, announced the release of his new book, Fight Hair Loss and Win! and says that Elin Nordegren is not alone when it comes to hair loss as a result of stress. Shapiro says millions of women and men are experiencing the same and that heightened levels of stress, popular nutritional supplements, hormonal imbalances and many other unsuspecting factors are now linked to hair loss.
"Over the last few decades of observing and talking to thousands of patients, I became increasingly suspicious of certain supplements, lifestyle factors and hormones that contributed to their hair loss whether they were pre-genetically disposed to hair loss or not," said Dr. Shapiro, hair transplant surgeon. "I became so convinced that whey protein isolate was part of the problem, that I did my own study comparing different whey protein sources.
In his new book, Dr. Shapiro's addresses why whey protein isolate, a form of whey protein widely used in many weight loss products and meal replacement formulas causes a hormonal imbalance of testosterone. While this might be effective for muscle building, the side effect is hair loss due to the conversion of the spike in testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT).
"It makes perfect sense. Many of the FDA approved drug treatments for hair loss specifically target and block DHT receptors that cause hair to fall out," Shapiro added.
In addition, the book is chock full of practical tips on how to overcome and reverse hair loss that is caused by stress, which triggers a cascade of hormones that can wreak havoc on your hair follicles as is what most likely happened in Elin's case. "Here you have a perfectly healthy, young woman who has been under a great deal of stress. Her body reacted by creating a hormonal imbalance that triggered insomnia, weight loss and hair loss. The good news is that anyone experiencing this type of hair loss can reverse their situation rather quickly if they provide the nutrients the body needs to stimulate the follicles to grow new hair and balance the body's hormonal levels out again and we show you how to do that in my book," Shapiro added.