Let’s learn all about how Vitamin B promotes healthy hair growth Posted on October 25, 2022 Written by: 100% PURE ®
If you’ve ever been on an internet deep dive for obtaining healthy, fast-growing hair, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled upon B vitamins for hair growth at some point or another.
And there’s a reason for that! B vitamins are extremely important nutrients, and they’re something you want not only in your diet, but your hair care regimen, as well. In addition to promoting energy metabolism, gut function, and immunity, B vitamins are also key to maintaining a healthy hair and scalp.
In this article, we discuss what vitamin B vitamins are, the eight different types of B vitamins, and why they’re important for hair growth. We’ll also discuss where you can find B vitamins for a healthy diet, and how you can easily incorporate them into a growth-oriented hair regimen.
What Are B Vitamins?
While often generalized into one singular nutrient, “vitamin B,” B vitamins actually exist in a wide variety–eight, to be exact, and each one serves a vital function in your body’s well-being.
B vitamins are commonly found in meat, seafood, poultry and eggs, but if you’re vegan or plant-based, fear not! To get more B vitamins out of a plant-based diet, make sure to incorporate lots of leafy greens, legumes, seeds, and nutritional yeast into your daily meals.
Benefits of B Vitamins for Overall Health
B vitamins are key nutrients in our diets, and they play a crucial role in our overall health and wellness. As a foundational part of a healthy mind and body, B vitamins directly affect cognitive function, cell turnover, and energy levels.
On top of that, B vitamins may also have a crucial role in gut health, proper nerve functions, cholesterol levels, hormone production, muscle tone, and eyesight.
What Do B Vitamins Do for Hair?
B vitamins support and boost hair growth through their key function of producing red blood cells, which helps generate new hair by transporting oxygen to the scalp.
But as you’ll soon find, B vitamins provide numerous benefits that keep your mane flowing and strong.
Here are the following ways in which different B vitamins support healthy hair growth:
Thiamine (Vitamin B1)
Vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, plays a crucial role in hair growth by converting nutrients from food into energy that the body can use.
Thiamine is particularly helpful for maintaining a healthy scalp, because it lowers blood vessel constriction. This improves blood flow and oxygen circulation, which helps transfer key nutrients to the hair follicle for healthy hair growth.
You can find thiamine in a number of different foods, including meats and fish, whole grains, black beans, and fortified cereals. You can also find it in our Multivitamin Healthy Hair Conditioner.
Formulated with B vitamins, vegan keratin, vitamin E, and CoQ10, our new conditioner works as a daily restorative treatment for nourishing and strengthening dry, damaged hair.
Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)
Vitamin B2, or riboflavin, is a key nutrient for two key coenzymes that are responsible for energy production, cellular function and metabolism.
Riboflavin also helps your body maintain normal levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that’s used to create proteins, which in turn support healthy hair.
Niacin (Vitamin B3)
Niacin, also known as vitamin B3, is used by the body to convert niacin into a coenzyme known as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) which, among many functions, is particularly important for the production of energy from the nutrients found in food.
Niacin moisturizes the hair and scalp, which prevents dryness and dandruff. It’s also been shown to target the repair of DNA, which may possibly impact DNA damage of the scalp caused by stressors in the environment.
Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5)
Pantothenic acid, or vitamin B5, is crucial to the generation of coenzyme A, which is important for the development of fatty acids in the body, among other necessary functions.
In our products, we use pro-vitamin B5–also known as panthenol, which is the alcohol analog of vitamin B5, making it more stable. Learn more about the benefits of this B-complex vitamin in our article on pro-vitamin B5.
Panthenol keeps the hair nourished, conditioned, and hydrated, which is why we feature it in our Multi-Vitamin Healthy Hair De-Frizz Serum.
Vitamin B6
Really more of a generalized term, vitamin B6 refers to the compounds pyridoxine, pyridoxal, pyridoxamine and their 5’-phosphate esters.
These components of vitamin B6 play a role in many different bodily processes, and over a hundred of those processes are linked to the metabolism of protein which, as we know, is crucial for healthy hair.
Vitamin B6 is also vital in the role of immune function, cognitive development, and the production of hemoglobin in the blood, which carries oxygen for the production and repair of cells in your body; this includes cells that target hair growth.
Biotin (Vitamin B7)
Vitamin B7, also known as biotin, may be one of the best-known nutrients in skin and hair care. And for good reason! In addition to its role in numerous processes related to the metabolism of fatty acids, it’s also necessary for tissue repair due to its role in cell signaling.
Those with a biotin deficiency tend to experience mild hair loss as well as weak nails and patchy skin which is why it’s often included in supplements meant to target hair, skin and nails.
While naturally produced in the gut, you can get your biotin from a number of different food sources, including seeds, nuts, mushrooms, and certain vegetables such as sweet potatoes, broccoli and avocados.
We feature biotin in our Multi-Vitamin Healthy Hair Shampoo, which gently cleanses the scalp without stripping the hair strands, and replenishes hydration to promote softer, healthier hair.
Folate (Folic Acid, or Vitamin B9)
Vitamin B9, also known as folate or folic acid, is a crucial nutrient that plays a role in the production of DNA. Folic acid also helps with the synthesis of red blood cells, which transfer oxygen through various parts of the body, including the scalp. Folic acid is particularly important for hair volume and color, and it can even reduce premature graying.
You can find folic acid (and other B vitamins) in our Multi-Vitamin Healthy Hair Leave-In Conditioner, which works to replenish hydration and restore dry, damaged hair.
Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12 is an essential vitamin for the production of energy in the body, and it also plays a major role in hair health.
It mainly affects hair growth in two different ways: first, it assists the body with the production of red blood cells, and it ensures that the red blood cells are the right size and shape for delivering oxygen all throughout the body.
Red blood cells are especially important for hair growth because they carry oxygen to points in the body that need it–such as hair follicles. Oxygen stimulates the hair follicles, which use the oxygen to grow new hair.
If your diet is lacking in vitamin B12, your hair follicles might not be getting the oxygen needed to grow thicker hair, so make sure to have plenty in both your diet and hair regimen. Aside from liver, beef, and dairy products, you can also find plant-based vitamin B12 in nutritional yeast and fortified cereals. You can also find it in any of our Healthy Hair products!
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