Is Calcium Good for Your Hair? A Closer Look at Hair Mineral Research

Summary: Calcium is important for bones and teeth, but what about calcium and hair loss and hair growth? We take a dive into the research on how hair is affected by calcium consumption, teasing out the connections between hair loss in baby mice nursed by mothers with a calcium deficiency and premature graying and low bone density.

Calcium is essential for bone health, but what about hair? We often get asked questions if a calcium deficiency can cause hair loss and, on the other side, if calcium can help with hair growth.  While our primary focus is bone health, it’s interesting to look at the current research showing how calcium is related to hair loss.  

Recent research suggests that calcium plays a supportive role in scalp and follicle health, gesturing towards conclusions that both calcium deficiency and imbalance may influence the quality, strength, and growth of hair.

Premature Graying of the Hair and Calcium Intake

In a 2019 review in Dermatology and Therapy titled “The Role of Vitamins and Minerals in Hair Loss: A Review,” the authors reference a study that showed that “​​serum calcium, serum ferritin, and vitamin D3 levels may play a role in premature graying of the hair.”  That study of premature greying measured calcium and bone health against premature graying, suggesting that  “premature graying is associated with osteopenia indicating a probable role for vitamin D3 and calcium.”  These authors reference another earlier 1997 study titled “Premature hair graying and bone mineral density,” which supported the connection between claim that: “Subjects experiencing onset of hair graying in their 20s tended to have lower bone mineral density throughout the skeleton (adjusted for age and weight) than those with onset of graying later in life.”

Although not tying calcium to hair loss or calcium to hair growth, the 1997 study and others (including one titled, provocatively, “Premature graying of hair is a risk marker for osteopenia”) have theorized that there is an “association between premature graying and low bone mass could be related to genes that control peak bone mass or factors that regulate bone turnover.”  

Transient Alopecia and Calcium Intake

Other than the link between premature gray hair and low bone density, calcium is also linked to hair loss and hair thinning in other studies. A 2016 study titled “The Transient Role for Calcium and Vitamin D during the Developmental Hair Follicle Cycle”  found that mice nursed by mothers with diets severely lacking in calcium (aka a calcium deficiency) and vitamin D developed significant hair loss or, as they put it, “transient alopecia” . Once the mothers' nutrition was corrected, the affected mice began to regrow hair at normal rates.

Interestingly, calcium is also present in the mineral composition of hair itself.  One study titled “Relationship Between Nutritional Habits and Hair Calcium Levels in Young Women”  found that, upon analysis, “hair calcium levels were weakly related to the quality of diet, with some synergistic interactions between nutrients, especially vitamin D and magnesium.”  In fact, measuring calcium in hair might become a reliable, non-invasive way to measure calcium metabolism. 

Calcium Doesn’t Act Alone

All of these findings suggest some important nuance in the discussion connecting calcium to hair loss or hair growth.  Calcium doesn’t act alone.  We know that from bone health and that’s why we designed our chews with all the minerals naturally found in milk.   Calcium works in synergy with other minerals, like magnesium and phosphorous. When calcium is low and you have a calcium deficiency, other deficiencies often degrade your health as well, contributing to nutritional environments that may negatively impact hair growth, follicles, or scalp health.

It’s obvious that more clinical research is needed to establish causation, but these findings suggest a consistent pattern that calcium deficiencies can negatively impact our health, most broadly considered. 

We created Seen Nutrition understanding the importance of foundational nutrition. Our calcium chews are designed not only to support bone health, but to contribute to overall whole-person health, which includes hair health.