Vitamins are nutrients found in food that assist in the growth of all body tissues and help release energy in the body. Your body cannot make vitamins. You have to get them from food and the best source from nutritional supplements as a backup.There are two classifications of vitamins: water soluble and fat soluble. The body cannot store water soluble vitamin such as the B-complex vitamins and vitamin C because they do not easily penetrate the fat based membranes of cells. Therefore, they must constantly be replenished by the diet.

Fat soluble vitamins such as A, D and E have numerous duties in the body. Unlike water soluble vitamins, they can enter cell membranes and are thus easily stored in body tissues. Thirteen vitamins necessary for good health, several are involved specifically in hair growth and maintenance.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is a versatile nutrient because it regulates so many essential functions in the body, including immunity. Compromised immunity is implicated in the alopecia areata type of baldness. Vitamin A helps fight viral and bacterial infection, possibly by stimulating the activity of white blood cells. Vitamin A also helps is an extension of your skin, this nutrient is vital to hair health. It helps the sebaceous glands in your skin and scalp function normally. A short supply of vitamin A leads to a flaky scalp. Too much of vitamin A, however, can cause your hair to fall out. In large dose (higher than 50,000 IUs daily, vitamin A is toxic because it accumulates in the liver and other organs. The recommended daily intake vitamin A is 5,000 international units. Foods rich in vitamin A include liver, egg yolks, and leafy vegetables.

B-Complex Vitamins

Vital for energy, the B-complex vitamins are involved in nearly every reaction in the body, from the manufacture of new red blood cells to the metabolism of carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Several members of this family are hair-friendly nutrients. For example:

Biotin

Dubbed the “hair vitamin”, biotin helps produce healthy hair and may even prevent grayness and balding. It also helps your body utilize protein and is involved in the production of keratin, the protein in hair and nails. If your fingernails are brittle, biotin may be just the remedy you need. Research shown that supplementing with biotin thickens fingernails and keeps their outer layers from peeling off. Biotin’s benefit to nails is the reason you find the vitamin in beauty products sold at the cosmetics counter reservoir of inositol. This nutrient is available from whole grains, citrus fruits, brewer’s yeast, and liver. Each day, you get about a gram of inositol from food.

Niacin

This member of the B-complex family is found in many non-drug topical formulas designed to treat hair problems. One main reason is that it helps improve circulation throughout the body, including the scalp. Niacin also help improve normalize cholesterol level in the body. As I have noted earlier, an excess of cholesterol can cause the body to churn out too much testosterone, so it’s important to keep this blood fat within healthy levels. Niacin is also involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and protein and is essential for the health of the skin, nervous system, and digestive system. Lean proteins such as chicken, turkey, and fish are excellent source of niacin. Deficiency symptoms include skin eruptions, fatigue, muscular weakness, and indigestion. For women, the recommended daily intake for niacin is 15mg.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C maintains collagen, helps create red blood cells, promotes wound healing, and fights bacterial infection, among other duties. If you hair isn’t getting enough vitamin C, it will split and break off more easily. You need 60 mg daily of vitamin C for good health. It is plentiful in tomatoes, citrus fruits, strawberries, green peppers, potatoes, and dark green vegetables.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is highly recommended by alternative health care practitioners as a must have nutrient for health hair. It enhances circulation to the scalp, thereby improving the delivery of nutrients to the hair follicles. Hair loss and brittle hair may be symptoms of vitamin E deficiency. Vitamin E is an antioxidant, meaning that it protects cells from damage, and is thus an important immune-booster. It also interrupts the plaque-forming process that can clog your arteries. Vitamin E occurs naturally in vegetable oils, whole grain cereals, dried beans, and green, leafy vegetable. It’s difficult to obtain enough vitamin E from foods to derive the nutrient’s many health benefits. Consequently, many nutritionists feel that vitamin E supplements are more effective than food as a means of getting adequate quantities. Supplementing with 400 international units of vitamin E daily is an excellent way to get the protective amount. Also, choose a natural from of vitamin E over a synthetic version. Labeled as d-alpha tocopherol, natural vitamin E is isolated from soybean, sunflower, corn, peanut, grapeseed, and cottonseed oils. Synthetic vitamin E found in petrochemicals. A recent review of thirty published studies on vitamin E concluded that the natural version is absorbed better by the body than synthetic form.

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