With half the generation depressed and deprived¹, smoking² has become a pretty normal habit for teenagers. But the worst part is that smoking comes with a lot of health issues and side effects.³

Smoking is not a healthy process for human beings. It is a bit bitter to accept that smoking has become more critical for this generation.

Even with all the health issues relating to smoking being known and new side effects being discovered, people still cannot quit smoking. Hair loss⁴ is also believed to be one of the problems that can arise due to regular and active smoking.

1. Smoking and Hair Loss

Smoking is something that is seen among a lot of teenage people these days. Interestingly, hair loss is also common among many people these days.

This connection can be genuine or can also be false, but we all know how brutally nonsense smoking can be for our health. It can surely cause some hair loss and the male pattern baldness⁵ can be due to bad hair health⁶.

We all know that hair growth, hair loss, and also the healthy hair all depend on our hair follicles. Our healthy hair follicles decide whether we will have healthy hair growth or not!

1.2 Hair Growth Cycle

Different research has found that we all experience hair loss at any stage of our lives, and we cannot live without it. But the question arises: Can we regrow our hair after experiencing hair loss?

If there is no hair regrowth⁷ after the hair loss, this can be the reason for our headaches. Shockingly, this headache or stress can cause more hair loss. So, basically, what is hair loss, and how can we control it?

Every hair regrowth cycle needs a good scalp condition, allowing the hair follicles to grow and become healthier. Impaired hair growth can restore the hair follicle cells, stop hair damage, and cause the hair to grow in a better environment.

2. How Does Smoking Affect?

This is a prevalent thing that we all must be aware of; smoking causes severe lung cancer and hazardous respiratory illness. However, this problem not only gets restricted to our lungs but slowly becomes the reason for our bad cardiovascular health.

Apart from this, smoking can also cause hair loss, which reduces blood flow to our hair scalp and make hair scalp causes hair loss. This increased risk with bad smoking habits can be the reason for your premature hair greying.

2.1 Smoking and Hair Growth

Speaking of science, whenever we smoke, around 7000 chemicals are injected into our body through the smoke. Among all these, around 70 chemicals get into our bloodstream from the lungs and start negatively affecting our bodies.

Mostly, when we start losing hair, we also start regaining it slowly but steadily. But when smoking starts affecting the chances of our steady hair growth decreases, which contributes to our hair loss a lot.

3. How Does Smoking Cause Hair Loss?

With all the given stress relievers, the youth consider cigarette smoking as a convenient stress reliever tool, which everyone is addicted to. This addiction gradually gets into our blood flow, then to blood vessels, and the immune system gets destroyed.

However, many side effects could help progress these processes, and some are listed below.

3.1 Oxidative Stress

Our body regularly produces free radicals, which are generally molecules that react with other molecules. This reaction can happen easily and can also potentially damage the DNA of our cells.

But when we start smoking, this production of free radicals in our body gets multiplied and reduces the blood flow. So, when an excessive amount of free radical activity occurs in our body, oxidative stress starts getting reactive in our body.

3.1.2 How Oxidative Stress Affects Our Body?

When we are exposed to tobacco smoke, pollution, radiation, or even general ultraviolet rays, oxidative stress can start affecting us more. Not only this, but excessive smoking can also release toxic chemicals of tobacco smoke, which can cause damage to your DNA cells.

When the DNA cells are damaged, it can also worsen the smoker’s hair follicles, signifying premature ageing and impaired hair growth. It is also found in the hair follicles of the balding scalps, which are mainly prone to sensitive oxidative stress, which causes harm.

3.2 Reduction of Blood Flow in Hair Follicles

When there comes reduced blood flow in our hair follicles, the hair starts to loosen, which impacts hair health. Along with that, the chemical intake through tobacco can also negatively impact cardiovascular health, which can also cause heart-related diseases.

Building plaque in the blood vessels is also possible, which can cause diseases like blood clotting and heart attacks. This can also increase the chance of heart stroke, which can be very dangerous to experience.

Healthy blood vessels nourish the hair follicles, which results in healthy hair. However, impaired blood flow through the scalp can be very significant in accelerating hair loss or even starting to thin the hair.

3.3 Other Ways Smoking Causes Hair Loss

Apart from these two ways of affecting your body, smoking can be truly injurious to health in some given situations. This can also contribute to your hair loss and these factors include the promotion of the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines which can start promoting inflammation.

When the level of cytokines increases, the hair follicles start scarring, and the enzyme levels can also start fluctuating. This change can affect your hair growth phase, indirectly affecting hair loss.

4. How Smoking Affects Healthy Hair?

Cigarette smoking not only results in hair loss, but it also negatively affects your hair health, destroying your healthy hair. So, there are also the other adverse effects that smoking causes, which are listed below.

4.1 Early Onset Androgenetic Alopecia

This is one of the findings of a study that says that if you have gray hair, then there is some chance of your hair health getting affected by smoking. This is known as early-onset androgenetic alopecia, which turns the hair gray before the age of 30 years old.

Although this is found in most males, not everyone is going through this same problem. But if you are smoking and have unhealthy hair follicles, then quitting smoking may help somehow.

4.2 Poor Hair Transplantation

People are choosing hair transplantation a lot these days, but is it healthy to have your hair transplanted? The answer to this question depends on whether you are having a proper hair transplantation.

It is because if you are not having a proper hair transplant, then there are chances you may lose your original hair as well. Poor hair transplant with smoking habits can also affect your scalp and have negative effects on your hair follicles.

4.3 Smoking Makes Hair Brittle

When you start smoking, the blood flow in your hair starts to decrease. This decrease in blood flow can affect your hair growth and make it more brittle.

The effects of smoking can be hazardous as they can disrupt collagen production and lead to brittle hair. So, quitting smoking helps to prevent your hair from getting destroyed.

4.4 Smoking Makes Hair Drier

Natural oils are secreted from the hair follicles, which help moisturize hair and keep it healthy. But after a certain period, around 45 to 50 years old, this oil secretion slowly and gradually decreases.

So, when this secretion decreases, the oxidative stress which comes from smoking can fasten up the speed of ageing of your hair and can suck all the moisture and make your hair dry.

5. Does Vaping Cause Hair Loss?

Vaping is considered equal to smoking, and sometimes it is considered something which is way beyond that. But in reality, vaping is something that can be very harmful to health, as it directly affects your intestine and also the lungs.

But sadly, the health hazards are still unknown, and vaping products are still to be recognized in the market. However, a little study has been made on the vaping process, which suggests how unhealthy and dangerous the process of vaping is.

When we talk about oxidative stress getting through cigarette smoking, vaping can directly affect your DNA by damaging oxidative stress. It is also certain that, DNA damage can contribute to hair loss, and this can cause other hair problems.

6. How to Quit Smoking?

Everyone knows how to start smoking just by throwing a cigarette to your mouth and lightening it. But after knowing the consequences, some people do want to get rid of this practice, but due to various reasons, they cannot.

So, quitting smoking is very difficult, but not impossible, but at the same time, it can also have a lot of positive impacts on our health. Here are some ways through which you can quit smoking and help yourself in preventing hair loss.

6.1 Nicotine Replacement Theory

Suddenly, cutting the smoking factor off from the routine is not possible, so it is better if you just replace your smoke with nicotine patches, gums, or inhalers. This can help slow down nicotine consumption, and also, at the same time, you do not have to go for the cigarette again and again.

When you start reducing nicotine consumption, it will gradually decrease the withdrawal symptoms and make you adopt healthy habits. So, the effects of smoking can also decrease if you go on practising this for a long.

6.2 Prescription Drugs

When we think of quitting smoking, the only thing that holds us back is the urge to get that smoke when we feel stressed. This urge can turn into cravings, and this craving needs to be silenced in order to have a healthy future.

So, there are a lot of prescribed drugs available which can help in withdrawing the symptoms. The best part of this medication is that you can have these along with your nicotine replacement therapy and it has no side effects.

6.3 Alternative Therapies

When you are too interested in quitting smoking, then there are high chances that you may also choose different options to get over smoking. Sometimes we do not just quit smoking because smoking causes hair loss, but we want to quit for health benefits.

There are also alternative options apart from this to quit smoking, like support therapies, meditations, counselling, and support groups. They help in quitting smoke easily, and the medical associations can also recommend how you cannot get the craving again.

For a more holistic approach to quitting smoking and embracing a healthier lifestyle, you might also consider visiting a detox or wellness retreat. These retreats provide a supportive environment where individuals can focus on breaking free from the smoking habit while simultaneously adopting healthier habits.

6.4 Avoiding Smoking Environment

Sometimes we do not want to smoke, but just because someone else is smoking and as we are in that environment, we start smoking. When you are trying to quit smoking, try to stay away from this environment through which you can let go of this urge in a better way.

Although no study guarantees that you can regrow your hair after you quit smoking, it can surely provide some health benefits, such as better hair health.

7. Conclusion

Everyone teaches us how to start any bad habit, but when it starts affecting us there is no one to teach us how to stop it. Although smoking seems cool and may also be a stress reliever for some time, it has a lot of negative impacts.

These negative impacts can be very dangerous for your health and the hair follicles, as they are very fragile to get impacted. So, it is better to know the consequences and if you feel, you should also quit smoking and adopt a better lifestyle.

If you are unable to get rid of smoking on your own, then you may also adopt certain available methods to help yourself.

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Last Updated on March 24, 2024 by Gautam