Want thicker tresses? Controlling how much sugar you eat might help. One of the most important factors for healthy hair growth is good blood circulation. In addition to that, nutrient-rich blood nourishes your hair follicles with the essential vitamins and minerals that gives you strong and moisturised hair.

Overpopulating your diet with sugary drinks, pastries, and even the less obvious offenders like salad dressings and bread, causes a rise of glucose and other hormones in your bloodstream. Too much sugar deprives your hair of healthy vitamins and minerals like zinc and iron, which promote hair growth.

A week-long juice cleanse is often touted as a revolutionary health intervention that promotes insane detoxification and weight loss benefits. As healthy as that sounds for your waistline and gut, week-long juice cleanses spell bad news for your hair.

Chugging down colourful bottles of cold-pressed juice for seven days completely denies your body of wholesome foods like complex carbohydrates, healthy fat and protein, that are the building blocks of healthy hair. When you go on a juice cleanse, your tresses are missing many minerals that coax hair growth.

If you have recently switched over to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, it is crucial that you take note of your zinc and iron intake. That is because vegetarian diets eliminate seafood and red meat, which are both rich sources of zinc and iron.

So, if your hair is looking less than glorious on a vegetarian diet, you might want to boost your intake of iron and zinc. Important sources of iron for vegans are lentils, beans, nuts and seeds. For zinc, include zinc-fortified cereals, tofu, lentils, oatmeal and wild rice in your meals.

Text: Divyata Raut/SHAPE