Can Stinging Nettle Stop Hair Loss?

Urtica dioica - Skalle-Per Hedenhs - Own work

When I was growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, our backyard was covered in stinging nettle. My father considered it a major nuisance. Stinging nettle is perennial wild plant that grows all across the globe.

It grows wild, but it's also planted and harvested by growers who sell the various parts of the plant.

Whenever I helped my dad pull up the pesky nettle, I got stung by the little needles growing on the plant. No wonder it is referred to as stinging nettle.

What Is Stinging Nettle?

The scientific name for stinging nettle is Urtica dioica. Traditionally stinging nettles had medicinal uses for the blood, skin, scalp, and hair.

The main constituents in stinging nettles includes iron, histamine, glutenins, and vitamins A, B, C, and K. Also hair strengthening properties of potassium, calcium, magnesium), and polyphenols, such as phenolic acids and flavonoids.

All parts of the herb or plant such as the leaves, tops, stalks and roots contain antioxidant properties. These are great for overall health, which may impact your hair.

Nettle flowers (female) can be green and white
Frank Vincentz - Own work - Wikipedia

Nettle is known to be an herb that is hot and dry. It helps to work as a cleanser to clear the body of congestion and toxins. Besides the benefits of reducing DHT, it is considered helpful for relieving inflammations in the body, especially the throat and lungs.

It is also considered very useful and soothing for eczema and other scalp irritations. It's also known to be helpful with goiters or swelling of the thyroid gland and for weight problems.

Nettle is often listed as an ingredient in herbal teas, especially those designed to detoxify the kidneys. As with many ingredients packed with antioxidants, people have claimed that nettle has the ability to treat hair loss.

But does it?

There are some who suggest that nettle helps promotes dermal papilla cell growth. It also blocks DHT and minimizes chronic inflammatio indicated in hair loss.

Multiple Uses For Stinging Nettle

Illustration by Otto Wilhelm Thom (1885)

Store freshly dried nettle leaves in an eartnenware pot. Nettle can be ground up into a powder and used in many different ways.

You can use the nettle leaf power add into a variety of recipes from Nettle Beer, Nettle puddle, and tea. Or for potions to be applied to the scalp and roots of the hair.