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Hair loss is one of the most common concerns I hear from people taking GLP-1 medications—but is it really the medication causing it? In this episode, I take a deep dive into the science behind GLP-1-related hair loss, separating fact from fiction. We explore why rapid weight loss, protein and nutrient deficiencies, hormonal changes, and metabolic stress can all contribute to shedding, along with practical strategies to help protect your hair while pursuing your weight-loss goals.

I also discuss one of the questions I've been hearing more frequently: why some people seem to experience more hair shedding on retatrutide than tirzepatide. We break down the unique role of glucagon receptor activation, its potential effects on metabolism, heart rate variability (HRV), and physiological stress, and what current research does—and does not—tell us. Whether you're experiencing hair loss yourself or simply want to understand the biology behind it, this episode provides an evidence-based look at one of the most talked-about side effects of today's weight-loss medications.

⚠️ DISCLAIMER

This content is for educational and research purposes only. Not medical advice. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

All right, welcome back, everyone.

I'm sorry I missed getting an episode out last week.

We were actually traveling to Boston for our daughter's best friend's wedding.

So congratulations to Abby and Jamie.

I'm so excited for them.

They met in college at Baylor, where both the kids went.

And if you've listened to me for any length of time, you know that my husband and I went there too.

So we're a big Baylor family and and got married last weekend and it was a gorgeous wedding and we had so much fun and our daughter Maddie was the maid of honor in the wedding, so it was fun to watch her fulfill that role as well.

And we did not get back until about 2am on Monday.

Actually, that would be Tuesday because our flight kept getting delayed because of weather.

So I am still recovering from that.

I don't do well when things like that happen.

It just.

It takes me a minute to really recover from it.

So I feel like I'm still kind of dragging.

But I'm excited to be back and I'm having to come to terms with the fact that this is just how my life is going to be, at least for the next 12 months while both these kids get married.

Because my son is getting married too, if you've heard me talk about anything at all lately.

Life's a little busy, but all good things, but it's just impacting my ability to get all this stuff done.

So I am working to be consistent at it.

And I would love to try to get ahead and record multiple episodes a week, but it takes me a long time to actually put these things together, believe it or not.

And I have to do a lot of research and then I have to triple check that research and make sure that I am providing you with the most accurate information.

Today's episode is one that I've wanted to do for a while and in regards to research and stuff, there's a lot of different theories as to why these this particular thing happens when we take DLPs, but it's just something that comes up a lot and something that I've actually experienced.

I'm going to talk about my experience with that and what I am talking about, as you read the title, you already know, is Hair loss with the GLPs.

And when it starts happening, if you're one of these people that's happened to, it is so disconcerting.

I know, when I was going through it, I just recently went through a phase of this.

So it's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about it because I like being able to draw on my own experiences with these things.

And I just think I can't always do that.

But when I've actually had a personal experience with something, it's a lot easier for me to go through what that looks like because I've actually gone through it myself.

So I'm sure that makes sense to most of you, but it's really upsetting when it happens.

And I remember when I started going through it almost becomes an area of ocd, obsession, focus.

Because you're constantly looking at the floor, you're constantly looking at the brush, you're constantly looking in the shower to see, like how much of your hair is falling out.

And I went through a pretty bad phase of it.

And it took me a while to figure out what was going on and how to get back on track.

And so that's what we're going to talk about today.

And this is something that comes up quite a bit in the women's peptide collective in the school group.

That's a school group that, that I'm on, that I monitor and I hear women talking about this all the time.

And I think what happens too is if you look at older women, right?

If we look at our grandmothers, for example, a lot of us, our grandmothers are no longer l. My husband happens to have a grandmother who's still alive.

She's 99.

And so he's one of those very rare people that he's in his 50s and still has a grandparent alive, but most people don't.

So let's just.

We'll say we're looking at our mothers.

If you're a younger person out there listening and look at your grandmothers or even maybe your own mom, but you can see how the hair naturally just starts to decline as you get older.

And so it's already something that if we're in that peri or menopausal time of our lives, we're probably already struggling with to some extent.

And then you throw in the GLP and all the amazing things that come out of using a GLP and that exasperates it, but it's helping with all these other things.

And it's such a weird dichotomy, a weird space to be in because you get torn, right?

You love all the benefits that the GLP brings.

Anti inflammatory properties for those of us who need weight loss the weight loss, it can help regulate hormones, it can help stabilize and do all these things.

But then on this other hand, you're losing something that in particular.

And I'm not gonna, I don't wanna discredit how important it is to men, but for a lot of us ladies, our hair is really our identity.

It really just.

Or it's a big part of who we are.

And so it just becomes very disconcerting when that happens.

And so this is something like I said, that I wanted to talk about for a while, but I really wanted to take some time to really dive into it, to listen to other ladies experiences again.

I have my own experience with this to try to really bring you a episode that could speak to a lot of different parts of this.

So all that being said, let's just dive in.

So I think something that is wildly misunderstood is that GLP peptides are not believed to directly damage the hair follicle or anything like that or cause hair loss.

So I'm going to break down some of the top reasons why you might be experiencing hair loss on GLPs, what you can do about it, peptides that can help.

And again, my own personal experience and a theory that I have that's not necessarily scientifically backed, but some conclusions that I've come to on my specific experience with this.

And that'll be later in the episode, so hang in there with me as we kind of get through all this.

And so the most common reason that most people talk about in regards to what causes the hair loss on the GLPs is usually typically the rapid weight loss.

So when your body experiences significant weight loss over a short period of time, it interprets this as a form of physiological stress.

And in response to this stress, the body shifts its priorities away from non essential functions like growing hair and focuses instead on preserving energy for vital organs and metabolic processes.

And this can trigger a condition called telogen effluvium.

I don't know if I'm saying that right, but that's the term.

Okay.

Which is one of the most common causes of temporary hair shedding.

It's just a fancy way of saying hair shedding.

So here's what happens.

Normally, about 85 to 90% of your hair follicles are actively growing, while only 10 to 15% are in this resting phase, this telogen phase, after a significant stressor like rapid weight loss or something like illness, surgery, childbirth, a much larger percentage of follicles prematurely enter the resting phase.

So about two to four months later, those resting hairs begin to shed all at once.

Which is why many people notice increased hair loss several months after starting a glp, even if the peptide itself isn't directly affecting the hair follicle.

So I think this is something that a lot of people can relate to, right?

They start a glp, they lose a bunch of weight really fast.

Sometimes it.

The weight loss takes a little bit longer.

So you're six months in, and all of a sudden your hair starts falling out.

Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it happens quicker.

But in general, I hear most people talk about around six months.

That was not my experience.

I'm going to go into that in a minute.

So I don't want to just like, blanket statement that it's just what majority of people that I've worked with that I read about, et cetera, experience.

So one of the important things to notice about this, though, is this type of hair loss is diffused.

So you're not losing hairs and patches.

Instead, you're seeing more hair all over, kind of shedding.

And like I mentioned, like in the shower drain or in your brush or when you run your fingers through your hair.

I can even remember just, like seeing it on my clothes, in my car, like, when it was really starting to get bad.

So the courage.

The encouraging news about this type of hair loss is it's typically temporary.

So once your weight stabilizes, your nutritional intake improves.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

And your body no longer perceives itself to be under significant metabolic stress.

These hair follicles gradually return to their normal growth cycle.

Because hair grows slowly, right?

That's the downside of this.

Most people begin to notice improvement within three to six months, with more substantial regrowth occurring over six to 12 months.

So something to keep in mind is that typically this is temporary.

So if you're going through a phase where this is happening, know that give it a few months and it's gonna improve.

But we're gonna talk about some ways you can try to improve it faster or keep it from happening altogether here in a minute.

Okay?

This rapid weight loss, what normally happens with rapid weight loss, you're in a big calorie deficit, so you've got reduced calories and caloric intake.

And this is another major reason why this shedding happens.

You're just simply not eating enough.

So these peptides are incredibly effective at reducing appetite, but in some cases, they reduce it so much that people unintentionally consume too few calories and more importantly, too little protein.

I hope you're listening to this hair is made primarily of keratin.

It's a structural protein.

Your body requires a steady supply of amino acids from dietary protein to continuously build new hair.

So when protein intake falls short, your body becomes very efficient at conserving those amino acids for functions that are essential for survival.

Things such as maintaining muscle mass, supporting the immune system, producing enzymes and hormones, and repairing vital tissues.

So hair growth is considered a lower priority.

Okay.

The same concept applies to your overall caloric intake.

So protein is essential, but when you're consistently eating too few calories, your body again shifts into that energy conservation mode.

And instead of investing energy into growing thick, healthy hair, it redirects those resources to support critical organs and metabolic functions.

And as a result, more hair follicles prematurely enter into that resting or that telogen phase and eventually this leads to increased shedding.

This is one of the reasons we need to emphasize that weight loss should never come at the expense of proper nutrition.

It's one of the biggest issues I see with these GLPs.

So even if you're losing weight successfully on one, it's important to really prioritize your protein and consume enough calories to support healthy metabolic function.

And I just see this all the time.

If you're not hungry so you're not eating, that might mean that you need to back off on the dose of the glp.

You don't want to completely lose your appetite.

You want to get rid of the food noise to help you make healthy food choices, but you still need that healthy, those healthy proteins and this sufficient amount of caloric intake every day in order to avoid.

Just basically what we're talking about here is malnutrition.

Okay?

That's what's happening when this happens.

So not having an appetite altogether means you're probably on a little bit of too high of a dose and you may need to adjust it.

And these are things that people do not like to talk about on the GLPs because we get so caught up in the weight loss part of it.

But this is one of the major reasons why this happens.

Okay, It's a no brainer that when you have this significant caloric deficit, you are going to have nutrient deficiencies.

And this is another major contributor to hair loss is the development of these nutrient, these micronutrient deficiencies.

So the peptide itself doesn't deplete the nutrients.

But because many people are eating again significantly less, they're probably not getting enough of the minerals required to support healthy hair growth.

And hair follicles are among the most metabolically active Tissues in the body, they require a constant supply of nutrients to remain in their active growth phase.

So when those nutrients become limited, hair growth slows, follicles enter the resting phase prematurely and increased shedding occurs.

And some of the most important nutrient deficiencies for healthy hair are things like iron, especially ferritin.

Ferritin is your body's iron storage protein, and one of the most common deficiencies associated with hair shedding, particularly in women.

So even if your iron level is considered normal, low ferritin can impact hair growth.

This is a big one that I see come across a lot with people's labs.

Just low ferritin, and it's kind of rampant with women.

And you really want it to be above what the normal average level is for really, truly optimal conditions for hair growth.

And zinc is another one.

It's essential for hair follicle repair, protein synthesis and cell division.

So low zinc levels can contribute to thinning hair and slower regrowth.

Vitamin D. I see vitamin D deficiencies all the time, or I did when I was running labs on people.

It's not uncommon to have a vitamin D deficiency.

So hair follicles contain vitamin D receptors, and adequate vitamin D plays an important role in maintaining the normal hair growth cycle.

Biotin, while true biotin deficiency is relatively uncommon, it can contribute to brittle hair and increased shedding when present.

And optimal biotin levels, even if you're not deficient in them, can help even more with that.

Selenium is another one that doesn't get talked about enough, but it can help protect the hair follicles from oxidative stress and support normal thyroid function, which often can tank as well.

If you're on a GLP and you're going through rapid weight loss, which we'll talk about a little bit more here in a second, but these both influence healthy hair growth.

Things like essential fatty acids, omega 3s and other healthy fats help maintain scalp health, reduce inflammation, and support the structure and just overall texture of the hair.

Like B12 and folate are critical for DNA synthesis and the rapid cell turnover required for healthy hair follicles.

I see vitamin B deficiencies all the time.

This can impair normal hair production as well.

So the key is that these deficiencies often don't happen overnight.

As appetite decreases over weeks or months, these nutrient stores can gradually decline, especially if meals become smaller, less varied, or lack sufficient protein and whole foods.

So we can't just live off junk.

That's another thing I see.

I see a lot of people, they're eating a lot Less because they're on a glp, but they're not eating clean, healthy, whole foods.

They're still eating processed foods because of the overall lack of caloric intake.

And now you're layering in foods that are depleted of any kind of nutrient value, then this just compounds the issue.

So you can kind of start to see a theme here.

Another thing is chromo hormonal changes.

Okay?

This can contribute to hair loss during GLP therapy because the hormonal shifts that occur with significant weight loss.

Fat tissue isn't just stored energy.

It also functions as an active endocrine organ, and it produces and influences numerous hormones throughout the body.

And as body fat decreases, hormone levels and signaling can change, sometimes affecting the normal hair growth cycle.

So, estrogen, for example, it keeps hair follicles in the active growth phase.

So as body fat decreases or estrogen levels fluctuate, more follicles may transition into the resting phase, increasing, temporary shedding.

And we know this to be true in perimenopause and menopause, right?

Because we hear women, like I mentioned earlier, talk about how their hair just starts drastically changing once they hit menopause or in the perimenopause phase.

And this is due to a decline in hormones, regardless if you're on a GLP or not.

So the hormone thing is an important element here.

Thyroid hormones, weight loss, calorie restriction, or underlying thyroid dysfunction can alter thyroid hormone production and or conversion.

Since thyroid hormones regulate metabolism in nearly every single cell, including hair follicles, even mild changes can contribute to thinning hair.

This is another thing that I see a lot when I was looking at labs, is thyroid function decline.

Again, this happens naturally as we get older, but then when you have this rapid weight loss coming on, it can really mess up the thyroid.

So it's something to pay attention to.

Cortisol, rapid weight loss and aggressive calorie restrictions can temporarily elevate cortisol because you're putting your body in a stressed environment, okay, because this is the body's primary stress hormone.

So higher cortisol levels can increase inflammation and again promote this shedding by signaling the body to conserve energy rather than invest in the hair growth.

Androgens are a big one.

You'll see this with girls, in women with pcos or in general, if your hormones get out of balance as you age.

So as body composition changes, so can the androgen balance.

And in people who are genetically predisposed to the androgenic alopecia, these hormonal shifts can accelerate or unmask pattern hair loss that may not have been noticeable before, so I see this quite a bit as well, is people that genetically have these sensitivities towards something like pcos, and there's a couple other ones out there that I'm not going to go into genetically can start causing some real problems.

And something to just notate here is that the GLPs don't create a hormone problem.

Lots of times they're just revealing one that was already present because you're putting your body in a stress situation.

So if you already have some mild thyroid stuff going on, you already struggling with pcos, already struggling with perimenopause or menopause, this can exasperate it if you're losing the weight really rapidly, too fast, or doing this for an extended period of time.

I've also seen the opposite happen.

I've also seen, particularly with women with pco, how it can really help stabilize and regulate the hormones.

So I don't want to just say that's going to make it worse.

In many cases, it makes it better.

But when it comes to hair loss, you have to really make sure that your hormones are in check.

This is also why two people can lose the same amount of weight on the same amount of the peptide and have completely different experiences.

One may have no hair shedding at all, while another experiences significantly thinning.

Because of some of these underlying issues going on, because we started to kind of create a picture of all the things, and it's not just one thing, right?

It's a balance.

We're trying to keep the body imbalance.

So when these things start to get out of balance or a combination of them, that's when you start seeing some of these problems.

And in this example, like we're talking about today, hair loss.

So what do you do?

Right.

It's great.

Tara.

You know, you're saying, like, I understand what you're saying.

I need to eat more protein.

I need to get my hormones checked.

I need to make sure I don't have any micronutrient deficiencies.

All right, great.

What do I do?

Let's talk about how you do that.

Because ultimately, everything that I'm going to go through in this next little section here are things that we all should be doing to keep our bodies in optimal form.

So if you are losing a lot of your hair, that means something is out of whack.

Normally something else is going on, stress or something like that.

So if you're one of these people that is losing a lot of hair, I'm not Saying all the time, we're going to talk about my experience for a minute because I have a theory on that.

But most of the time that's your body's way of saying, hey, something's not right, something's wrong.

I'm not liking this.

And so let's talk about things we can do.

A, to prevent the hair loss altogether, if you're on a GLP now or you're about to start one, and B, how to come back from it if you are experiencing hair loss, to stop it and help you get in a healthy hair growth pattern quicker.

First thing, and some of these I mentioned already, but slow the the rate of weight loss.

Okay?

If this rapid weight loss, it appears to be one of the biggest triggers and the first step is avoiding overly aggressive weight loss.

One to two pounds a week is very normal.

I had two different ladies reach out to me this week and tell me that they were concerned.

They were only losing about one to one and a half pounds a week.

And they see all these other ladies losing weight more weight a lot quicker and they want to lose weight faster.

And my response to both of them was that's a very healthy weight loss schedule.

And you don't want to have some of these side effects and you don't want to throw your body into a stressed environment and then become unhealthy and have these micronutrient deficiencies and all the things that go with it.

So if you are one of these people that's rapidly losing weight again, you're probably on too high of a dose.

And don't ask me what dose because that looks different for every single person.

I know people that respond to a very low dose of retatrutide or tirzepatide and others that don't get any weight loss until they're up on the what would be considered the medium dose.

And so that's going to look very different for everyone.

So slow the weight loss down.

That's a really easy way to avoid this.

Prioritize protein and adequate calories.

What does that look like?

I tell people all the time that you are going to have to force feed yourself protein and to the point where you're probably going to be like ad nauseam trying to get the protein down.

At a minimum, I would say you need 1 gram of protein per ideal lean body mass.

If you weigh 170 pounds and you want to weigh 150 pounds, aim for 150 grams of protein a day.

You don't necessarily want to start doing that right away.

Assess where you're already at because it can be kind of rough on the digestive system.

And so you probably want to start like amping up slowly.

Let's say you assess how much protein you're getting and I guarantee you're getting less than what you think you are.

Let's just say for even numbers you're getting 50 grams.

Try increasing that over a week or two to 75, then go up to a hundred, then go to 125.

You get my drift?

Until your body adjusts to that amount of protein, this takes work, y'.

All.

It is hard to get that much protein and you have to plan for it because you're not going to be hungry on these GLPs.

You need to wake up in the morning and have a plan on how to get your protein in.

Spread it out throughout several meals, throughout the day.

I would say probably four meals.

When I was doing functional nutrition, the four meals would tend to work for most people.

I wouldn't do it in snacks.

I would do it in four full meals.

You have a morning meal, a mid to late morning meal, an afternoon meal, a mid afternoon meal and then an evening meal.

If you are one of these people that has a hard time breaking down protein in the gut, apple cider vinegar is your best friend.

Take several sips of it throughout the day, before and after meals.

You can dilute it with water.

They also have, I can't think of the name of it, but they have these little shots you can get pre made.

They're a little more expensive, but when I'm on the go, I take them with me.

And because I tend to not digest food as well when I'm traveling, really helps me when I'm traveling to kind of get that protein broken down.

But it's something that you have to plan for, identify and correct nutrient deficiencies.

Look, if you're really struggling with this or you want to avoid it altogether and you are able to go get your lab work done, figure out if you have any micronutrient deficiencies.

This is something that I recently did and I'll talk about my experience in a little bit.

And I realized I had some little things here and there that were just, they were so minor.

And I get my labs done on a regular basis.

But I was like, okay, I'm going to tweak these.

Just these, these little things at a minimum, get on a good multivitamin.

If you are struggling with thyroid hair, that sort of thing, there are like thyroid vitamins that have all of the components in them that you would need.

But selenium is a big one that I see.

A lot of zinc, not as much.

And I don't necessarily think that you need to take a zinc supplement every day, but especially when I'm on a copper peptide Regimen, I do 15 milligrams three times a week, and I do it alternate on the day, on the time of day that I'm doing the.

The copper peptide, the ghkcu.

So if I take the GHKCU in the morning, I'll do the zinc at night.

But you want to keep those in balance because copper is another thing that can really affect hair as well.

And so you want to make sure you're keeping those two in balance.

Let's see.

Also a liquid drink called Skin Aid that has collagen and all the B vitamins.

They're methylated and biotin, and I drink one of those a day.

They're not the cheapest thing in the world, but it's very comprehensive.

And I am not someone that likes taking a lot of pills.

And it's a drink.

I know I'm one of those weird people, but it helps me get that down.

And so I'm not skipping it because at night, it's really the last thing I want to do.

So there's that piece as well.

But if you can get your micronutrient deficiencies, like get a mic, a micronutrient test done, labric done, you'll know if you're already low on something for sure.

If you're having trouble with this and you have some hair loss, you can get that done as well.

And then start taking the right supplements to get your body back where it needs to be so you will stop losing hair.

But for anyone that is starting a glp, I would go ahead and try to get that done.

Or just preemptively get on a really good supplement regimen to make sure that you're not missing any of these really important vitamins and minerals.

Okay.

Your hormone health.

I cannot stress how important this is.

It's one of the top reasons why a lot of women really struggle with this.

So if you have not had your sex hormones checked, your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, all of it, you need to have a full hormone lab work, makeup, but then a full thyroid panel.

You need to know if your thyroid's functioning at a subcar level.

I see this happen a lot with ladies on GLP or just in midlife in general, because it just starts to tank.

So you want to make sure that those things are being optimized as well.

Because no amount of supplementation in the world is going to.

It's going to compensate for hormonal shifts that you really don't have any control over.

It's just a natural part of aging.

So you want to make sure that you're having those checked at least every six months.

I like to get mine done once a quarter because I'm right at the cusp of needing to get on hormone replacement therapy and I don't want to go six months and miss something.

And so if you can do that, a good functional health doctor, again, I'm not going to go into all the labs you would want run, but a good functional health practitioner, a nurse practitioner or doctor can really come in and say, hey, these are the things that you need looked at in order to keep you optimal.

And if you're on a GLP or starting a glp, it can kind of help mitigate this hair loss thing.

Okay.

Beyond those things, beyond this hormone health, thyroid health, micronutrient deficiencies and caloric intake, particularly protein, those are gonna be the main culprits.

Okay.

You need to be doing things like resistance training.

This can help preserve muscle and reduce metabolic stress.

You've probably talked about this a lot.

Prioritize your sleep people.

I can't stress that enough.

That'll help keep those stress hormone levels down and it can help with repairing tissue at night.

So if you're already stressed, you're already on a glp, you've got all these other things going on and you're not sleeping, it's only going to make the situation worse.

There's also things like red light therapy that can help.

But I'm going to go as far to say, because you've heard me talk about red light therapy, I'm a huge fan of it.

And I have a red light.

I have a clinical grade red light therapy bed in my house.

That's how much I love red light therapy.

But if you don't have all those other things worked out, the red light therapy is going to enhance optimal health and lots of times help with repair and recovery.

But it's not going to fix all the other things.

So you have to get all those other things right.

It can come alongside as a tool to help maximize the results of making sure all those other things are in balance, but it's not going to fix the problem.

So I want to be clear about that.

Let's talk about peptides and I want to focus on two G H K C U is one of them.

That's the copper peptide.

It has a ton of research on it that shows that it helps stimulate hair follicle stem cells, it increases blood vessels around the foul around the hair follicles, it improves cellular matrix remodeling, it reduces inflammation around the follicle, it increases collagen, and it may.

There's some mixed science about this.

Prolong the antigen, the growth phase of the hair cycle, which is what we all want, Right?

The other one is AH K C U.

It's a nether copper peptide that has gained attention specifically for hair.

And this one shows it's probably my favorite as far as a topical.

The ghkc.

You can inject the ahkcu you want to keep as topical.

It stimulates the dermal papilla cells.

I'm not saying that.

Right.

Papilla cells, that's not right.

You'll have to look that up.

But it increases those cells, it increases follicle hair size and it can reduce DHT signaling with the hair follicle and it supports new hair growth.

Really, the two of these combined topically are my favorite when it comes to hair growth stimulating peptides.

I have teased for a while that we're going to have the AHKCU peptide hair serum.

We just had a terrible time with the raw material for that and getting the right formula.

And you know me, I'm not going to bring anything to you unless I know it is perfect and we're just not there yet.

But I promise you it's in the works and we are working on it.

And I really hope to get something out there to y' all soon.

I'm sure you can find it other places.

We are wanting to make a very potent version of this.

That's what our goal is and a very clean version.

And we've had a really hard time finding that.

So just know that and make sure you do your homework.

If you do find one that it's very clean and it's.

I would say it has both AHKCU and GHKCU.

The standard for the AHKCU is about 1% to be effective with the GHKCU, 1 to 3%.

We're trying to do a product that is higher in potency than that.

You can go higher in potency, and that's what we're working on.

But if you can find a product out there, I would say that is a really good one to look into.

Let's talk about my personal experience because I have some theories on this, right?

And this is one question that I've been asked a couple of times.

So when I've experienced this myself, I thought, okay, this is something that I should probably discuss or look into a little bit.

And let me be clear, I do not have any scientific research with what I'm about to say to back up this.

This is just theory on my end and speculation on my end.

But I actually noticed when I was taking Retitrue Tide that my hair shedding was significantly worse.

And this was recent.

I recently did a round of Reddit Truetide because I haven't always responded to it well from a sleep standpoint, but I was just like all of you out there.

I want to, I want to continue to experiment.

And I've always said just because you try something once or twice didn't really work, you may have to go back, revisit it, adjust, figure out what works for you.

So I'm like, okay, let's go to Red a Tree Tide again.

As far as my diet, my workouts, everything would have remained the same again.

I get my hormones checked, I get my micronutrients checked.

Everything was imbalanced.

Thyroid was imbalanced.

There may have been a couple little things, minor here and there, nothing that even in the functional health space everything would have been is considered optimal on my lab work.

And it's something that I work really hard at, so that's not necessarily surprising.

But the reason why I'm bringing that up is because this wasn't one of those situations.

I also really prioritize how much protein I'm getting every single day.

I want to reiterate, like all the things that we just discussed that wasn't really coming into play when I started Retitrutide.

So I was on it for about four months and I was on a very low dose and I titrated up a little bit.

I did split dosing two to three times a week, depending on my schedule, never going above a couple of milligrams total a week.

This is more again for maintenance, but wanted to lose two or three vanity pounds.

Just try to keep things in balance.

And also was thinking with the glucagon aspect I could lean out a little.

But what I noticed was that my hair started shedding like a lot.

And so I went and had my lab work done and my ferritin was still very optimal, teeny tiny bit low.

Some people say you want to be between like 70 to 100 optimal.

Now I was right under that.

So not enough.

Where I would say that it would contribute to significant hair shedding like I was having.

There were handfuls of it coming out my thyroid.

Let's grade all my other micronutrients.

Let's grade.

I did end up adjusting some of my supplements just to even optimize them a little bit more because I was desperate.

And it never dawned on me that it could be the retatrutide.

And I like to cycle through the GLPs.

So I get off the retatrutide because it's time for me to cycle terzepatide.

And within a couple of weeks, my hair completely stopped shedding.

And I was like, okay, again, nothing had changed.

So why would this happen?

Well, the biggest difference in those two is the glucagon element.

I'll make this super brief because most of you know what that means, but tirzepatide is a double agonist, meaning that has.

It has GLP and gip.

Retatrutide is a triple agonist, so it has glp, gip, and glucagon.

So the only difference here between those two is this glucagon component.

And most people think of glucagon as a hormone that raises blood sugar.

And while that's true, it does much more than that.

It's one of the body's major energy mobilizing hormones.

It increases end of energy expenditure, fat oxidation, lipolysis, or fat breakdown, hepatic glucose production, and overall metabolic activity.

It it.

So it doesn't just help you eat less, it actually makes your body burn more energy.

What everyone wants.

But what if your body interprets that as physiological stress?

And here's where I think the hair thing becomes interesting.

Because hair follicles are, again, incredibly metabolically acted.

They're constantly dividing, producing care care, building new hair shafts, et cetera.

So if you're one of these people that's extremely sensitive to these shifts, this could signal the body that energy needs to be conserved.

So when the body senses increased physiological demand, even without starvation, these caloric deficits, et cetera, it may shift sources away from hair growth.

And this could trigger this increased hair shedding.

Researchers have not answered this yet, whether this stronger glucagon signaling itself creates enough physiological stress to push more hair follicles into the resting phase.

But I do think it's biologically plausible.

It just simply hasn't been proven yet.

So think about it this way.

You have two people, both weigh exactly the same, both eat the exact same amount of calories, both have, let's say, the exact type of lab Work coming back, everything looks great, but one person's metabolism is burning an extra 3 to 400 calories every single day.

I'm not suggesting that's what glucagon does as far as like how much caloric energy output you have, but let's just throw that out there.

Which body is under greater metabolic demand?

The second one, right?

That's essentially what glucagon receptor activation is doing.

So your body is working harder around the clock.

And that increased metabolic activity requires more ATP, more mitochondrial activity, more substrate utilization, more cellular turnover.

And so hair follicles may simply be more vulnerable in that environment.

One of the other theories that came up when I started really diving into this is cortisol.

So retatrutide hasn't been shown to directly increase cortisol, but if your body perceives a greater metabolic demand, it's reasonable to wonder whether stress pathways become more active in certain individuals.

And hair follicles are highly responsive to stress hormones.

Even relatively small changes in the body stress response can influence whether follicles stay in the active growth phase, are prematurely shipped into the resting phase.

Again, hypothesis here, we simply don't have the studies yet.

The truth is you've heard me talk a lot about how I stay in the fight or flight nervous system pattern, and so I know that I already struggle with this.

I, I also know that I'm genetically predisposed to having hair loss during times of stress.

And I say this A, because I found my genetics run, but B, because when I get stressed, that's always been throughout my whole life, one of the first things that happens.

So when things start to shift metabolically for me, it's not uncommon for me to experience hair shedding with everything else staying the same.

So in my mind it stands to reason, because we know that the rudded tree type puts more stress on the body, could potentially have you staying in that fight or flight mode even more or for prolonged periods of time.

And we know that it can slow down recovery in the sense like HRV tanks.

When some people take it, they don't get good recovery with sleep.

I noticed a little bit of that.

Nothing extreme, but I think it was enough for my body to put it in a stress mode because I already have a lot of stress things going on.

So this is metabolically stressing my body to the point where it was like, I don't like this.

It goes in self preservation mode with everything else being equal, hair starts to fall out.

Now let me say this, does this mean that if you're on Retatrutide and it's working for you and you're losing your hair that I think you should quit.

No, I think it's something to keep in mind and it might be worth Recycling a GLP2 or a tirzepatide to see if that ships anything for you.

I think Retatrutide is an amazing GLP and I'm not suggesting that you run and get off of it.

This is my purse.

Again, my personal experience with this and a very interesting one.

Can I say with a confidence that it was the retitru tide 100% NIM?

I cannot because the timing was there too.

I'd gone through the hair loss pattern, I'd gone through the shedding for a couple of months and then right around that time is when I switched it to Zepatide and then the hair shedding started to decline.

So it could have just been the timing and the natural timing of things as well, but it was the one thing that I had changed and that seemed to make a difference.

But it was a good wake up call for me to listen to my body, have my lab work done, make sure everything's as optimal as possible, have a check on my protein intake and hey, I might just be one of those people and you've heard me say this before, that does better on Tirzepatide than they do retatrutide.

The moral of the story is here is that it's not a one size fits all.

So if you get any takeaway from this at all, really value your nutrition, your micronutrient health and your hormone health.

Whether you're on a GLP or not.

As you age, it's the only way to really stay optimal and well and know that you may have to shift some things along the way to figure out works what works best for you.

This one went way longer than I had expected, but there was a lot to cover and hopefully you took some takeaways to give you some sort of direction on where to go and what to do and how to resolve the issue if you are having hair loss.

And I hope that if you are someone that's struggling with this that you will get it figured out because again, I know how upsetting it can be.

And so that wraps up today's episode.

I'm going to try to make the housekeeping stuff really short and sweet.

One of the things I wanted to mention, when you email the info email at the peptide, you are not getting me getting my customer service team, my daughter runs that she's ahead of that team.

So you are getting her or someone else that's under her that's answering your questions.

A lot of the time it's Maddie directly, but not always.

If you want to email me, my email's in the show notes.

I am not doing consultations anymore.

My schedule just simply will not allow for it, unfortunately.

But if you have some questions that are pretty easy to answer, I can answer them via email.

And what else?

If you're a woman and you want to learn about peptides, join the Women's Peptide Collective.

It's a free group on the Skool platform.

There's a link.

There's a link in the show notes.

If you already know a lot about peptides, if you know nothing about peptides and you want to learn more, it's a great place to land.

I try to get on there at least once a day.

I'm on there less right now.

I'm trying to be better about that.

It's just my schedule is so nutty.

What else?

I think that's it, y'.

All.

So that wraps up this one.

And until next time, have a blessed day.