Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University
Objectives: Excessive sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) intake is a risk factor of chronic diseases. In recent decades, SSBs intake kept increasing in the young population, which is a global public health problem. Hair loss can attract more attention of young people than chronic diseases. Therefore, we aimed to explore the association between the frequency and amount of SSBs intake and the hair loss condition in this study.
Methods: We included 1169 women (aged 18-45) from a cross-sectional study in 2022. Each participant completed an e-questionnaire on lifestyle, emotional status, hair loss condition, beverage and dietary intake. The beverage intake was investigated by the 15-item Beverage Intake Questionnaire (BEVQ-15); the hair loss condition was graded by the Hair Shedding Visual Scale for Asian Women (HSVS-A). Binary logistic regression was applied to analysis the association between the SSBs intake and female hair loss. We also conducted mediation analysis to assess the mediation effect of anxiety status, and the stratified analysis by family history of hair loss and body mass index (BMI). Results: We included 958 normal participants and 211 patients with hair loss in this study. After adjusting for confounders, the results of binary logistic regression showed that compared with the never-drinkers, the risk of hair loss was higher on those excessive-drinkers who drank SSBs more than 7 times per week (OR=2.25, 95% CI: 1.32-3.83) and 1000 mL per week (OR=2.22, 95% CI: 1.28-3.85). The mediation analysis indicated that anxiety status mediates the association between SSBs intake amount and hair loss, with significant indirect effect (βindirect = 0.0199, 95% CI = [0.0032, 0.0418]). Among the population with family history of hair loss, middle intake amount can increase the risk of hair loss significantly (OR=3.81, 95% CI: 1.43-10.17). In addition, in both BMI < 24 and BMI ≥ 24 population, excessive intake of SSBs can significantly increase the risk of hair loss.
Conclusions: Excessive SSBs intake increases the risk of hair loss in young women, partially mediated by anxiety status. We hope that this study can help young people understand the impact of SSBs on hair loss and reduce the SSBs intake.
