Is there a link between Seborrheic Dermatitis and eggs?

I have been suffering from SB for half my life. Mostly on the scalp and face. Recently it got worse, i started to lose a lot of hair including eyebrow and beard hair and there was this constant terrible itch . This freaked me out so i started looking for a cure. First I stopped eating grains, then I stopped stopped eating dairy. But unfortunately this didn’t reduce the flakes and hairloss. Then I read this post and I realized that I have been eating eggs for breakfast almost every day. I stopped eating eggs for 3 days and I started to drink a glas of water with 2 tablespoons of ACV every day. My SB has cleared for 70%!! The hairloss however is still continuing I hope it stops soon.

Hi Mohammed,

Thanks for such a detailed report. Happy to hear that your skin is clearing up so quickly. Perhaps you may have been secretly allergic/sensitive to eggs.
Personally, I’ve added eggs back into diet a long time ago. Sometimes the mind can trick you into believing things which may not necessarily be true.

How long ago have you added the bullet-proof coffee? I think this may actually be a huge piece of why your skin may clearing up. It contains the specific medium chain triglycerides that have been shown to have anti-fungal potential against the malassezia documented to be responsible for SD. So potentially the internal consumption is providing topical benefits. These same fatty acids are a large part of my own solution, which I have wrote about in a previous post:

My Seborrheic Dermatitis Skin Regimen 2.0

Hope that helps and look foward to any updates.
All the best.

Hi Ibrahim,

Happy to hear of the results. A while after writing this post I added eggs back and have been depending on them for one of my main protein sources. SD has remained clear. So for me it wasn’t really a solution.

However, after seeing more comments like yours there may in fact be something here for a certain number of individuals who don’t handle eggs too well.
Overall though I believe SD is closely related to fatty acids in the body.

Thanks for checking in and providing your experience.
If you get a chance, considering checking-in at a later time to update on how things went.

All the best.

I noticed that my skin was flareing like crazy lately, severe dandruff on my scalp and rash on my head, dandruf in my eyebrows and dry flaky skin under my eyes around the side of my nose and also in my ears.
I am aware that I have reactions to dairy and try to cut dairy products out all together. I weight train in the gym an thus require a high amount of protein for muscle rebuilding and since I can’t take whey protein or any other high protein dairy products I was eatting a lot of eggs.
My mam told me to eliminate eggs as they were the only thing that I was eating religiously as I’d eat about 5 or 6 eggs a day.
Since I cut them out my skin is starting to clear up a lot and I do believe it’s from stopping eating eggs.

I broke out in a severe form of seborrheic dermatitis on my scalp, it actually affected my hair, it was so bad. I finally went to the dermatologist but by the time I got in for the appointment it seem to cool down a little bit, so not much was noticed. After finding out I had seborrheic dermatitis after revisiting the doctor 2 more times. I started to link the changes in my diet. I had been eating eggs in order to lose some weight and never was a huge egg eater in the past. However, once I stopped eating the eggs and was egg free for a couple of months my scalp completely returned to normal. now I have found that I can eat eggs every once in awhile and be okay but if I have a large amount of eggs throughout the week my whole head inflames. The very interesting part is that I went and seen an allergist and I was tested for eggs and they did not find that I had any allergic reactions to them, however it only affects my scalp, so I don’t know if it’s the fact that eggs cause inflammation, or what causes it or why it links to seborrheic dermatitis, but after a year I know for sure that eggs are the reason for my seborrheic dermatitis, so I eat them in moderation and especially try to avoid them in large quantities. I have had some off and on this week and my head is getting itch and usually ill find a bump or 2 and thats when ive ate to much and need to chill out on eggs. Also drinking 8 glasses of water a day really help alot and also limiting your caffeine to 1 - 2 cups, by doing all of those things I am able to keep myself seborrheic dermatitis free for the most part
I hope this helps someone out there as I struggled for a long time before I figured out anything between the link of eggs and SD… Thanks for reading

Sonia, thank you for your reply, my SD has been bad for a while, as a body builder/powerlifter I eat about 10 egg whites everyday for breakfast, no yolk as I am allergic to yolk but not the whites. I’ve tried all sorts of shampoos and can’t quite calm it down any, I have suspected it may be due to eggs, and possibly caffine. I am thinking about cutting out eggs and having a protein drink and some out meal or something instead and see how my scalp handles it. I have the dermatiitis on my scalp. I’m curious as to the turn out.

I’m wondering if eggs trigger my flare ups as my skin has calmed down since I have stopped having two eggs for breakfast each day.

I still have Rosacea on my checks but the scaling and sore dermatitis that I get on my checks and chin has reduced considerably after controlling the flare ups with Elidin.

Only after my kids were diagnosed with egg allergies amongst others and egg was removed from our home did I make the correlation between egg and my longstanding dermatitis. By avoiding egg especially lightly cooked/raw my condition is 90% improved. I still eat baked egg. Maybe removing this would clear up the last issues but I worry then about maybe becoming super egg sensitive. All current research points to building up tolerance with manageable exposure. So baked edd stays!

I’ve taken eggs out of my diet and reintroduced them to see my skin flare-up. I didn’t even know this was called Seborrheic Dermatitis until seeing this post, but now am in no doubt that they are linked and this is what I have!

hi
i agree with you that eggs and itchy scalpy hv a relation … if i take one egg daily …after few days my scalp gets itchy …i hv to stop it n after few days of medicated shamppo it is better …once a week egg seems not to bother .

one imp thing i found and wanted to share about the ongoing topic is that Organic Eggs they hv been giving me better results …the poultry eggs have the allergins to create SD issues and other complications , but now i have shifted from poultry eggs to PURE ORGANIC EGGS and my scalp is totally clear … but it is better not to take too much eggs on daily basis especially in summer season. Hope this will help .

I do body building and egg is there in my daily diet. I generally suffers from a itchy scalp and dandruff kind of thing falling from my scalp but from few days like one week or so, i am not taking egg and now my scalp is absolutely fine.i am not getting if the itching is due to yolk or white. Now i will take only white for few days and notice the symptoms.

There’s a definite correlation between SD and eggs for me. I’m also histamine-sensitive, so I’ll notice that my breathing is more labored after consuming even a little bit of something containing eggs (like mayo).

I’ll have symptoms that I know were triggered by something I don’t consume regularly, so backtracking my diet in the last 24 hours is always a reliable way to troubleshoot the problem(s).

Caffeine is a SD trigger for me, so for those of you who are wondering if you should cut out your coffee, do it. Tea doesn’t give me any problems.

JMathew - just wondering how it’s going since you stopped eating eggs and limiting your caffeine? I am still doing those things pkus drinking lots of water and I find it still works well. Doctors say I’m crazy that there is no possible way that eggs link to SD on the scalp, however, I know my body and I’m the one struggling with it and without a doubt i know what works and what causes it to be worst. Here’s a story, so I had a bad breakout over the holidays and I couldn’t figure out why, thinking to myself that I had ate eggs one morning as usual on a Saturday or every other week and hadn’t had any extra,but didn’t realize how many eggs were in all that good holiday food we had ate. Cake, cookies, pie, ect. And when it dawned on me that my normal intake of eggs had been expanded and in a wide variety of holiday food, I was so aggravated that I was trying to keep my SD under control and it itched so bad and my beautiful long locks started getting tangled and dry. I had to be very careful with my hair and did have a few inches cut off because it took such a toll on it, but today I’m back to good and Now I’m even more conscious about what I eat and whether or not it has eggs in it and how much to have or not have. Other than that I remain fairly clear with the same old routine. I use Nizoral shampoo occasionally because its the only one that has the ingredient " ketoconazole" which fights fungas and I use it especially after i have an egg which I will have once every 2 weeks or so depending on how my scalp is doing and that’s it. I find really amount up my water allows me to have a little more caffeine if i need it. I love my coffee. So How’s things going for you now that’s it been awhile? Have u found any new things that work for you?

I will be waiting for your response. I’ve never tried to see if it was the yolk or the egg white that bothered my scalp, yet I’ve had a lot of people ask me which part of the egg I’m “allergic” to… I hope u find something out and stay clear and itch free as I know how bothersome it can be. I love eggs and wish I could eat then whenever I wanted to, but I just stick to every once in awhile then I use my Nizoral shampoo about once a week and I stay calm. I guess that’s better than nothing…

Good luck, Sonia

There has been an absolute correlation for me. I thought my scalp issue was related to having a cat or products I used in my hair.

Funnily, I saw chickens push out eggs and it grossed me out so much. I stopped eating eggs for a long time and I was fine. Soon as I reintroduced them into my diet I began having severely itchy patches form on my scalp and I had lots of hair loss.

What prompted me to search for this correlation was having a direct flare after eating egg foo young.

I had immediate flare symptoms and now I know it’s the eggs which sucks because I thought they were a healthy part of my diet. Not the case.

I’m sure there are studies on this but the egg industry is too large for anyone to go up against it. I’ve found that Clobetasol also helps reduce flaring but hopefully being more disciplined with removing eggs will eliminate my use of the steroidal medicine.

I’m suffering from this condition from last 3 years …can anyone suggest me some do’s and dont’s to get rid of this
And from last 3 yrs im experiencing hairfall and itchiness continuously in my scalp …
This is very depressing …
Should i cut off non veg ?

They’re linked for me as well. Another possible machanism is avidin, the lectin in egg white that binds to biotin. It is reduced when cooked, but not eliminated. Biotin deficiency can cause sebborheic dermatitis. People say the biotin in the yolk should offset the effect of avidin, but as someone who suffered a legitimate biotin deficiency from a perfect storm of diet/supplement mistakes, and who never had SD before the biotin issue, I can tell you that even eating cooked eggs brings the SD back for me. I ate eggs periodically for my whole life without a problem until the biotin issue. I’m wondering if frequent egg consumtpion can decrease
Biotin status.

All these years, it wasn’t the hair products, peanut butter, dairy or workout sweat. It was eggs! Today you confirmed my suspicion.
Thank you so much for posting.

Having followed a reduced dairy Ketogenic way of eating for a couple of years and healing several things including guttate psoriasis, I tried carnivore before Christmas and ate just meat for 2 weeks. My skin and scalp cleared. Over the holidays I had some eggs for breakfast and within an hour I was red and my skin was dry and scaling. A week later I tried mayo on a piece of meat and within 30 minutes I had hot itchy skin which was visible to my family. Since January I have done controlled trials with eggs and they are definitely the culprit for me. I haven’t needed any of my steroid creams since excluding them from my diet. I am watching tv and simply googled eggs and sebhorric dermatitis to see was I alone?! I’m so I’m glad to have found this page. Hopefully others will trial cutting eggs and get great results! I wish I’d tried this 30+ years ago!