A new research report published on Monday indicated that hair reveals evidence of a person's diet and can help doctors diagnose eating disorders(File Photo)

A new research report published on Monday indicated that hair reveals evidence of a person's diet and can help doctors diagnose eating disorders, according to media reports.

Researchers from Utah's Brigham Young University found that examining carbon and nitrogen in the proteins of hair could reveal information about a person's day-to-day nutrition.

Lead author Kent Hatch from the university's Department of Integrative Biology said clinicians could use this as a tool to help diagnose such disorders as anorexia or bulimia because many sufferers lied or did not recognize their problems.

Current methods used to diagnose and monitor patients suffering from eating disorders relied heavily on questionnaires and interviews.

"Their self-evaluation is very impaired," said Jennifer Tolman, clinical director at Avalon Hills, a treatment facility in Cache County, Utah of the United States.

"We had a girl who was five feet and 10 inches tall and weighed 98 pounds and she wasn't even sure she had an eating disorder, although she could recognize it in others," Tolman said.

Hair grows by adding new proteins to the base of the strand, and pushing the strand up out of the hair follicle. The make-up of these proteins will be influenced by the nutritional state of the person at that moment. This nutritional state is in turn subtly affected by eating patterns associated with eating disorders. Because hair grows all the time, each strand consequently becomes a chemical diary, recording an individual's day-by-day nutrition, the researchers said.