Its True: Stress Does Turn Hair Gray And Its Reversible Columbia University Irving Medical Center
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The hair that regrows from hair follicles that have lost melanocyte stem cells has less pigment and appears gray. Scientists have put a lot of effort into investigating the cause of gray hair, and they believe they've gotten to the root of the problem. Hair gets its color from a pigment called melanin, which is produced by melanocyte cells in the hair follicles. Researchers have discovered that melanocytes endure damage over the years, which eventually leaves them unable to produce melanin.
Healthy Aging
How stress causes gray hair - National Institutes of Health (NIH) (.gov)
How stress causes gray hair.
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The authors highlight the need to further study the interactions between the nervous system and stem cells in different tissues and organs. The knowledge gained in this work will be useful in future investigations into the impact of stress on the body and the development of new interventions. As we age, these melanin producing cells go through a phenomenon called apoptosis, or programmed cell death, causing the hair to turn gray or white. "The medical term for graying is canities," trichologist Bridgette Hill, WTS, tells PS. "There is a growing curiosity in the science and medical community for study of the hair follicle," she says.
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“In middle age, when the hair is near that threshold because of biological age and other factors, stress will push it over the threshold and it transitions to gray. These nerves are all over the body, including making inroads to each hair follicle, the researchers reported. Hair lost to male-pattern and female-pattern baldness won't grow back on its own, but there are medications that can help slow hair loss and even regrow hair. Minoxidil (Rogaine) is a topical medicine that is available over the counter to treat men and women.
Mice and humans are different. Often medical studies in animals turn out to be impossible to replicate in people.
For someone who has had gray hair for years, however, removing stress is unlikely to cause their locks to rebound to their original color, as the hair has gone well past the graying threshold. Melanocyte stem cells become more vulnerable as they age, he said. So added stress potentially "changes the timing" of graying, he said. There's a long-held belief that graying hair is more than just an issue of time and age — it's a marker of lived experience. The adage, "you're making my hair gray" suggests silvering strands are a record of worries, while Marie Antoinette's hair went white in a single night after learning of her execution, according to legend.
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They also could match the changes in the proteins in the strands to the volunteers’ reports. “Just like tree rings hold information about past decades, and rocks hold information about past centuries, hairs hold information about past months and years,” they wrote. While there may not be a direct link between stress and gray hair, there is strong evidence that suggests stress can lead to various health and cognitive issues. A recent study conducted at Columbia University found that while on vacation, gray hair may revert back to its original color, which suggests a link between stress and gray hair – with the exciting possibility that it may be reversible.
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But there's a cost to being stressed and the cost is that maybe some of the cells age faster,” Picard said. He was amazed at the number of people who reached out to him to share stories of their white hair growing out in color. “There was one individual who went on vacation, and five hairs on that person’s head reverted back to dark during the vacation, synchronized in time,” Picard says.
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"It's the gradual depletion of [melanocyte] stem cells that leads to the loss of pigment," he says. Stress triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, which in turn causes pigment-producing cells that give hair its color to go into a frenzy and dwindle in number, researchers report online January 22 in Nature. "Just as the rings in a tree trunk hold information about past decades in the life of a tree, our hair contains information about our biological history," Picard says. Ayelet Rosenberg, first author on the study and a student in Picard’s laboratory, developed a new method for capturing highly detailed images of tiny slices of human hairs to quantify the extent of pigment loss (graying) in each of those slices. Being gentle with your hair while it’s experiencing change is important so as not to exacerbate any thinning. It goes without saying that excessive heat and chemical treatments aren’t a good idea, but try and opt for protective hairstyles too.
If you find it difficult to cope or your stress symptoms don’t decrease, it may be time to talk with a professional. There are many resources for finding a therapist or support group to help you deal with the stressors in your daily life. Mindfulness is the psychological process of actively paying attention to the present moment. You can do many things to trigger the relaxation response and reduce stress.
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"Conceivably, if that signal is disrupted, melanin will not deliver pigment to your hair." Some people start seeing gray hairs in their 20s; others in their 50s, so that window of opportunity will vary. The investigators immediately noticed that some gray hairs naturally regain their original color, which had never been quantitatively documented, Picard says.
When you are stressed, your body responds by releasing the neurotransmitter, noradrenaline as part of your “fight-or-flight" reaction. Under normal circumstances, pigment-producing stem cells remain inactive until new hair growth occurs. Participants with some gray hairs or "two-colored hairs" — gray and pigmented in the same strand — were asked to log their experiences and stress levels over recent months. They found that stressful experiences such as a job loss were linked to graying. For now, the next step is to look more carefully at the link between stress and graying. Hints that gray hairs could spontaneously regain color have existed as isolated case studies within the scientific literature for decades.
Harvard researchers, for the first time, have discovered how stress turns hair gray. “Reversal of graying” — instances of hairs that had a white top segment, but were growing in darker at the bottom, or “repigmenting” — was discovered among 10 of the participants. “Based on our mathematical modeling, we think hair needs to reach a threshold before it turns gray,” Picard says.
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