Can Problems And Stress Really Cause Gray Hair?

MessageToEagle.com – An old legend tells the hair of Queen of France Marie Antoinette turned white within hours the night before she was guillotined. It presumably happened as a result of stress of impending decapitation. Today, we are often told we shouldn’t worry so much or our hair will turn gray. But is it just an old saying or a scientific fact? Can problems and stress really cause gray hair?

Normally, the first signs of gray hair for an average Caucasian can be seen around age 30 for men and age 35 for women, but graying can begin as early as high school for some and as late as the 50s for others. How soon or late you will get gray hair depends on your DNA.

The process begins a bit later for African Americans.

While there’s some lingering debate about the underlying mechanism that causes hair to lose its pigment, most experts agree it has to do with your scalp’s color-producing cells—called melanocytes—switching off, according to Dr. Adam Friedman, an associate professor of dermatology and director of translational research at George Washington University.

According to Dr. Tyler Cymet, chief of clinical education at the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, there’s evidence stress may shorten the duration of your hair’s cycles, which would accelerate the spread of gray. Stress also creates systemic inflammation, which can switch off those pigment-producing cells, experts say.  If you’re perpetually stressed, the resulting inflammation can speed up your hair’s chromatic transformation.

“We’ve seen that people who are stressed two to three years report that they turn gray sooner,” Dr. Cymet says.

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Cymet suspects that going gray is “genetically outlined, but stress and lifestyle give you variation of plus or minus five to 10 years.” Blonds often appear to go gray later in life because white strands easily hide in a sea of light hair when in fact those who are likely to have the darkest hair (people of African and Asian ancestry) seem to retain their color longer.

In short, scientists are beginning to gather clues that stress can hasten the graying process, but there is no scientific evidence demonstrating a cause-and-effect relationship.

To be on the safe side, try to avoid stress. Somehow, most problems can be solved one way or the other.

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