Stress really does make you go grey

WHETHER it’s a demanding job, a taxing relationship, or a hectic family life, there are many things we can blame for making our hair go grey.

And far from being a baseless moan, scientists have found that stress really does lead to hair turning silver.

It has been argued that going grey early is an inevitable genetic process that runs in families.

But researchers found that when the body gets stressed – such as by serious illness or some other shock – this has a dual effect.

As well as our immune system mounting a defensive response, it also triggers changes in the cells in hair follicles which produce colour. This in turn makes our hair turn silvery or grey.

Researchers from the University of Alabama, Birmingham in the US found the ‘surprising’ link between genes that control hair colour and genes that signal to our bodies it is time to fight off an infection.

As well as ‘turning off’ hair colour, it can also turn off colour in the skin – leading to the disease vitiligo, which causes discoloured skin patches. Pop star Michael Jackson was a famous vitiligo sufferer. The research – carried out on mice – published in PLOS Biology reports that when the body is under attack, our cells produce chemical signals called interferons.

These interferons make our cells’ machinery undergo changes that thwart viruses and generally boost defences. But an unexpected sideeffect of the defence system is that it turns off cells producing hair colour. William Pavan, study coauthor and researcher at the British National Institute in Health said: ‘These results may enhance our understanding of hair greying. More importantly, discovering this connection will help us understand pigmentation diseases with innate immune system involvement like vitiligo.’

However, claims that hair can turn white or grey overnight, are not supported by science.

Marie Antoinette’s hair allegedly changed colour overnight – appearing white on the day of her execution.

Scientists say this is unlikely as there is no mechanism that could explain how hair – which is biologically dead – could become altered by a biological process in the body. It is likely that some people are genetically more likely to go grey early, however.

Last year researchers from University College London found the first individual gene known to cause hair to turn grey, called IRF4.

‘Genes that control pigment’