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 us go grey.
And far from being baseless moans, scientists have found that stress does actually 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 becomes stressed – when serious illness or some other shock strikes – 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 at Birmingham in the US found the ‘ surprising’ link
‘Genes that control pigment’
between genes that control hair colour and those that tell our bodies it is time to fight an infection.
As well as ‘turning off’ hair colour, they can also turn off colour in the skin – leading to the disease vitiligo, which causes discoloured skin patches. Pop star Michael Jackson had the condition.
The research – carried out on mice – and published in PLOS Biology reports 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 side effect of the defence system is that it turns off cells producing hair colour. William Pavan, study coauthor and researcher at the National Institute in health said: ‘This new discovery suggests genes that control pigment in hair and skin also work to control the innate immune system.
‘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 is said to have changed colour overnight – appearing white on the day of her execution. But historians point out the doomed French queen had probably just appeared without her wig for the first time. While scientists can explain how hair colour is affected gradually by factors such as stress, they say overnight changes are virtually impossible. This is because hair is ‘biologically dead’ so therefore cannot react immediately to changes in the body.