The fact of believing that we get gray hair if we are stressed is understandable. It may not be something that always happens overnight, as popular imagination dictates, but there is a scientific explanation for graying in stressful situations.
The appreciation made of political leaders is known, comparing their hair before starting the government period and after leaving it. In the majority there is an increase in the number of gray hair.
Science has found that stress can deplete the stem cells that make hair pigment. When they are exhausted, they stop coloring the hair follicle and gray hair appears.
A relationship was also found between the genes that give hair color and those that mediate the body’s immune response. This link would explain why when going through serious infectious processes, some people go gray. This genetics is also related to the skin condition known as vitiligo, where spots without pigmentation appear all over the body.
What are gray hair?
Some scientists consider gray hair to be the natural state of hair. This is hair without pigmentation and it becomes more evident as we age. From this perspective, believing that we get gray hair if we are stressed would be a semantic error; in reality, we would be returning to normal form.
Hair color begins in cells known as melanocytes. These cells produce the pigment melanin, which colors skin and hair. The greater or lesser darkness is given by a variety of this substance that is eumelanin.
With the aging process, melanocytes lose their ability to produce melanin. The lower the melanin, the lower the dark coloration of the hair, and we perceive it as gray. Of course, this is more noticeable in individuals with dark hair.
So, beyond the possibility of stress as a generator of gray hair, we cannot ignore the effect of aging. In this process there are no measures that can be taken against, other than the tincture.
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