Some cells in our bodies make coloured compounds called pigments. Hair is coloured because the cells that make (grow) hair, also make pigments that become part of hair. When people grow older, sometimes their hair-growing cells stop making pigments. The lack of pigment colour makes hair look gray or even white.
Can we stop this? Some families have lots of gray-haired elders. Other families have lots of coloured hair, even as their members grow old. Chose a family that has very little gray hair and get yourself born into that family. Seriously, if you have genes that tend to stop making pigment, then the only way to stop getting gray hairs is to slow down the aging process.
Around each strand of hair is a hair follicle, containing pigment cells which produce melanin. Melanin is what gives colour to our hair, skin, and the iris of our eye.
As we age the pigment cells in the follicle die and are not replaced. The melanin is broken down and the colour will disappear from the hair. The process of ‘going grey’ can take over ten years from the appearance of the first grey hair to a full silver mane. Eventually everyone’s pigment cells would die, but this can occur any time from a person’s early 20’s to absolutely ancient’s. People who never go grey have pigment cells that are outlasting the rest of their body.
There seems to be a large genetic component to losing your hair colour, so the best way to estimate for yourself is to look at your parents and grandparents and when they started to get grey hairs.
Someone just had to ask about grey hairs. I absolutely can’t stand them. You see my profile photo of black hair? It’s fake. Well the photo isn’t fake but the hair is. I’ve dyed it. I have grey hairs, just a few and I’m only 30 but this doesn’t mean that you’ll get grey hairs when you hit 30. In my family, a few of my older relatives started grey hairs early in life and I seem to have inherited the gene for early grey hairs.
The cells around my hair follicle from where the hair grows have stopped producing colour, (melanin). No amount of persuading will change this as they’ve died. Now I could go around with grey hair on my head but at the moment it’s quite scattered and having black hair it looks like tiny silvery/white streaks in my hair. Useful at costume parties if I decide to dress up as a faerie or a witch but not for everyday.
And sometimes the colour in the hair does come back. One of my friends mum needed radiotherapy to treat cancer on the back of her head. She has a full head of grey hair. After the treatment, she noticed that the hair in one area of her head where the treatment was applied has grown back brown. It’s about the size of a 50c coin. Though this is a pretty extreme way of getting colour back in the hair.
Yes, it’s biology and genetics, mainly. I’d love to know if stress causes grey hairs, but it’s difficult to work that out. You’d need a pair of identical twins, and you’d need one of them to be REALLY STRESSED OUT for years, and see if they went grey first. Not a very nice experiment.
Some cells in our bodies make coloured compounds called pigments. Hair is coloured because the cells that make (grow) hair, also make pigments that become part of hair. When people grow older, sometimes their hair-growing cells stop making pigments. The lack of pigment colour makes hair look gray or even white.
Can we stop this? Some families have lots of gray-haired elders. Other families have lots of coloured hair, even as their members grow old. Chose a family that has very little gray hair and get yourself born into that family. Seriously, if you have genes that tend to stop making pigment, then the only way to stop getting gray hairs is to slow down the aging process.
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Around each strand of hair is a hair follicle, containing pigment cells which produce melanin. Melanin is what gives colour to our hair, skin, and the iris of our eye.
As we age the pigment cells in the follicle die and are not replaced. The melanin is broken down and the colour will disappear from the hair. The process of ‘going grey’ can take over ten years from the appearance of the first grey hair to a full silver mane. Eventually everyone’s pigment cells would die, but this can occur any time from a person’s early 20’s to absolutely ancient’s. People who never go grey have pigment cells that are outlasting the rest of their body.
There seems to be a large genetic component to losing your hair colour, so the best way to estimate for yourself is to look at your parents and grandparents and when they started to get grey hairs.
0
Someone just had to ask about grey hairs. I absolutely can’t stand them. You see my profile photo of black hair? It’s fake. Well the photo isn’t fake but the hair is. I’ve dyed it. I have grey hairs, just a few and I’m only 30 but this doesn’t mean that you’ll get grey hairs when you hit 30. In my family, a few of my older relatives started grey hairs early in life and I seem to have inherited the gene for early grey hairs.
The cells around my hair follicle from where the hair grows have stopped producing colour, (melanin). No amount of persuading will change this as they’ve died. Now I could go around with grey hair on my head but at the moment it’s quite scattered and having black hair it looks like tiny silvery/white streaks in my hair. Useful at costume parties if I decide to dress up as a faerie or a witch but not for everyday.
And sometimes the colour in the hair does come back. One of my friends mum needed radiotherapy to treat cancer on the back of her head. She has a full head of grey hair. After the treatment, she noticed that the hair in one area of her head where the treatment was applied has grown back brown. It’s about the size of a 50c coin. Though this is a pretty extreme way of getting colour back in the hair.
0
Yes, it’s biology and genetics, mainly. I’d love to know if stress causes grey hairs, but it’s difficult to work that out. You’d need a pair of identical twins, and you’d need one of them to be REALLY STRESSED OUT for years, and see if they went grey first. Not a very nice experiment.
0