Is gray hair reversible?
Reducing stress levels brought back the color of gray hair
Sergey Kolenov, N+1
Contrary to popular belief, people's gray hair turned out to be reversible. According to a study, a preprint of which is published on the bioRxiv website, gray hair often regains its original color, and they do it within just a few months. According to researchers, this process is closely related to stress levels: strong emotional stress causes the hair to discolor, but when they stop, the graying reverses. This gives hope for the creation of a therapy that will allow you to eliminate gray hair for a long time and eliminate the need to constantly paint over discolored strands.
Gray hair is one of the most obvious signs of aging. In most people, the first gray hair begins to appear between the ages of thirty and forty, after which their number grows rapidly. At the same time, the exact causes of this process remain poorly understood. For example, despite popular beliefs that it is possible to turn gray from fear, the link between gray hair and stress has been confirmed only for mice, but not for humans.
Researchers led by Martin Picard from Columbia University have developed a new technique that allows you to study graying at the level of an individual hair. Their proposed approach is a bit like the one used in dendrochronology to reconstruct the ancient climate with the help of annual tree rings. Now, knowing the average rate of hair growth (about a centimeter per month), scientists can compare the color of its individual sections with certain periods of life and events that took place at that time.
Analysis of 397 individual hairs taken from 14 healthy volunteers of different origins revealed three types of pigmentation: dark, transitional and gray. A large number of pigment-bearing melanosomes were noted on dark areas of hair, and these structures were almost absent on gray ones.
Proteomic analysis showed that in graying hair, the expression of genes associated with the work of mitochondria, resistance to oxidative stress and protein synthesis significantly increases. At the same time, they decrease the production of proteins that are involved in the formation of melanosomes and their transfer from melanocytes to keratinocytes. Interestingly, 13 proteins were identified on gray areas of hair that were not synthesized on dark ones.
Until now, graying was considered an irreversible process. There were only two documented cases when gray hair returned to its original state. However, careful analysis has shown that such a phenomenon can be widespread. Researchers have identified reversible graying of hair in persons of both sexes and of different origins at the age of nine to thirty-nine years. Most often, repigmentation was observed on the scalp, but body hair could also restore color. The return of graying hair to normal coloring occurred as quickly as the loss of color – the median speed of this process was three months. Moreover, several cases were found when, after rapid repigmentation, the hair turned gray again. This happened over several weeks or months, that is, in one growth cycle.
The new technique allowed us to study the relationship of graying with stress. Until now, it was assumed that stress increases the overall rate of aging of the body, which affects the coloring of hair. However, the team was able to confirm that life circumstances can directly affect the work of hair follicles and pigmentation.
The researchers analyzed five individual hairs with traces of repigmentation from the head of a 35-year-old man of European origin. The coloring of individual hair sections was compared with the level of stress in their respective periods of life. It turned out that the gray hair disappeared after the stress level decreased. A similar result was shown by a study of bicolor hair sections of a thirty-year-old woman of Asian origin. The formation of a gray area two centimeters long coincided with a period of high stress due to family conflicts, divorce and relocation. After returning to normal life, the hair color has fully recovered.
Examples of the return of gray hair color from the head (A), pubis (B) and beard (C); the return of gray hair color (D) and re-graying after the return of color (E).
Thus, the graying process turned out to be much more flexible than previously thought. The discovery opens the way to the creation of techniques that will return the color to gray hair. In addition, the new data give reason to hope that other mechanisms underlying aging may be partially reversible.
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