I love weird science news, in case you haven’t noticed, so while perusing New Scientist, this headline about gray hair caught my attention, in spite of the fact that it’s not very psychological. Well, I suppose that people become VERY psychological about aging and its outward signs, so I suppose I can fit this topic into my blog on that basis.
According to recent research, hair goes gray when the number of stem cells in the hair follicles declines. Apparently, one’s supply of melanocytes, the cells that provide the pigmentation that gives us our hair color, is restocked in younger people by stem cells. If you run out of stem cells, you can’t make more melanocytes, and bingo–gray hair.
Now this isn’t all bad news. If you zap mice with DNA-damaging things like radiation, their hair turns gray, which may be the least of their worries. Their hair follicle stem cells turn into permanent melanocytes, meaning they can’t restock as the supply of melanocytes dies off. What’s the good news about this? Well, by taking stem cells with damaged DNA out of circulation, along with their potential cancer-causing mutations, we might be a little more protected from cancer.
Intrigued by this article, I decided to do a little more research on graying. Somebody even came up with a name for the process: achromotrichia. Trichia is the Greek word for hair, and “achromo” means lacking color. According to the ever-accurate Wikipedia (sans references to boot), 40 percent of Americans have some gray hair by the age of 40 years.
Gratuitous Greek Vacation Photo of Me Outside the Athenian Agora With Brown Hair (Mostly)
My father didn’t become truly gray until he approached his 60th birthday, and I’m not sure when my mother did, as she colored her hair as far back as I can remember. It appears that I’m following in my father’s footsteps (follicles might be more appropriate) as I still have a fair amount of brown hair as I approach my 57th birthday. Dad always claimed that his hair was graying rapidly until he finished off some of my mother’s leftover prenatal vitamins (he was in his 40s when my brother and I were born). I can’t speak to that, as I own a bottle of vitamins that gets dusty because I forget to take them, but I’m pretty sure that my careful eating a la Jenny Craig hasn’t hurt. Genes matter, too, of course.
