Is it true that a person can turn gray from stress?

If a person has gray hair on his head,this means that he is aging or experiencing severe stress. After all, there is an ulterior motive in the people for the expression "turn gray with horror"? Strong stress can really cause white hair to appear even at the age of 25, but scientists still did not know exactly how emotional experiences make hair lose its natural color. It was previously believed that stress somehow accelerates the aging of the human body, but American scientists from Harvard University have proved that this is far from the case. In the course of a laboratory experiment conducted on mice, it turned out that prolonged experiences destroy cells that are responsible for hair color.

Scientists have discovered the process of gray hair

About quite unpleasant, but very useful forThe scientific community experiment, was told in the scientific journal Nature. In the course of scientific work, the researchers divided black rats into three groups and created various stressful conditions for them. The first group was injected with a substance called resiniferatoxin, which causes burning pain throughout the body. The second group of rats was subjected to psychological stress when they were transplanted from one cage to another, shook and shone a lamp on them. The third group was placed in a tight cage and thereby immobilized.

We also recommend that you read an article on how scientists discovered the gray hair gene in 2016.

How does hair turn gray?

After stress testing, rats were shaved and startedmonitor the growth of their coat. As expected, most of them developed islands with white hair, and they were especially large in individuals who experienced physical pain. According to researchers, stressful situations directly affected the work of the sympathetic nervous system of animals. It is known that it helps the body trigger responses against dangerous situations. This, in turn, depletes the stem cells responsible for the color of the hair and the hair naturally begins to turn gray.

Rats at the beginning and end of the experiment

In the course of further scientific work, scientists alsoit was found that in the process of stem cell depletion, proteins called cyclin-dependent kinases play an important role. To test its assumption, a substance blocking the production of this group of proteins was introduced into the bodies of stressed rats. As scientists expected, blocking really stopped the hair graying process.

Do you know that stress triggers processes in a person that lead to rapid obesity?

Unfortunately, due to a lack of understanding of allthe interactions of substances occurring in the process of graying hair, scientists can not yet come up with a medicine to preserve hair color. However, it is likely that in the near future such a tool will nevertheless be created and people will stop worrying about the possibility of gray hair.

If you are interested in the news of science and technology, subscribe to our Telegram channel. There you will find announcements of the latest news from our site!

Generally, to protect yourself from basicproblems with hair, it’s better to simply give yourself time for a good rest. Most recently, news appeared on our channel in Yandex.Zen that overtime work can cause very dangerous diseases. We think that all people, without exception, need to know about this and continue to be more attentive to their bodies.