To say that one “has white hair” means that one is worried. Science proves the validity of this expression. In the review Nature, researchers show that stress can accelerate the appearance of gray hair. Their results were obtained by conducting an experiment on mice.
White mice in just 4 weeks
Researchers at Harvard (United States) and Sao Paulo (Brazil) universities injected mice with a solution that reproduces the effect of stress on their bodies. After 4 weeks, the animals’ coats became completely white. The teams repeated the experience several times and came to the same conclusion each time: there has a link between bleaching and stress.
Cells unable to make pigments
Cell analysis explains the causes of this phenomenon. Hair color is linked to melanin: this pigment is made by melanocytes, differentiated cells, produced by melanocyte stem cells. When the mice received the stress-causing product, their number of melanocyte stem cells decreased. According to the researchers, anxiety accelerates the maturation of stem cells and makes them unable to regenerate pigments.
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The researchers conducted another study in parallel to understand the precise action of stress on hair color. Initially, they identified a protein linked to the action of stress on stem cells: the cyclone-dependent kinase (CDK). Then they tested a drug used against hypertension. It has been shown to be effective in suppressing protein and preventing bleaching of the mouse coat. “These discoveries do not constitute a treatment against white hair, tempers Professor Ya-Cieh Hsu of Harvard University, on the website of the BBC. Our discovery is only the beginning of a long process of finding a way to act in humans. “
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