“Unlocking the Mystery of Gray Hair: Can Stem Cells Hold the Key?”

There are those who hide them with paint and those who display them in honor of the gray charm. And now there are those who explain how they (possibly) arise, opening the door to the possibility of developing treatments to prevent or stop the appearance of gray hair.

A study recently publishedled by researchers from the Grossman School of Medicine, at the University of New York, in the United States, argues that stem cells can become ‘stuck’ during the aging of hair strands and, thus, lose the ability to mature and maintain their natural color.

Stem cells stop moving

Stem cells or stem cells are those that, being undifferentiated, can give rise to various types of specialized cells.

They have the ability to self-regenerate, also allowing the repair of injured tissues and are, therefore, taken into account in numerous investigations for the treatment of diseases that cause dementia or diabetes, among others.

In the case of white or gray hair, certain stem cells have a unique ability to move between the growth compartments inside the follicles.

These cells lose their ability to return to the ‘origin’, with the natural process of growth and hair loss, where they would eventually regenerate into cells that produce pigments or melanin – the so-called melanocytes – and which guarantee their color.

The research, described in the North American press, analyzed the process through which melanocytes in the skin of rats pass, which may also occur in humans.

The leader of the research team, Qi Sun, believes he has opened the door to “a possible new way to reverse or prevent the appearance of gray hair, by helping blocked cells to move again”.