You all know that stress whitens the skin hair your. Recently a group of Harvard scientists discovered the process by which this change in color takes place.
Scientists have long known that gray hair is the result of it physicsof the human aging process, but also a result of certain disorders of the hair follicles and stress. Until now, we never knew exactly what role stress plays in causing gray hair.
As it turns out, a certain type of stress is the culprit behind graying. When you experience this type of stress it causes a stimulation of the nerve that activates the stem cells, which are responsible for coloring your hair.
According to research work of the Harvard team :
Our study shows that neuronal activity caused by acute stress can lead to rapid and permanent loss of somatic stem cells and demonstrates that the maintenance of somatic stem cells is directly affected by the overall physiological state of the body.
How did they do it all? Well, this point is pretty horrifying. They set laboratory mice in a state of three different types of stress: physical restraint, physical pain and psychological distress. Each stressor caused the mice to develop gray/white hairs.
The researchers they then started troubleshooting to see what was secondary causing the gray tint. Suspecting that the adrenal glands were the cause, they repeated the tests on mice after their adrenal glands were removed. These mice still showed graying, so they tried again by interfering with other hormonal processes. Eventually, the researchers discerned that a sympathetic nervous response caused the stem cell overload responsible for gray hair. After blocking this process, the mice stopped turning gray.
All of this may sound gruesome, and this particular article may be out of iguru's typical subject matter, but when scientists figure out how a process works, then the next move is to find the treatment of, in the form of medicine. So those of you with gray hair may not get to see the treatment but your children will have the choice in their hands.