Does intense stress make you go gray? New scientific evidence!

We often say that we get gray hair because of our nerves. When Marie Antoinette was captured during the French Revolution, her hair became white overnight. In more recent times, John McCain became gray because of severe wounds suffered while he was in prison during the Vietnam War. These are no longer anecdotes and speculations, but scientifically proven facts.

Research results published in the medical journal 'Nature' show that Harvard University researchers studied mice and have discovered that certain types of nerves involved in combat or escape reactions cause irreversible damage to hair follicle stem cells responsible for pigment regeneration. By doing so, they have enriched our knowledge of how stress affects the body.

The stem cells in hair follicles act as a reservoir for the production of pigmentation cells. When hair regenerates, some of the stem cells turn into cells that produce pigment, which is responsible for hair colour. Researchers have discovered that norepinephrine from sympathetic nerves causes the stem cells to work more intensively, and consequently they turn into pigmentation cells, prematurely reducing the stock. They are then irretrievably lost.

In order to link stress level to going gray, scientists have begun to study the reactions of the whole body and successively narrowed the studied area to individual organs, cells and even to molecular dynamics. Thanks to this study, it is known that neurons can control stem cells and their functions and how they interact at the cellular and molecular level, showing how stress affects going gray. This is a milestone towards the development of possible treatments that can stop or reverse the negative effects of stress.