A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Does stress cause white/gray hair?

Best Answers

Legend has it that Marie Antoinette's hair turned white the night before she was guillotined. Presumably the stress of impending decapitation caused her locks to lose color within hours. Extremely unlikely, scientists say, but stress may play a role in a more gradual graying process. read more

Hair that has lost most of its melanin is gray; hair that has lost all of its melanin is white. But the jury is still out on whether stress actually causes hair to turn gray, and for the most part, at least anecdotally, you'd have to separate chronic stress -- ongoing stress that lasts for a few years -- from the kind Marie Antoinette was feeling as the guillotine loomed large. read more

Stress also creates systemic inflammation, which can switch off those pigment-producing cells, experts say. “You see very young people with autoimmune disease who have patches of white or gray hair, and that’s because inflammation has turned off those melanocytes,” says Friedman. read more

Encyclopedia Research

Wikipedia: