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What causes human hair to go gray?

What causes hair to go grey? What does the body stop producing?

  • Is there anything that can stop it going grey?

  • Answer:

    You go grey because your body 'switches off' the pigment producing cells in your hair. Actually, you don't go grey - your hair becomes white - it just looks grey because it's sitting next to your pigmented hair (if you pull a 'grey' hair out you'll see what I mean). There are numerous old wives tales about going grey. It isn't about shock or poor diet etc as far as we know. It doesn't make you go grey more quickly if you pull out a grey hair either. We do know that the age at which you start to go grey and how quickly you go grey is largely hereditary, in just the same way that men inherit a tendancy to lose their hair. No, there is nothing we know of that can stop you going grey or to make yourself go grey more quickly.

Vicky at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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A change in hair colour typically occurs naturally as people age, usually turning their hair to gray and then white. More than 40 percent of Americans have some grey hair by age 40, but white hairs can appear as early as childhood. The age at which greying begins seems to be almost entirely based on genetics. Sometimes people are born with grey hair because they inherit the trait genetically. Two genes appear to be responsible for the process of greying, Bcl2 and Bcl-w. The change in hair colour is caused when melanin ceases to be produced in the hair root and new hairs grow in without pigment. The stem cells at the base of hair follicles are responsible for producing melanocytes, the cells that produce and store pigment in hair and skin. The death of the melanocyte stem cells causes the onset of greying. There are no special diets, nutritional supplements, vitamins, nor proteins that have been proven to slow, stop, or in any way affect the greying process, although many have been marketed over the years. This may change in the near future. French scientists treating leukemia patients with a new cancer drug noted an unexpected side effect: some of the patients' hair colour was restored to their pre-grey colour

the only booboobear

Hmmm not really, because it happens due to aging AND genes.

stress or staying up all night alot

Jess Gauba

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