November 14, 2011 • 21 mins
Despite folk wisdom, stress doesn't gray your hair. In this episode, Caroline and Cristen explain why you should blame gray hair on your parents, genes and health.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From house stup works dot com. Hello, and opened to
the podcast. I'm Kristen, Now, I'm Caroline. Now Caroline. I
(00:21):
think that I've mentioned maybe on the podcast before, that
I tend to favor my father looks wise, I look
even growing up, I remember going to my grandmother's house
and she would go on and on and on about
how I was just the spinning image of her son.
And as a child, I didn't really know whether that
(00:42):
was a compliment, like how to take it, because for
as long as I can remember, my dad has been
completely gray, completely over his whole body. Are you just
talking about here? He's not assion an action human? Uh no,
his here. His hair has been great, it's got on,
it's getting whiter now, it's very majestic, very regal. Actually,
(01:04):
Mr conger Um, hey Dad. So in my mind, I've
I've thought as I've grown up, well, since I favor
my father so much, I wonder if I'm going to
get this gray because he I come to find out,
he was completely gray by the time he was thirty
my goodness. Oh yeah, wow. And you know, going gray
(01:24):
it's pretty much genetic exactly. So last year, just about
this time, post Halloween, I'm brushing my hair doing doing
my face in the mirror, and oh my god, there
it is. It's already happening. I see the grays. They
(01:46):
are coming in nikes, a lot of them. I don't
see any from here. You can't, really, you gotta really look.
They're in there in the temple. Temple areas close to
the scalp every now. I have plugged a couple from
the sideburn region. Um, you know, and I'm I'm okay
(02:07):
with it for the most part. Uh, but yeah, I
think you know. Thanks dad, Yeah, you're gonna have a
grey your daughter. Well, you're exactly right to thank your father, um,
as you should, because going gray is related, like I
just said, it is related to genetics, and a lot
of people have different theories about it. There are different
(02:29):
old wives tales and folk tales about it, like if
you are really scared or really stressed, you all of
a sudden go gray. But that's a bunch of whoie.
It is a bunch of WHOI um. And it's funny too,
because when when I spied those first hairs, I did
think of my father, but I was also post breakup,
so I was like, oh, man, this must be the
work of the heartache and distress. I was buying into
(02:53):
an old an old wives tale. Well, my favorite, though
old Wife's still about going gray overnight is that Marie Antoinette,
the night before she went to the old Guillotine turned
completely gray. Ye old, ye old Guillotine. Also the name
of my favorite bar um Well she yeah, well yeah,
some people say that she went grayle the night before,
(03:15):
but other people are like, well, she probably just took
her wig off, or she'd been in prison in jail
so she probably hadn't had access to any ye old
hair dye, or maybe it was just really dusty. It
could be an old that she was making a lot
of bread and was covered in flower. So many theories
just go on. So, um, you know, Kristen, you're you're
(03:37):
about to turn How old are you don't guess you're
about to turn seven? Yeah? Yeah, well anyway away you're
getting I know, you're you're getting very close to the
average age that women go gray, which is around thirty
(03:57):
and men typically don't go gray until about thirty five,
so you're actually prematurely gray. And who would have thought, like,
because women are the ones, for the most part, who
are dying our hair left and right, because it's not
considered as attractive for a woman to be gray headed.
But we're the ones who go gray first. Why can't
(04:19):
we claim the gray? Why can't we be the silver foxes?
I don't know. I mean, there was that blog from
the New York Times's on the Runway. Yeah, I think
it's called the Cut or something. Yeah, well they talk
about this is from last year sometime where they talk
about how fashionable it is to dye your hair gray. Yeah,
gray had it's fashion moment in two thousand and ten. Really,
(04:40):
I just thought it may Okay, this is gonna sound
like I'm hating on the gray heads, but I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not. No, I think it looks No,
not really, I mean I think I think it looks great.
But I think on some of these starlets and like
hip young famous model type people who were dying their
hair gray, yeah, I just think it made them look sick.
(05:01):
Like I think when your hair turns gray, like it
turns your gray and you look good with that but
I don't don't all this like fake gray trend thing
was weird? Fake great? Yeah, I mean that I can
see how that would be a very tricky color to
get in. Although I have to give it to Stacy
London post of TLC's What Not to Wear, because she
has the best gray swoop, which I think kind of helped.
(05:24):
She was one of the first people out there on
television who's really rocking some gray. Yeah. I liked it
and I appreciated it. Um. But back to back to
science science. Let's step off the runway away from TV,
away from my bathroom mirror. Please bathroom, there's so many
of you in there. Yeah uh, And let's talk about
(05:45):
let's a brief refresher course on how hair even gets
its color to begin with. Yeah, let's do it first.
I like to imagine the scalp, the bear scalp, as
just a pincushion. It's covered, I know, the image that
comes to my head. Though. Our heads are covered in
roughly hundred thousand follicles. So inside each of these follicles,
(06:10):
these hundred thousand little holes in your head our cells
known as coratina sites. They build the keratin that becomes
our hair, but before they sprout out of the follicle,
melana sites long word, Okay, melano sites inject melanin into
the keratin, which give it its pigment. Yeah. And a
(06:32):
fun little fact about melanin. Despite all the shades of
hair around us, melanin only comes in two different shades,
one of which is a dark brown or black pigment
and the other which is a reddish yellow. Right. And genetics.
You know, when your parents create you, you you get
a little bit of both of their pigment, so so
(06:55):
it combines to form whatever shades we see, whether you
have white blonde hair, totally dark brown black hair, or
reddish brownish whatever. Uh. And our hair turns to gray
and possibly to white as the melanin runs out of
the hair. And nature nature played a little little trick
(07:17):
on us way back yonder in the olden days, because
the reason why our hair will turn gray is because
caraton cells are heartier and will outlast the melanin cells. Right,
So you keep your hair, you just lose your color, right,
And and the individual follicable sprout numerous hairs like at
certain point I think it's what like, our our hair
(07:38):
is almost always in a constant state of growth, and
then when it finally stops growing every like two to
five years, it'll fall out and then stem cells again
within the follicle will get going in those the caraton
and the melanin combining to form the hair. But um
according to David Fisher, who's a professor of pediatrics at
(07:58):
Harvard Medical School, UH he says, it's the gradual depletion
of those melana sites stem cells that leads to the
loss of pigment right. Dr Desmond Tobin, a professor of
cell biology at the University of Bradford in England, suggest
that the follicle has a melano gentic clock that slows
down melani milana site activity. Wow, that was hard to say. Um. So,
(08:23):
jeans regulate the exhaustion of the pigmentary potential of each follicle.
But this occurs at different rates and different follicles. So
you might be going gray before I do, but not
all of your hair might go gray at the same
time because everybody's follicles are different, they're all unique. They're
all unique, just like our genes, which are determined, you know,
(08:43):
when we exit the birthing canal. So, so from the beginning.
So from the very beginning when I was gonna go gray,
I was gonna go gray as an infant. It was
fated to be Um. But here's the fun fact though,
about who go is gray first? Um. According to web
m D, a white person a k a. Me is
(09:05):
considered to be prematurely gray if his or her hair
turns by the age of twenties. So I'm not premature,
You're just kind of I'm just you're you're a little
early to the party. I'm ahead of the curve. As
I like to put it right, I'm premature gray. And
African Americans is going gray before thirty. And that is
because white folks tend to go gray first, whereas people
(09:26):
of Asian and African descent tend to go gray last. Okay,
continuing on with our hair science, European researcher studying Videlago
found that people with the genetic defect have low catalase activity,
which is responsible for breaking down naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide,
(09:47):
and when it's not broken down, this results in elevated
levels hanging out in the skin. So they thought, well,
you know, could this have anything to do with why
our hair goes gray? Or white um. There is some
natural occurring hydrogen peroxide in our follicles that builds up
over time, and this build up blocks the normal synthesis
(10:08):
of melanin, which is, like we said, aren't the natural pigment.
So scientists are thinking that maybe the more hydrogen peroxide
that builds up, you know, the lighter your hair gets.
And the question there in terms of the relationship between
stress and graying hair is whether or not this build
up of hydrogen peroxide could be accelerated by any kind
(10:30):
of stress factors. But when we're talking about stress from
a scientific perspective like this, it's not deadlines, it's not
staying up too late and over extending yourself as we
have a tendency to do. We're talking more about genotoxic
stress and free radicals, which is stress on an environmental
and cellular level that can actually damage the DNA, which
(10:54):
can then affect those stem cells and whether or not
they can regenerate new and colorful hair um. For instance,
a two thousand nine Japanese study found that ultra violet
light and chemicals damage our DNA and could cause the
depletion of melanocyte stem cells along with blood stem cells
and other cardiac and skeletal muscles. So the thinking there was, hey,
(11:18):
you know, if we could limit our exposure to that
kind of genotoxic stress, then great, maybe we could slow
down this aging process and the grain process. But the
bad news is is that the researchers also estimate that
just a single mammalian cell, just one, is subjected to
a hundred thousand genotoxic stressors every day. So yet again
(11:42):
it is unavoidable. Yeah, I mean, I guess you could
just live in a dark room for the rest of
your life, but you're still gonna have to eat food
and and what kind of stress would probably come from
moving in such a derived environment, Then you would just
be sad all the time. So no matter what, and
over again, in these studies, UM, even if there might
(12:03):
be stressful I have that in quotes conditions going on,
it still relates back to your genes. Because there's also
thinking that the amount of stress in the way that
our bodies physically handle and process stress again relates back
to our genes, right, And researchers are hoping that studies
(12:25):
linking UM studies into melanoma could help with this graying
hair and vice versa. Any any research done on how
coloring changes and cells turn over. How how when cells
stop working in your hair follical it makes your hair
go gray. But then they go into overdrive and cause tumors,
(12:46):
and you know those cancerous moles you get when you
have melanoma. So they think it could be linked. And
in two thousand four, researchers from the Dana Farber Cancer
Institute in Boston were studying melanoma, which involved, like I said,
an overproduction of melana sites. When they found that the
hair mico gray as the supply of melanocytes stem cells
(13:08):
is depleted. Because things get a little wonky even before
the melano sytes stopped working. Um they start before the
stem cells are completely gone, they start making mistakes such
as depositing the pigment at the wrong place in the follicle,
so that it ends up having no effect on the hair.
So it seems like it's still hanging out in there,
but it's just kind of getting forgetful, right. So the
(13:28):
fact could be that in my in my follicles, of
the gray hairs that I do have right now, there
could be some melano sites down there, but they're just
doing their pigment. Yeah, they're like the wrong areas. Yeah,
they're just getting lazy. Yeah, they're lazy, follicle, they're just
phoning it in. Ye, come on, what is wrong with
your stem cells? Do you don't know? Um? Yeah? And
I want to say that that two thousand four UM
(13:51):
melanoma study was the first really conclusive study that established
that relationship between melano sites and the depletion and to
going gray, as opposed to UM the old the Old
Wives scale about stress causing everything, and really, scientists aren't
so concerned about why our hair turns gray. The only
(14:13):
reason that scientists have really looked into graying hair is
because it's just another way to study the human process
of aging. Because I would also like to point out
that in a very unscientific survey conducted on Good Morning America. Okay, unscientific,
(14:33):
rigorous study conditions for this one, I'm sure Gail Cohen,
who is a sixty one year old widow whose hair
began to go gray at the age of five, What up,
gayl um right there with you, posted two ads on
an online dating site, one showing her with her natural
gray hair and another showing her as digitally enhanced Brunette.
Uh and lo and behold. She got more responses, twenty
(14:57):
more responses in fact, to the picture of her with
the gray hair. Now I didn't she's rocking it? Yeah,
because she's probably rocking it. And b I did not
see the picture of a digital enhancement of Brunette, and
I just have a feeling maybe maybe it wasn't the
best digital enhanced People were like, what is that brown
thing floating above her head? That thinks it was since? Yeah, well,
(15:18):
actually just did it in Microsoft paint just gray panted
the head brown? Nice? Um? Not. Yeah, not all women
are like Gail. Not everybody likes their gray hair so much. Um.
In a study from the University of British Columbia and Vancouver,
granted it was a small study, it was thirty six
women between the age of seventy one and ninety four.
(15:38):
A majority of women interviewed did not like their gray hair,
but they still found it attractive. And other women, yeah,
that was kind of the interesting thing. They thought that
it made them look ugly, dependent, poor in health, socially disengaged,
and culturally invisible. Just a little extreme just here. I mean,
I gotta say, Caroline, it is of a psychological trip
(16:01):
when you start noticing gray hair coming in, because it
is you know, it's a physical sign of aging, and
it also indicates the you know, all of the kind
of baggage that comes with aging, specifically for women in art. Sure,
But I mean I went to high school with the
girls who started going gray in in high school. Did
she rocket? Yeah, I guess. I mean she had like
(16:22):
black black hair. She had really really long, thick, dark hair,
and so her gray was really noticeable. But I mean
she didn't try to cover it up. You know, she
was what like sixteen rock and some gray hair. And
I think, I mean, for we kind of joked about
it earlier, about the gray hair trend among the more
the more fashion elites and supermodels last year. But I
(16:42):
gotta say that it's probably a good thing, you know,
that it was at least coming more into the mainstream
of this stuff. I think it was. It was an
editor of El magazine who was one of the women
who who got some publicity for dyeing her hair gray,
and she called it more subversive than glad amorous. So
I'm going as my hair becomes grayer, I am going
(17:04):
to consider to sign of being subversive, yeah, or just
nature taking its course, or just an homage to my father, right, yeah,
I think that's a good way to think of it.
And we do have to talk about other factors that
can turn your hair gray, just aside from those genes
that you inherit from your parents. Right. Um, you might
(17:27):
have a vitamin B twelve deficiency, in which case, go
get yourself some vitamin B twelve and stop being gray. Um.
You could also have a pituitary or thyroid gland problem.
So I mean, if you notice some other things going
on in your body, maybe just go to the doctor
get yourself checked out. Right. And some other autoimmune and
genetic conditions that are associated with premature graying include but aligo,
(17:49):
Warner syndrome, and alopecia, which causes only the colored hairs
to fall out. And it looks like your hair has
turned gray overnight. So if you're you know, if gray
doesn't run in your family, and it seems like some
health issues could be going on, then gray hair could
be an indicator, like we said, of some other some
other health conditions. So you might not actually have to
(18:12):
have gray hair. It might not be your time, but
you know what I say, if it is your time,
I would like to I would like to UM put
myself out there as a unofficial spokesperson for embracing the gray. Yeah,
you're an ambassador. I will thank you, Ambassador. I will
be the ambassador of gray UM. And now I think
(18:33):
everyone's going to go on our Facebook page and try
to enlarge our profile picture to see if they can
spot any gray. And he can't because it's not that
visible yet. But now I would like to hear from
other men and women who have gone gray. Is it
was it a strange UM to spot those first ones?
Do women think it's cool? Anyone out there who's died
their hair gray too? Yeah? Let us know? Look, do
(18:55):
you like it? Did you keep it for a while?
Caroline is a very quizzical looking her. Do so send
us an email? Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
com is our address. And I have a quick email
here regarding our recent podcast on the HPV vaccine. And
this is from Christie. She writes, I wanted to tell
(19:16):
you that I was diagnosed with HPV in two thousand
seven when I was twenty one. I didn't know that
I had it until I got pregnant and went in
for a check up with my o B after my
C section, I had a colposcope and a biopsy done,
followed by the cryo procedure to remove it. I'm so
glad I had it removed because it could have turned
into cancer. I definitely get checked every year now to
(19:37):
make sure there are no more issues. I think it's
great you ladies are informing everyone on the dangerous and
importance of regular visits to your doctor. Absolutely, thank you
for writing that. I think it's so important to get
checked every year. And if you have any type of
cervical displaysia, you know you can go back more than
just once a year if you want to be reassured
(19:57):
by your doctor. Okay, and this one is from a
man and uh, she's recommending some more horror movies after
our slash our film podcast. Um, she wants us to
check out Hard Candy, featuring a young Ellen Page, which
turns the tables on a predator of young adolescent girls
Ginger Snaps. I'm sure I'm going to take it seriously,
(20:19):
which takes a story of adolescent girls coming to terms
with their emerging sexuality and twists it with werewolf mythology.
This is the first of a trilogy. She said that
sounds amazing. Yes, and I also want some Ginger snap
cookies now. Yeah, my mom keeps giving them to me.
I don't know why. I will Okay. The Entity, which
is a ghost story with sexual violent overtones, and I
(20:41):
included in the list because the female character remains strong
and defiant through the ordeal despite no one believing her.
She Creature, which features a very very evil mermaid. Then
there's some excellent Asian horror cinema like Dark Water and
Tail of Two Sisters of Two Sisters, also songs I
want to watch all of the right now while eating gin. Well.
(21:04):
Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and also if you'd
like to send us your thoughts about graying hair, please
let me know everything that you have to say on
Facebook or you can find us over on Twitter at
Mom's Stuff Podcast, and you can hit up our blog
during the week as well, It's stuff Mom Never Told
You at how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to
(21:30):
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works
I fine app has arrived. Download it today. On iTunes,
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
(21:51):
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From house stup works dot com. Hello, and opened to
the podcast. I'm Kristen, Now, I'm Caroline. Now Caroline. I
(00:21):
think that I've mentioned maybe on the podcast before, that
I tend to favor my father looks wise, I look
even growing up, I remember going to my grandmother's house
and she would go on and on and on about
how I was just the spinning image of her son.
And as a child, I didn't really know whether that
(00:42):
was a compliment, like how to take it, because for
as long as I can remember, my dad has been
completely gray, completely over his whole body. Are you just
talking about here? He's not assion an action human? Uh no,
his here. His hair has been great, it's got on,
it's getting whiter now, it's very majestic, very regal. Actually,
(01:04):
Mr conger Um, hey Dad. So in my mind, I've
I've thought as I've grown up, well, since I favor
my father so much, I wonder if I'm going to
get this gray because he I come to find out,
he was completely gray by the time he was thirty
my goodness. Oh yeah, wow. And you know, going gray
(01:24):
it's pretty much genetic exactly. So last year, just about
this time, post Halloween, I'm brushing my hair doing doing
my face in the mirror, and oh my god, there
it is. It's already happening. I see the grays. They
(01:46):
are coming in nikes, a lot of them. I don't
see any from here. You can't, really, you gotta really look.
They're in there in the temple. Temple areas close to
the scalp every now. I have plugged a couple from
the sideburn region. Um, you know, and I'm I'm okay
(02:07):
with it for the most part. Uh, but yeah, I
think you know. Thanks dad, Yeah, you're gonna have a
grey your daughter. Well, you're exactly right to thank your father, um,
as you should, because going gray is related, like I
just said, it is related to genetics, and a lot
of people have different theories about it. There are different
(02:29):
old wives tales and folk tales about it, like if
you are really scared or really stressed, you all of
a sudden go gray. But that's a bunch of whoie.
It is a bunch of WHOI um. And it's funny too,
because when when I spied those first hairs, I did
think of my father, but I was also post breakup,
so I was like, oh, man, this must be the
work of the heartache and distress. I was buying into
(02:53):
an old an old wives tale. Well, my favorite, though
old Wife's still about going gray overnight is that Marie Antoinette,
the night before she went to the old Guillotine turned
completely gray. Ye old, ye old Guillotine. Also the name
of my favorite bar um Well she yeah, well yeah,
some people say that she went grayle the night before,
(03:15):
but other people are like, well, she probably just took
her wig off, or she'd been in prison in jail
so she probably hadn't had access to any ye old
hair dye, or maybe it was just really dusty. It
could be an old that she was making a lot
of bread and was covered in flower. So many theories
just go on. So, um, you know, Kristen, you're you're
(03:37):
about to turn How old are you don't guess you're
about to turn seven? Yeah? Yeah, well anyway away you're
getting I know, you're you're getting very close to the
average age that women go gray, which is around thirty
(03:57):
and men typically don't go gray until about thirty five,
so you're actually prematurely gray. And who would have thought, like,
because women are the ones, for the most part, who
are dying our hair left and right, because it's not
considered as attractive for a woman to be gray headed.
But we're the ones who go gray first. Why can't
(04:19):
we claim the gray? Why can't we be the silver foxes?
I don't know. I mean, there was that blog from
the New York Times's on the Runway. Yeah, I think
it's called the Cut or something. Yeah, well they talk
about this is from last year sometime where they talk
about how fashionable it is to dye your hair gray. Yeah,
gray had it's fashion moment in two thousand and ten. Really,
(04:40):
I just thought it may Okay, this is gonna sound
like I'm hating on the gray heads, but I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not. No, I think it looks No,
not really, I mean I think I think it looks great.
But I think on some of these starlets and like
hip young famous model type people who were dying their
hair gray, yeah, I just think it made them look sick.
(05:01):
Like I think when your hair turns gray, like it
turns your gray and you look good with that but
I don't don't all this like fake gray trend thing
was weird? Fake great? Yeah, I mean that I can
see how that would be a very tricky color to
get in. Although I have to give it to Stacy
London post of TLC's What Not to Wear, because she
has the best gray swoop, which I think kind of helped.
(05:24):
She was one of the first people out there on
television who's really rocking some gray. Yeah. I liked it
and I appreciated it. Um. But back to back to
science science. Let's step off the runway away from TV,
away from my bathroom mirror. Please bathroom, there's so many
of you in there. Yeah uh, And let's talk about
(05:45):
let's a brief refresher course on how hair even gets
its color to begin with. Yeah, let's do it first.
I like to imagine the scalp, the bear scalp, as
just a pincushion. It's covered, I know, the image that
comes to my head. Though. Our heads are covered in
roughly hundred thousand follicles. So inside each of these follicles,
(06:10):
these hundred thousand little holes in your head our cells
known as coratina sites. They build the keratin that becomes
our hair, but before they sprout out of the follicle,
melana sites long word, Okay, melano sites inject melanin into
the keratin, which give it its pigment. Yeah. And a
(06:32):
fun little fact about melanin. Despite all the shades of
hair around us, melanin only comes in two different shades,
one of which is a dark brown or black pigment
and the other which is a reddish yellow. Right. And genetics.
You know, when your parents create you, you you get
a little bit of both of their pigment, so so
(06:55):
it combines to form whatever shades we see, whether you
have white blonde hair, totally dark brown black hair, or
reddish brownish whatever. Uh. And our hair turns to gray
and possibly to white as the melanin runs out of
the hair. And nature nature played a little little trick
(07:17):
on us way back yonder in the olden days, because
the reason why our hair will turn gray is because
caraton cells are heartier and will outlast the melanin cells. Right,
So you keep your hair, you just lose your color, right,
And and the individual follicable sprout numerous hairs like at
certain point I think it's what like, our our hair
(07:38):
is almost always in a constant state of growth, and
then when it finally stops growing every like two to
five years, it'll fall out and then stem cells again
within the follicle will get going in those the caraton
and the melanin combining to form the hair. But um
according to David Fisher, who's a professor of pediatrics at
(07:58):
Harvard Medical School, UH he says, it's the gradual depletion
of those melana sites stem cells that leads to the
loss of pigment right. Dr Desmond Tobin, a professor of
cell biology at the University of Bradford in England, suggest
that the follicle has a melano gentic clock that slows
down melani milana site activity. Wow, that was hard to say. Um. So,
(08:23):
jeans regulate the exhaustion of the pigmentary potential of each follicle.
But this occurs at different rates and different follicles. So
you might be going gray before I do, but not
all of your hair might go gray at the same
time because everybody's follicles are different, they're all unique. They're
all unique, just like our genes, which are determined, you know,
(08:43):
when we exit the birthing canal. So, so from the beginning.
So from the very beginning when I was gonna go gray,
I was gonna go gray as an infant. It was
fated to be Um. But here's the fun fact though,
about who go is gray first? Um. According to web
m D, a white person a k a. Me is
(09:05):
considered to be prematurely gray if his or her hair
turns by the age of twenties. So I'm not premature,
You're just kind of I'm just you're you're a little
early to the party. I'm ahead of the curve. As
I like to put it right, I'm premature gray. And
African Americans is going gray before thirty. And that is
because white folks tend to go gray first, whereas people
(09:26):
of Asian and African descent tend to go gray last. Okay,
continuing on with our hair science, European researcher studying Videlago
found that people with the genetic defect have low catalase activity,
which is responsible for breaking down naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide,
(09:47):
and when it's not broken down, this results in elevated
levels hanging out in the skin. So they thought, well,
you know, could this have anything to do with why
our hair goes gray? Or white um. There is some
natural occurring hydrogen peroxide in our follicles that builds up
over time, and this build up blocks the normal synthesis
(10:08):
of melanin, which is, like we said, aren't the natural pigment.
So scientists are thinking that maybe the more hydrogen peroxide
that builds up, you know, the lighter your hair gets.
And the question there in terms of the relationship between
stress and graying hair is whether or not this build
up of hydrogen peroxide could be accelerated by any kind
(10:30):
of stress factors. But when we're talking about stress from
a scientific perspective like this, it's not deadlines, it's not
staying up too late and over extending yourself as we
have a tendency to do. We're talking more about genotoxic
stress and free radicals, which is stress on an environmental
and cellular level that can actually damage the DNA, which
(10:54):
can then affect those stem cells and whether or not
they can regenerate new and colorful hair um. For instance,
a two thousand nine Japanese study found that ultra violet
light and chemicals damage our DNA and could cause the
depletion of melanocyte stem cells along with blood stem cells
and other cardiac and skeletal muscles. So the thinking there was, hey,
(11:18):
you know, if we could limit our exposure to that
kind of genotoxic stress, then great, maybe we could slow
down this aging process and the grain process. But the
bad news is is that the researchers also estimate that
just a single mammalian cell, just one, is subjected to
a hundred thousand genotoxic stressors every day. So yet again
(11:42):
it is unavoidable. Yeah, I mean, I guess you could
just live in a dark room for the rest of
your life, but you're still gonna have to eat food
and and what kind of stress would probably come from
moving in such a derived environment, Then you would just
be sad all the time. So no matter what, and
over again, in these studies, UM, even if there might
(12:03):
be stressful I have that in quotes conditions going on,
it still relates back to your genes. Because there's also
thinking that the amount of stress in the way that
our bodies physically handle and process stress again relates back
to our genes, right, And researchers are hoping that studies
(12:25):
linking UM studies into melanoma could help with this graying
hair and vice versa. Any any research done on how
coloring changes and cells turn over. How how when cells
stop working in your hair follical it makes your hair
go gray. But then they go into overdrive and cause tumors,
(12:46):
and you know those cancerous moles you get when you
have melanoma. So they think it could be linked. And
in two thousand four, researchers from the Dana Farber Cancer
Institute in Boston were studying melanoma, which involved, like I said,
an overproduction of melana sites. When they found that the
hair mico gray as the supply of melanocytes stem cells
(13:08):
is depleted. Because things get a little wonky even before
the melano sytes stopped working. Um they start before the
stem cells are completely gone, they start making mistakes such
as depositing the pigment at the wrong place in the follicle,
so that it ends up having no effect on the hair.
So it seems like it's still hanging out in there,
but it's just kind of getting forgetful, right. So the
(13:28):
fact could be that in my in my follicles, of
the gray hairs that I do have right now, there
could be some melano sites down there, but they're just
doing their pigment. Yeah, they're like the wrong areas. Yeah,
they're just getting lazy. Yeah, they're lazy, follicle, they're just
phoning it in. Ye, come on, what is wrong with
your stem cells? Do you don't know? Um? Yeah? And
I want to say that that two thousand four UM
(13:51):
melanoma study was the first really conclusive study that established
that relationship between melano sites and the depletion and to
going gray, as opposed to UM the old the Old
Wives scale about stress causing everything, and really, scientists aren't
so concerned about why our hair turns gray. The only
(14:13):
reason that scientists have really looked into graying hair is
because it's just another way to study the human process
of aging. Because I would also like to point out
that in a very unscientific survey conducted on Good Morning America. Okay, unscientific,
(14:33):
rigorous study conditions for this one, I'm sure Gail Cohen,
who is a sixty one year old widow whose hair
began to go gray at the age of five, What up,
gayl um right there with you, posted two ads on
an online dating site, one showing her with her natural
gray hair and another showing her as digitally enhanced Brunette.
Uh and lo and behold. She got more responses, twenty
(14:57):
more responses in fact, to the picture of her with
the gray hair. Now I didn't she's rocking it? Yeah,
because she's probably rocking it. And b I did not
see the picture of a digital enhancement of Brunette, and
I just have a feeling maybe maybe it wasn't the
best digital enhanced People were like, what is that brown
thing floating above her head? That thinks it was since? Yeah, well,
(15:18):
actually just did it in Microsoft paint just gray panted
the head brown? Nice? Um? Not. Yeah, not all women
are like Gail. Not everybody likes their gray hair so much. Um.
In a study from the University of British Columbia and Vancouver,
granted it was a small study, it was thirty six
women between the age of seventy one and ninety four.
(15:38):
A majority of women interviewed did not like their gray hair,
but they still found it attractive. And other women, yeah,
that was kind of the interesting thing. They thought that
it made them look ugly, dependent, poor in health, socially disengaged,
and culturally invisible. Just a little extreme just here. I mean,
I gotta say, Caroline, it is of a psychological trip
(16:01):
when you start noticing gray hair coming in, because it
is you know, it's a physical sign of aging, and
it also indicates the you know, all of the kind
of baggage that comes with aging, specifically for women in art. Sure,
But I mean I went to high school with the
girls who started going gray in in high school. Did
she rocket? Yeah, I guess. I mean she had like
(16:22):
black black hair. She had really really long, thick, dark hair,
and so her gray was really noticeable. But I mean
she didn't try to cover it up. You know, she
was what like sixteen rock and some gray hair. And
I think, I mean, for we kind of joked about
it earlier, about the gray hair trend among the more
the more fashion elites and supermodels last year. But I
(16:42):
gotta say that it's probably a good thing, you know,
that it was at least coming more into the mainstream
of this stuff. I think it was. It was an
editor of El magazine who was one of the women
who who got some publicity for dyeing her hair gray,
and she called it more subversive than glad amorous. So
I'm going as my hair becomes grayer, I am going
(17:04):
to consider to sign of being subversive, yeah, or just
nature taking its course, or just an homage to my father, right, yeah,
I think that's a good way to think of it.
And we do have to talk about other factors that
can turn your hair gray, just aside from those genes
that you inherit from your parents. Right. Um, you might
(17:27):
have a vitamin B twelve deficiency, in which case, go
get yourself some vitamin B twelve and stop being gray. Um.
You could also have a pituitary or thyroid gland problem.
So I mean, if you notice some other things going
on in your body, maybe just go to the doctor
get yourself checked out. Right. And some other autoimmune and
genetic conditions that are associated with premature graying include but aligo,
(17:49):
Warner syndrome, and alopecia, which causes only the colored hairs
to fall out. And it looks like your hair has
turned gray overnight. So if you're you know, if gray
doesn't run in your family, and it seems like some
health issues could be going on, then gray hair could
be an indicator, like we said, of some other some
other health conditions. So you might not actually have to
(18:12):
have gray hair. It might not be your time, but
you know what I say, if it is your time,
I would like to I would like to UM put
myself out there as a unofficial spokesperson for embracing the gray. Yeah,
you're an ambassador. I will thank you, Ambassador. I will
be the ambassador of gray UM. And now I think
(18:33):
everyone's going to go on our Facebook page and try
to enlarge our profile picture to see if they can
spot any gray. And he can't because it's not that
visible yet. But now I would like to hear from
other men and women who have gone gray. Is it
was it a strange UM to spot those first ones?
Do women think it's cool? Anyone out there who's died
their hair gray too? Yeah? Let us know? Look, do
(18:55):
you like it? Did you keep it for a while?
Caroline is a very quizzical looking her. Do so send
us an email? Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot
com is our address. And I have a quick email
here regarding our recent podcast on the HPV vaccine. And
this is from Christie. She writes, I wanted to tell
(19:16):
you that I was diagnosed with HPV in two thousand
seven when I was twenty one. I didn't know that
I had it until I got pregnant and went in
for a check up with my o B after my
C section, I had a colposcope and a biopsy done,
followed by the cryo procedure to remove it. I'm so
glad I had it removed because it could have turned
into cancer. I definitely get checked every year now to
(19:37):
make sure there are no more issues. I think it's
great you ladies are informing everyone on the dangerous and
importance of regular visits to your doctor. Absolutely, thank you
for writing that. I think it's so important to get
checked every year. And if you have any type of
cervical displaysia, you know you can go back more than
just once a year if you want to be reassured
(19:57):
by your doctor. Okay, and this one is from a
man and uh, she's recommending some more horror movies after
our slash our film podcast. Um, she wants us to
check out Hard Candy, featuring a young Ellen Page, which
turns the tables on a predator of young adolescent girls
Ginger Snaps. I'm sure I'm going to take it seriously,
(20:19):
which takes a story of adolescent girls coming to terms
with their emerging sexuality and twists it with werewolf mythology.
This is the first of a trilogy. She said that
sounds amazing. Yes, and I also want some Ginger snap
cookies now. Yeah, my mom keeps giving them to me.
I don't know why. I will Okay. The Entity, which
is a ghost story with sexual violent overtones, and I
(20:41):
included in the list because the female character remains strong
and defiant through the ordeal despite no one believing her.
She Creature, which features a very very evil mermaid. Then
there's some excellent Asian horror cinema like Dark Water and
Tail of Two Sisters of Two Sisters, also songs I
want to watch all of the right now while eating gin. Well.
(21:04):
Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and also if you'd
like to send us your thoughts about graying hair, please
let me know everything that you have to say on
Facebook or you can find us over on Twitter at
Mom's Stuff Podcast, and you can hit up our blog
during the week as well, It's stuff Mom Never Told
You at how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to
(21:30):
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works
I fine app has arrived. Download it today. On iTunes,
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
(21:51):
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