You are in your early 20s and you already have strands of grey hair? Scientists say stress might be the reason for greying of your hair. Confused?
Scientists might have discovered why stress makes hair turn white. They also claim to have found a potential way of stopping it from happening.
While conducting experiments on mice, they found out the stem cells that control skin and hair colour became damaged under intense stress.
A stem biologists, named Ya-Chieh Hsu from Harvard University, found that stress causes nerves, involved in the fight-or-flight response, to produce a hormone that wipes out the stem cells used to make hair pigments.
During another experiment, researchers found that they could stop the changes by giving the mice an anti-hypertensive that treats high blood pressure.
After comparing the genes of the mice in pain with other mice, they identified the protein involved in causing damage to stem cells due to stress.
It was found that when the protein (cyclin-dependent kinase) was restrained, the treatment prevented a change in the colour of their fur.
This experiment has now opened doors for scientists to make a drug that could delay greying of hair by targeting the protein (cyclin-dependent kinase).
Well, if the scientists manage to develop the drug to reverse greying of hair, I’ll be their first customer to buy the product.
Grey hair or no grey hair, tension nahi lene ka.