Does Stress Turn Your Hair Gray? [Body Myths]

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Fact or fiction? Something a lot of people would wonder about…

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.

Now if this was actually true, we would be a world of gray heads. They say that the first gray hair can be spotted when you turn 30 – for guys, and 35 -for women. That’s just figures though, reality looks different… Scientific American has this fantastic article on the subject and according to them, stress can play a role in gradual whitening of your hair but can’t possibly turn your hair gray overnight.

The whole thing isn’t simple, and it seems that the gradual loss of melanocyte stem cells, ones that are key for hair colouring, lead to the loss of pigment.

Stress Causes Gray Hair [Scientific American]

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