How stress turns hair gray
Lisa Vogel studied departmental journalism with a focus on medicine and biosciences at Ansbach University and deepened her journalistic knowledge in the master's degree in multimedia information and communication. This was followed by a traineeship in the editorial team. Since September 2020 she has been writing as a freelance journalist for
More posts by Lisa Vogel All content is checked by medical journalists.With age, hair loses its color and turns gray. Stress speeds up this process. But how?
“Don't let your hair grow gray over this,” is advice that worried people often hear. In fact, it is known that stress accelerates the aging process in the body. Researchers at Harvard University have found that this actually also applies to graying and how it works.
Dark mane or light curls: hair gradually loses its color with age. Depending on the genetic makeup, some may be affected earlier and others later.
Because every hair has a genetically determined supply of so-called melanocyte stem cells. These develop into melanin-forming cells that bring the color into the hair. With advancing age, the supply of stem cells runs out and the head of hair turns gray. But how could stress accelerate this natural process?
Stress turns mice gray
In an experiment with mice, Dr. Bing Zhang and his team found that the dark rodents suddenly developed white spots when they were exposed to pain - physical stress. Further experiments revealed that stress factors such as restricted mobility and psychological stress also made the mice turn gray.
The first assumption of the scientists: The stress hormone cortisol, which the animals released more intensely during the experiments, could be responsible for the graying. But even animals from which the researchers had removed the cortisol-producing adrenal glands turned gray when they were under stress. So the stress hormone was not the key to clarifying this relationship.
Another hypothesis, according to which certain immune cells are activated by stress and have a negative effect on the melanocyte-builders, was not confirmed either.
Gray hair from stressed nerve cells
Zhang and his colleagues then targeted certain nerve fibers that end at the hair follicles. In response to stress signals from the nerve cells, they release larger amounts of another stress hormone: norepinephrine.
The melanocyte stem cells that are located in the hair follicles react to this: they transform excessively quickly and often into the hair pigment producers. The supply of stem cells was exhausted so rapidly. “The damage is irreversible,” the researchers write, “the body is unable to reproduce new stem cells”.
Survival Mechanism Stress
Stress reactions are important to survive. In a dangerous situation, stress hormones are released: They put the body on alert in a flash: performance, concentration and ability to react and thus ensure survival.
Today, however, stress is caused less by life-threatening situations than by ‘overstimulation, time pressure, social conflicts and strokes of fate.
Too much stress makes you sick
Those who suffer from permanent stress not only risk gray hair, but also their health. Among other things, tension, headaches, neck or back pain and digestive problems can follow. Cardiovascular and kidney diseases are also favored by stress.
