Grey Hair - Taking a Deep Dive

[drewab]

I did a search around the CR Society forums and I do not believe that there is a thread officially dedicated to "grey hair." In some ways this is perhaps more of a vanity topic than anything else, though the colour of one's hair obviously seems connected to aging on some level for most individuals. I care very, very little about most things connected to vanity and appearance, but for whatever reason my prematurely greying hair is something that I find to be mildly bothersome. With that said, I intend to construct a thread related to this topic and build my understanding of the science behind it over an extended period of time. I believe that stress has been a major factor for me, but I do believe there is hope to improve the colour of my hair. After all, it appears that we can reverse things like heart-disease, high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer - so one might speculate that grey hair could fall into those categories and may be simpler than reversing major conditions included above. Feel free to contribute, chime in, share science, and your experience with the topic as you see fit.

We have many amazing threads on like cold-exposure, so why not have one on grey hair? 

 

Watching Hair Turn Grey (Michael P. Philpott - 2021) - DOI: 10.7554/eLife.7058

• “…most of us will experience our hair turning grey or white as we get older (Tobin, 2011). However, the physiological and psychological reasons for this phenomenon are not fully understood.”
   
• “Now, in eLife, Martin Picard (Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute) and colleagues – including Ayelet Rosenberg as first author – report that they have developed a computational model that can relate changes in hair pigmentation to ‘life events’ (Rosenberg et al., 2021). This work will allow researchers to map the stressful life events that turn hair grey, contributing to a greater understanding of the effects of stress and other life events on human biology.”
   

• “Many of the proteins found at higher levels in white hair are known to be rapidly remodeled by environmental and neuroendocrine factors, which suggests that the process of hair turning grey may be more ‘plastic’ than previously thought, and may even be reversible.”
  • This statement is like music to my ears (or pigment to my hair) given that it appears there is some level of plasticity involved. 
     
• “Moreover, the rate of greying was fast, with up to 14% of hair colour being lost each day; and re-pigmentation was even faster, occurring at twice this rate.“
   
• “First, they used the fact that changes in hair pigmentation can be correlated to time to show that sudden changes in hair pigmentation are associated with changes in stress levels. Next, Rosenberg et al. showed that re-pigmentation correlated with perceived decreased stress.”

My initial reaction is to say that it probably won't surprise anyone that stress can increase greying rates. What may be news is that re-pigmentation can occur.

Actionable Steps:

1. Reduce stress.

 

[Todd Allen]

My hair color has shown significant plasticity.  I was a very fair blond as a child and most of my adult life.  10 year ago I rapidly greyed out especially on my facial hair and beard much of which became snowy white.  In the past couple years my face and head hair is getting increasingly brown with a small number of jet black hairs and my body hair is turning a bright coppery reddish brown.  I asked my doctors about this and the only one who commented was my endocrinologist who said he thinks it is due to my sex hormones rising to several times their reference ranges and if I manage to get them damped down which I'm attempting to do by getting leaner I may see hair color revert back to normal.

[drewab]

17 hours ago, Todd Allen said:

My hair color has shown significant plasticity.  I was a very fair blond as a child and most of my adult life.  10 year ago I rapidly greyed out especially on my facial hair and beard much of which became snowy white.  In the past couple years my face and head hair is getting increasingly brown with a small number of jet black hairs and my body hair is turning a bright coppery reddish brown.  I asked my doctors about this and the only one who commented was my endocrinologist who said he thinks it is due to my sex hormones rising to several times their reference ranges and if I manage to get them damped down which I'm attempting to do by getting leaner I may see hair color revert back to normal.

Thanks for sharing this fascinating info on how your own hair has had such plasticity. It is interesting how hair greying affects different regions of the body (scalp, beard, body, etc.). In your case, it does seem likely that endocrine factors may be playing a large role. 

 

Relationship between premature hair greying and trace elements - DOI: 10.4103/ijt.ijt_8_18

Abstract

Context:

Hair is said to gray prematurely when a minimum of five gray hairs occurs before the age of 20 in fair skinned, 25 in Asians, and 30 in Africans. It may be genetically associated with autoimmune syndromes or certain environmental factors.

Aims:

The aim of this study was to evaluate the serum level of iron, copper, and calcium and to assess their role in premature hair graying.

Subjects and Methods:

This study was carried out on 60 patients with premature hair graying (PHG) and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy individuals served as a control group. The severity of PHG was assessed by the hair whitening scoring system. Serum iron, copper, and calcium concentrations were measured using Beckman Coulter in‐ strument and spectrophotometric method.

Results:

There was a reduction in serum levels of iron, copper, and calcium in patients with PHG in comparison with controls. There was a statistically negative significant correlation between the severity of PHG and serum iron and calcium levels. There was a negative nonsignificant correlation between body mass index and serum iron, copper, and calcium levels.

Conclusions:

Serum iron, copper, and calcium levels were reduced in association with PHG and correlated with its severity. Premature graying may be an indicator that hair is not getting enough nutrients and minerals, and supplementation with these trace elements might reverse and is expected to prevent progression of canities; however, further studies are needed to find the underlying mechanism of this relationship. 

Here are some thoughts on this paper:

• It included 60 subjects with premature hair greying (according to these authors, hair is said to grey prematurely when it occurs before the age of 20 in fair skinned, 25 in Asians, and 30 in Africans.
   
• It is interesting to note that in the study group 46/60 patients (76.7%) had positive family history of premature hair greying, while 14/60 patients (23.3%) had negative family history. In control group, all (30) persons had negative family history.
   
• The serum level of iron in the patients with premature hair greying ranged from 10 to 158 ug/dl with a mean of 78.77 ± 34.68 ug/dl. In the control group, it ranged from 33 to 161 ug/dl with a mean of 104.40 ± 46.50 ug/dl. There was a statistically significant decrease in the serum level of iron in the patients' group when com‐ pared to the control group (P = 0.046*).
  • There is obviously a huge range of iron concentrations here, but with an average of 79 ug/dl in the premature hair greying group vs. 104 ug/dl in the control group, this is quite a noticeable difference. At 0.046 this just reached statistical significance. 
  • While ferritin is a different measure than iron, my ferritin has shifted downward in recent years (I do wonder about the amount of coffee/tea I have been consuming with meals that may interfere with absorption). 

Actionable Steps:

1. Reduce steps.
2. Evaluate iron/ferritin status. 

Edited September 4, 2023 by drewab

[Ron Put]

1 hour ago, drewab said:

my ferritin has shifted downward in recent years (I do wonder about the amount of coffee/tea I have been consuming with meals that may interfere with absorption). 

drewab, I'd test for H. pylori before I give up coffee. Or an ulcer/other internal bleeding.

H. pylori is rather common and it would be a likely explanation for such a significant drop in ferritin over a relatively short period.

The effect of Helicobacter pylori infection on iron stores and iron deficiency in urban Alaska Native adults - PMC (nih.gov)

[Todd Allen]

1 hour ago, drewab said:

There was a reduction in serum levels of iron, copper, and calcium in patients with PHG in comparison with controls. There was a statistically negative significant correlation between the severity of PHG and serum iron and calcium levels. There was a negative nonsignificant correlation between body mass index and serum iron, copper, and calcium levels.

Those could be factors for me as well.  I had marginal status on several minerals and micronutrients at a bmi of 25.5 but now have a bmi of 18.0 without any apparent nutrient deficiencies.

[Todd Allen]

The effects of sunlight on my hair and skin have changed a lot too.  For most of my life sun exposure would bleach my hair and burn my skin but now seems to do nothing to my hair and I tan easily without burning.  I've also had an acceleration of thinning hair on the top of my head while thickening everywhere else.

[drewab]

I came across this paper today, which is certainly not new and was published in 1970. It includes a comparison between 125 patients with pernicious anaemia and a control group. The two groups were matched for sex and age distribution. Interestingly, the control group was defined as "in-patients with various chest diseases..." who knows what that means (other than that they were not healthy). Key data included:

• About 55% of patients with pernicious anemia had graying before 50 years as compared to 30% in the control group 
• About 11% of patients with pernicious anemia had graying  before 20 years as compared to 2% in the control group

This certainly implies a connection between B-12 status and grey hair. 

Actionable Steps:

1. Reduce stress.
2. Evaluate iron/ferritin status. 
3. Evaluate vitamin B12 status. 

Edited September 9, 2023 by drewab