Sympathetic nerves extend into each hair follicle and release noradrenaline in response to stress.
Infographic depicting how stem cells are depleted in response to stress, causing hair to turn gray in mice.
Says Dr. Wider, “The truth is that stress may play a role in speeding up the graying process. Gray hair is likely caused by a combination of genetics, aging, and hormones, and there is some research to suggest that stress can turn hair gray prematurely. So, you may still be wondering whether or not you can reverse grey hair. Here's what you need to know.
Updated on: 27 Dec 2016 by John Staughton Popular culture and media has helped to spread the old adage that stress can cause greying of the hair, perpetuated by public figures under great deals of stress shifting from colored to grey hair in a few short years. Despite this, gray hair was still observed under stress-inducing conditions. “When we started to study this, I expected that stress was bad for the body — but the detrimental impact of stress that we discovered was beyond what I imagined,” Hsu says. Why time flies so fast as we get older By systematically eliminating alternate options utilizing a combination of denervation, chemogenetics , cell ablation and the knockout of adrenergic receptors, it was determined that the neurotransmitter norepinephrine causes the premature graying of hair in times of stress. For some, it comes sooner than expected. The knowledge gained in this work will be useful in future investigations into the impact of stress on the body and the development of new interventions.National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20892The study yielded insights into why hair turns gray. At the bottom of each follicle is a hair-growing factory where cells work together to assemble colored hair. Stress can affect the body in many different ways.
Stress can have a variety of negative effects on the body. Stress can cause hair to gray prematurely by affecting the stem cells that are responsible for regenerating hair pigment. "There is evidence that local expression of stress hormones mediate the signals instructing melanocytes to deliver melanin to keratinocytes," notes Jennifer Lin, a dermatologist who conducts molecular biology research at the Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center in Boston.
"And general practice physicians have observed accelerated graying among patients under stress, says Tyler Cymet, head of family medicine at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, who conducted a small retrospective study on hair graying among patients at Sinai.
Does Stress Cause Grey Hair?
Noradrenaline is also the main neurotransmitter of the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” reaction in response to stress.The team ultimately discovered that signaling from the sympathetic nervous system plays a critical role in stress-induced graying. "Stress won't cause you to go gray directly," says Dr. Roopal Kundu, associate professor in dermatology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services.STRESS really does turn you grey as it uses up stem cells that give hair its colour, a study shows.Being under pressure at home or work triggers the sympathetic nervous system — part of the body’s fight or flight mechanism.The nerves release the chemical norepinephrine which is taken up by pigment-regenerating stem cells at the bottom of each hair, biologists found.The stem cells go into overdrive and get used up, tests on mice showed.Researcher Professor Ya-Chieh Hsu said: “When we started to study this, I expected that stress was bad for the body — but the detrimental impact of stress that we discovered was beyond what I imagined.“After just a few days, all of the pigment- regenerating stem cells were lost. Normally, the melanocyte stem cells in the follicle are dormant until a new hair is grown. Popular culture and media has helped to spread the old adage that stress can cause greying of the hair, perpetuated by public figures under great deals of stress shifting from colored to grey hair in a few short years. The study yielded insights into why … With no remaining stem cells, no new pigment cells can be made, and any new hair becomes gray, then white. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. Hair that has lost most of its melanin is gray; hair that has lost all of this pigment is white.At any given time, around 80 to 90 percent of the hairs on a person's head are in an active growth phase, which may last anywhere from two to seven years. "My way to de-stress is either listening to music or talking to my sister, Kourtney. There are at least three possible explanations: She may have suffered from sudden onset of the rare autoimmune disease alopecia areata, which attacks pigmented hairs, causing them to fall out, leaving the white (nonpigmented) strands behind. Noradrenaline causes the stem cells to activate.Using florescent labelling, the researchers observed the stem cells change to melanocytes and migrate away from their reserve in the hair follicle. But premature activation, associated with increases in a stress hormone called norepinephrine (or noradrenaline), actually caused these cells to decline more quickly in mice - leading to the gray hair that researchers observed. For example, a 2020 study published by the journal Nature found that when mice were exposed to stress, they lost melanocyte cells and gained gray hair as a result. STRESS really does turn you grey as it uses up stem cells that give hair its colour, a study shows. Fresh keratinocytes and melanocytes are recruited from progenitor cells, also called "stem cells," residing at the bottom of the follicle. The short answer here is that, yes, stress can cause gray hair. They found that noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, was key to stress-induced hair graying. All caused noticeable loss of melanocyte stem cells and hair graying.Having established a link between stress and graying, the scientists then explored several potential causes.