Got gray hair and don't know why? Ask a scientist!

William Atkins
Wednesday, 25 February 2009 21:01

Science - Biology

European researchers also wanted to know why red, brown, blonde, and black hair turns gray over the years. They found a scientific reason for hair graying, and the discovery may lead to a way to stop us turning gray in old age.


As humans grow older, the hair on their heads usually turns gray in color. Have you ever wondered why it turns gray, or even turns another color at all?

The article “Senile hair graying: H₂O₂-mediated oxidative stress affects human hair color by blunting methionine sulfoxide repair” discusses this hair-raising issue.

It was published in the February 23, 2009 issue of the FASEB Journal (doi: 10.1096/fj.08-125435), where FASEB stands for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Its United Kingdom and German authors are: J.M. Wood, H. Decker, H. Hartmann, B. Chavan, H. Rokos, J.D. Spencer, S. Hasse, M.J. Thornton, M. Shalbaf, R. Paus, and K.U. Schallrenter.

They are associated with the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Clinical and Experimental Dermatology, and Institute for Pigmentary Disorders, University of Bradford, Bradford, U.K.; Institute of Molecular Biophysics, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany; Department of Dermatology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany; and University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K.

So, these European researchers decided to look into why hair turns gray as we grow older.

The researchers examined cell cultures of hair follicles from humans with the use of the scientific technique called Fourier Transfer (FT) Raman spectroscopy.

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