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According to legend, in 1793, the day before the head was cut, Marie-Antoinette’s hair had lost its color and was completely white.
While the myth surrounding the last hours of the last queen of France has no basis, the idea that the stress can cause gray hair prematurely is science-based.
And not only, according to a new study from Columbia University published in the journal eLife: when the source of stress is removed, hair can find its color usual.
“For decades, we have tried to understand the influence of stress in the process of the appearance of gray hair, and this is the first study to show a clear link between psychological stress and white hair,” says Martin Picard. , professor of behavioral medicine at Vagellos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, and co-author of the study.
The team was partially successful in demonstrating the relationship between the two by developing a method that allowed them to study the color of each hair in detail and quantify the loss of pigmentation.
The effect of the holidays
The researchers analyzed the individual hairs of various parts of the body of a group of 14 volunteers of different ages, who were asked to record their weekly stress levels in a diary.
Thus, they found that, in the youngest participants, when the stress disappeared, the hair regained its color.
Credit: Getty Images
One of the most striking examples is that of a man who recovered the color from five of the strands analyzed after spending two weeks on vacation.
Picard specifies that the change in color does not occur once the hair is outside the hair follicle, but when “it grows inside this kind of mini-organ which is under the skin”.
According to the researcher, the loss of color is probably due to changes in mitochondria, the cell organelles that provide most of the energy to activate the cell’s biochemical reactions.
“Psychological stress affects energy processes in the mitochondria, and when the mitochondria are not functioning well, the hair loses its pigment,” he explains.
it doesn’t always reverse
Although in some cases the hair may temporarily regain color, this does not happen in all cases, especially in people who have had gray hair for a long time.
Credit: Getty Images
“There is a kind of biological threshold and when the hair is close to this threshold, the stress can push the hair above and whiten it”, explains the researcher.
“When the source of stress is removed, the hair can come back and regain its dark color,” he says.
“But when the hair has passed the threshold for decades, it is highly unlikely that it will shrink,” he adds.
This means that the benefits of stress reduction won’t necessarily be reflected in everyone when changing hair color.
Picard says the study paves the way for studying what other aging-related processes are influenced by stress and how they can be reversed.
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