Anatomy Shared Article Research

This blog exists for the Anatomy students at Tree of Life Christian School. We will be reading various scientific articles, summarizing our research, and then commenting on others' summaries. We hope to broaden our view of the current research surrounding the human body, and to help others see how truly amazing the design of the human body is.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Can stress cause gray hair?

People tend to see gray hair at about thirty years of age of men and around thirty-five years of age for women. It can happen earlier or later in life. Is it possible for stress to cause gray hair?
Each person has about 100,000 follicles on their scalp. This is where gray hair is produced from. Hair is assembled from the bottom to the top by keratinocytes. When the cell dies, it becomes keratin. This protein accounts for the texture and strength of hair.
Summary:

Melanin is a pigment made by keratinocytes that gives hair one of two shades: Eumelanin, dark brown or black, and pheomelanin, which is blonde or red. Variations of these create a vast *****.. When hair loses melanin, it turns gray; however, when hair loses pigment, it is white.
Hair cells have a life of anywhere between two and seven years. After it dies and falls out, a new follicle must be made. Stem cells re-make the keratinocytes and melanocytes in the bottom of the hair follicle.
It is unsure if stress truly causes gray hair. Hormones from stress may cause the life of melanocytes to change, but its not proven yet. Stress may cause and inflammation of the hair follicle. This produces free radicals, which are unstable, cell damaging molecules. The creation of these can bleach the melanin, causing gray hair.
General practice physicians have seen that more stressed people tend to gray faster by two or three years on average. Tyler Cyment, Sinai Hospital in Boston, observes that graying is genetic, but lifestyle and stress levels can change the age of graying by five to ten years.

Response:

If graying is really related to stress level, that would be unfortunate. Sometimes people can control their stress level, while others cannot. If someone is constantly being thrown difficult and stressful situations, they could produce gray hair faster. It makes sense for someone to age by genetics. That is the way things are suppose to be. Stress is an outside force that could tamper with the genetic timing.
Thinking about this, it would make sense for Christians to gray later on average than non-Christians. Because of Christ, we do not have to be anxious about anything. Christ paid the price for our mistakes. As humans, we have someone who will take all our problems and give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. We can know that God has a perfect plan for our life and will take care of us. As Christians, our lives should be less stressful because of God's gift of peace.



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-stress-causes-gray-hair

3 Comments:

Blogger hannah71190 said...

Even though it isn't proven, I think stress does help cause gray hair. It is weird to think hair can grow old. I thought it was cool that all the different color's of hair has different chemicals! I'm would be glad if stress didn't cause my hair to gray, because I seem to worry more than I should.

Sunday, May 31, 2009 1:32:00 PM  
Blogger Sarah said...

I had never really thought about how one's hair color is controlled. It is interesting that the shade and color of one's hair is dictated by chemicals or pigments. Since this is the case, it makes since that stress and the hormones involved in stress could play a part in turning hair gray. I wonder, after reading this article, how much stress plays a part in turning hair white. I've also wondered what it is that contributes to some people getting white hair and some just gray.

Sunday, May 31, 2009 6:47:00 PM  
Blogger Kayla Nicole said...

Its really interesting to learn about all the different chemicals contributing to the different colors of hair. It makes me wonder what has happen chemically to my hair since it has been dyed so many times. Haha. I defiantly would believe that stress can cause gray hair. Though my bigger question is: Can stress cause faster aging in general, such as wrinkling or poor organ functioning?

Monday, June 01, 2009 12:57:00 PM  

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