Does Stress Cause Gray Hair?

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Whenever we see a young lad or a lady with gray hair, we ask them if they have been taking a lot of stress lately. We advise them to take less stress and stop worrying as that leads to early development of gray hair. But how true is that statement? Has it been scientifically proven? Let's find out!

Why does Our Hair Turn Gray
As we age, the cells that produce the hair pigment called 'melanin' perish. This leads to decolorizing of our hair, therefore as we grow older our hair begins to turn white. Gray hair can be found in youngsters at the age of 13-14. Though, hair normally begins to turn silvery only after the age of 30 for men and 35 for women; it is different from gray hair.

Our head has thousands of follicles and each one produces or grows one strand of hair. Our hair is made up of two types of cells, one is keratinocytes and the other is melanocytes. Keratinocytes are responsible for building the keratin that makes our hair and melanocytes are responsible for coloring our hair. The hair pigment or melanocytes come in two forms, 'eumalinin' and 'pheomelanin'. Eumelanin has a dark brown or black shade and pheomelanin has a yellow or red shade. These two forms of melanin combine in different ratios and give us different hair colors like, black, brown or blond. When our hair has lost most of its melanin it becomes gray, and when it has lost all of its melanin, it turns white.