A new study shows that stress really can give you gray hair. Researchers found that the body’s fight-or-flight response plays a key role in turning hair gray.
Your hair color is determined by pigment-producing cells called melanocytes. New melanocytes are made from melanocyte stem cells that live in the hair follicle at the base of your hair strand.
As we age, these stem cells gradually disappear. The researchers showed that stress also leads to the loss of these pigment-producing stem cells in mice.
Nerves in your sympathetic nervous system—which is responsible for the body’s fight-or-flight response—go throughout the body, including into hair follicles. The study showed that stress causes the release of the chemical norepinephrine into the follicle….