Why silver hair back?

Why does our hair get silvery? It is said that when we are old, we have gray hair, but many people are young and still have gray hair. So what are the factors that make hair look gray?

Anyone who has observed a President or country leader during his term understands that stress and stress can be a cause of gray hair. Stress, silver hair is especially prominent with US President Barack Obama. If you have teenage children, you may think that the stress you cause is making your hair gray.

The truth is that gray hair is involved in the production of pigments in your hair follicles. This pigment production process can be affected by a number of factors, including stress.

Why do hair get gray?

The hair of US President Barack Obama has a lot of silver thread, is it because he is so stressed out?

To understand what makes your hair silvery, we first need to talk about what makes your hair grow and what gives hair color.

A person's hair color is the result of pigments called melanin . Made up of two types of amino acids (tyrosine and phenylalanine), these pigments are produced by a specific group of cells called melanocytes. Melanocyte cells that are present throughout our body and the melanin they produce will give our skin, hair and eyes color. The melanocytes are responsible for the hair color found in the onions of hair follicles / hair.

Although it is possible to have different colors of hair and skin, there are only two main types of melanin-eumelanin that produce dark brown to black, pheomelanin pigment produces red / yellow. These cells blend together to determine your hair color. In general, the more eumelanin is, the darker the hair is and vice versa.

Of course, everything does not completely happen in the way that the pigments blend together and create individual hair color. Genetic factors have a very clear impact. Scientists have identified a gene, and its corresponding genes are responsible for red hair. The gene is called MC1R, which is also responsible for red pigmentation in some other species, such as cows.

Once the specific formula of melanin is produced, their particles are transferred to neighboring keratinocytes, these keratinocytes are also in the behavior of hair follicles.Keratinocyte cells produce keratine, dead protein cells that make up our hair. Once keratinocyte dies, it retains the melanin that produces our hair color.

Silver hair is caused by less melanin in keratin. The less melanin, the more silver hair. If someone has completely white hair, that means there's no bit of melanin in keratin.

There are several other processes that can make our hair turn silver. What most people think of is that hair will be gray when we get old. As we age, melanocytes become inactive, but they still exist. The older we are, the lower the number of melanocytes. The result is less melanin, until there is no longer any. Therefore, our hair slowly turns white, and will be completely white when we get old.

Hair structure

In February 2005, Harvard scientists proposed a theory: why melanocyte drops when we get older. They found that the cause stems from the failure of melanocyte stem cells. These stem cells do not produce enough melanin to maintain the color of the hair.

In 2009, European scientists discovered another factor. They found that hair follicles produced a small amount of hydrogen peroxide . Normally, this small amount of hydrogen peroxide is broken down by an enzyme called catalase. As we age, the amount of enzyme catalase is reduced. As a result, hydrogen peroxide accumulates, preventing melanocyte from producing melanin.

There are some other factors that make silver hair, like genetic defects ; abnormal hormonal production as in the case of sudden or chronic stress; abnormal melanin distribution; and climatic factors can also cause hair loss, such as pollutants, toxins, and chemical exposure.

On the cause of stress causing silver hair, in 2011, Robert Lefkowitz, who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, led a research team that discovered mechanisms that can explain why stress and stress make us grow old. Accordingly, stress causes a series of messages to the nervous system. Usually, these neurological reactions are short and fast, it will benefit people. However, long-term stress causes long-term neurological reactions, which can cause DNA damage. This process promotes aging, tumor growth, miscarriage, mental conditions, and gray hair.

The time and silver speed of hair are very different. It is determined by many, if not all, of the aforementioned factors. Genetic characteristics, chemical exposure, and stress levels throughout life are a number of factors. If you are white, there is a 50% chance you will have 50% silver at age 50.

Silver hair is caused by less melanin in keratin.

Here are some interesting facts about hair

On average, the scalp has 100-150 thousand hair strands. Hair is so powerful, that if you group all your hair into one group, it can lift a weight of 10-15 tons, or each strand of hair can lift a weight of about 99.2 grams. Hair also has the highest cell division rate in the body. On average each day, hair grows by 0.3 mm, and every month is 1 cm. Thankfully, each hair has its own life cycle. Otherwise, instead of occasionally losing our hair, we will suddenly lose our hair all at once.

Hair grows in three stages : Growth phase (Anagen) - there are 80-85% hair in this period; Transition phase (Catagen) - is when hair starts to stop growing; and the telogen phase - at this time, the hair is no longer growing and begins to fall. There is 10-15% of our hair lying down during this period.

Melanin is a very common amino acid in almost all living things on Earth. Spiders are one of only a few species that do not produce melanin.

Warning crime! Scientists have developed a way to tell your eyes and hair color through the remaining DNA in the crime scene.