Medical Mysteries GETTING TO THE ROOT OF GRAY HAIR

WRITER: FRED HILTON

When Marie Antoinette was guillotined in 1792, onlookers swore the 37-year-old ex-queen had suddenly turned completely gray. The assumption was the stress of waiting for the execution had changed her hair color, which was probably blond or light brown.

The sudden change in the color of Marie Antoinette’s hair can be explained, but scientists are pretty much baffled on exactly why hair turns gray or white with age.

“It is well known that gray hair results from a reduction of pigment, while white hair has no pigment, but why this happens remains somewhat of a mystery,” according to Everyday Mysteries.

The pigment in hair, as well as our skin, is called melanin. As melanin leaves your hair, the color changes.

You have plenty of hair to go gray. An average scalp has 100,000–150,000 strands of hair. In time, everyone’s hair turns gray. Your chances of going gray increase 10 to 20 percent every decade after you’re 30. Rates of graying vary among ethnic groups. Typically, Caucasians start going gray in their mid-30s, Asians in their late 30s and African-Americans in their mid-40s. By age 50, about half of us will be at least 50 percent gray.

The hard question is why the melanin deserts our hair and turns it gray or white. The widely accepted answer is genetics. You can blame your gray hair on your parents and your grandparents. You’ll probably grow gray at about the same age they did.

Dr. Desmond Tobin, professor of cell biology from the University of Bradford in England, says “Hair turns gray because of age and genetics, in that genes regulate the exhaustion of the pigmentary potential of each individual hair follicle. This occurs at different rates in different hair follicles. For some people it occurs rapidly, while in others it occurs slowly over several decades.”

A few things, such as anemia and untreated thyroid conditions, can also contribute to graying. Experts have generally dismissed stress as a cause of graying. WebMD puts it succinctly: “Contrary to popular belief, stress has not been shown to cause gray hair.”

Which brings us back to Marie Antoinette. If it wasn’t stress that changed her hair color, what was it? The theory is she had no access to hair dye in prison. Her hair was cut short before the execution, showing she was turning gray. She may have been the first person to lose her head over gray roots.