Grey Hair May Protect Against Cancer

Have you ever watched someone try to cover up gray hair by dyeing it? Or maybe you wonder why your grand dad has a full head of silver hair when in old pictures it used to be dark brown? Getting grey, silver, or white hair is a natural part of growing older.

Grey hair may not be welcome, but experts say the processes that produce it are now better understood and could be protecting us from cancer.
Clinically, cells called melanocytes produce the pigments that colour hair and their numbers are kept topped up by stem cells. Hair goes grey when the number of stem cells in hair follicles declines.
Each hair on our heads is made up of two parts: A shaft the coloured part we see growing out of our heads and a root the bottom part, which keeps the hair anchored under the scalp. The root of every strand of hair is surrounded by a tube of tissue under the skin that is called the hair follicle. Each hair follicle contains a certain number of pigment cells which continuously produce a chemical called melanin that gives the growing shaft of hair its colour of brown, blonde, red and anything in between. Melanin is the same stuff that makes our skin’s colour fair or darker.
As we get older, the pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die. As people continue to get older, fewer pigment cells will be around to produce melanin. Eventually, the hair will look completely gray.
However, people can get gray hair at any age. Some people go gray hair at young age as early as when they are in high school or college whereas others may be in their 30s or 40s before they see that first gray hair. How early we get gray hair is determined by our genes. This means that most of us will start having gray hairs around the same age that our parents or grandparents first did. Some people think that a big shock or trauma can turn a person’s hair white or gray overnight, but scientists don’t really believe that this happens.
Thanks to a new study by some researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University exposed mice to radiation and chemicals that harm DNA, damaged stem cells transformed permanently into melanocytes. This ultimately led to fewer melanocytes, as it meant there were fewer stem cells capable of topping up the melanocyte pool. The mice also went grey. The study proposes that the same process leads to the reduction in stem cells in the follicles of older people, especially as DNA damage accumulates as we age.
Cancer experts also suggest that such processes may help protect us from cancer, by discouraging the proliferation of stem cells with damaged DNA, Which could pass on mutations. One likely beneficial effect is the removal of potentially dangerous cells that may contain precancerous capabilities. Another similar study also figured out why hair turns gray. Their finding may open the door to new anti-dying strategies.