Are there biological facts to support the idea that stress causes grey hair?

Or is it a lie?

Are there biological facts to support the idea that stress causes grey hair?

That gray overnight thing is total nonsense. The pigment in hair called melanin in contained within the hair shaft which is actually dead and has no blood flow. Stress on the body acts within the live part of the body and nothing will affect a colored hair which has already left the body. The only thing extreme stress could do to your hair is make it fall out.

As far as stress being the cause of gray hair - that is nonsense too. We all run to a pre-determined program for gray hair. It can't be changed - even though we are always quick to link the presence of stress with the appearance of gray hair. My family has premature gray hair. I started going gray at about 14 years of age. My mother did too.

When pointing to presidents going gray and linking it to high job stress, you are forgetting two things: one is that they are at the age where gray hair tends to appear and accelerate anyway. The second is that there have been other politicians who have undergone equal if not greater stress and not gone gray. Ronald Reagan is reputed to have kept his dark hair to a very advanced age and he had the same stress as any other president to deal with. (although he may have had it touched up at times).

The fact is 99% of all people will go gray, most will start in their 30's and 40s and most are completely gray in their 50's. It's genetic.

Are there biological facts to support the idea that stress causes grey hair?

Just look at Clinton and Bush,you tell me

Are there biological facts to support the idea that stress causes grey hair?

There's anecdotal evidence to support the claim that trauma causes white hair. That's probably where the whole "gray hair is caused by stress" thing comes from.

or, more practically put, "my gray hair is caused by my daughter".

Are there biological facts to support the idea that stress causes grey hair?

I've heard of people whose hair turned grey or white overnight under extreme stress, such as a prisoner awaiting execution. I don't believe it, as I don't see how it can happen; hair is made up of scales, each of which takes on pigment (or not) as it emerges from the follicle. I don't see how hair that has already emerged can lose its pigment, but I've heard of it in enough diffferent circumstances that there could well be something to it. On the other hand, it is easy to see how, under stress, the follicles could stop manufacturing pigment on the scales which emerge during that time and afterward, as manufacturing pigment takes up body resources that would be diverted to dealing with the stress. Good question, I'm going to add this one to my watch list.