
Scientists discover 'why stress turns hair white' - hhs
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51208972
======
tehjoker
This is really good to know, but this experiment makes me very uncomfortable.
It sounds like they had to torture several mice for days to get this result.

I suppose they didn't know what they'd find, but I don't think it's
appropriate to intentionally induce high levels of pain in animals just to see
what happens.

~~~
MperorM
I think it's really important to put their torture in proper context.

[https://animalcharityevaluators.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/...](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/donation-allocation-chart.jpg)

This statistic from animal charity evaluators, show just how small a
percentage lab testing makes up for in the total amount of animals we use and
kill.

If your goal is to effectively reduce animal suffering, the only place that
makes sense to start is factory farming. The conditions animals endure are
much worse than most testing, and the scale is difficult to comprehend.

I don't mean to trivialize the suffering these mice went through, I just think
it's important to make clear that we cause the same amount of suffering every
time we eat meat, something that brings us much less value than this research.

~~~
tomc1985
With the growing amount of consciousness towards ethically-sourced meat, I'm
not sure your statement is 100% true

~~~
chc
"Ethically sourced meat" is essentially a marketing gimmick. It generally
doesn't denote conditions that are meaningfully different from "normal" meat.

~~~
tomc1985
So, you're saying that farm-raised, open-pasture, free-range, or other titles
are meaningless? I don't think that is true when the labels are used honestly

~~~
chc
Legally speaking, yes. AFAIK the only one of those terms that carries any
legal requirements is "free-range," which is defined only for poultry, and the
requirement there is literally just "has had access to the outside," without
any stipulations on how much of its life that access applied to or what
"outside" means (so, for example, a small patch of pavement behind the factory
is totally free-range).

------
liber8
Interesting that there is no mention of hydrogen peroxide. About 10 years ago,
there was a flurry of news that greying hair was a result of a buildup of
hydrogen peroxide[1].

Many scientists guessed that this buildup was caused in part by lack of sleep,
as they believed that one of the benefits/purposes of sleep was the removal of
hydrogen peroxide, and other waste, from cells. The lead photos in many of
these articles was side by side photos of presidents at their inaugurations
and at some point during their term.

[1] See, e.g. [https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2013/05/reversing-
hair-g...](https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2013/05/reversing-hair-
grayness-by-suppressing-oxidative-stress/)

------
tombert
Hmm, I'm twenty-nine years old, and my wife started noticing white hairs a few
months ago. I thought that the "stress turning hair gray" was a myth...now I
guess I have a good excuse to actually use my vacation days.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You know, avoiding white/grey hair is _not_ the only reason to go on
vacation...

~~~
tombert
Heh, yeah, but I guess I still have some vanity left in me. Sometimes it takes
some silly catalyst to force you to do something you should be doing anyway.

------
Diesel555
I think the title is misleading.

From the article:

Pain in mice triggered the release of adrenaline and cortisol, making their
hearts beat faster and blood pressure rise, affecting the nervous system and
causing acute stress. This process then sped up the depletion of stem cells
that produced melanin in hair follicles. ... In another experiment, the
researchers found they could block the changes by giving the mice an anti-
hypertensive, which treats high blood pressure.

\-------------

So, while stress may cause high blood pressure, it appears high blood pressure
causes the white hair per the data in this article. I'm pretty sure things
other than stress may also cause high blood pressure. From the article's
title, they blame stress. What about all the other things that cause high
blood pressure?

Then there is discussion on how to stop this from happening by blocking a
protein which appears valid, but still a misleading title.

------
catalogia
Could stress turning hair white actually be an evolutionary adaptation that
provides an advantage to stressed people? Perhaps white hair is associated
with maturity, and the appearance of maturity might confer social advantages
to somebody who's being stressed (younger people might be more willing to
assist them?)

~~~
warlog
Maybe.

It's always good to play the game of asking whether such a signal is honest?
...why not just be unstressed and get white hair if it garners attention and
help? Which demands thinking in terms of tradeoffs ... What is the cost of
premature white hair? Etc etc etc

------
kingbirdy
> Men and women can go grey any time from their mid-30s

It can start earlier than that - I found my first gray hair around 16, and I'm
now in my early 20s with pretty evenly mixed salt-and-pepper hair along the
sides (the top has decided to run away, rather than go gray).

------
schappim
>> In tests in mice, stem cells that control skin and hair colour were damaged
by stress from intense pain.

How did this get past the ethics committee?

~~~
s1artibartfast
It probably was a valuable experiment and took efforts to minimize unnecessary
harm to the animals?

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therealdrag0
> "We now know for sure that stress is responsible for this specific change to
> your skin and hair, and how it works," says Prof Ya-Cieh Hsu, research
> author from Harvard University.

Interesting! I would have guessed stress's involvement was mostly myth and
actually just natural aging based on genes.

~~~
toyg
_> I would have guessed stress's involvement was mostly myth_

Looking at Barack Obama's hair before and after his first term, I would have
said the opposite...

~~~
therealdrag0
Sure I've seen the meme, but it's not enough on its own. You also have to
compare that to other people at a similar age over the course of 8 years...
Many people turn gray in middle age, not just presidents under stress!

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qwerty456127
Cool but the most of us will probably get irreversibly gray already by the
time they release a drug.

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mikelyons
> _" Pain in mice triggered the release of adrenaline and cortisol, making
> their hearts beat faster and blood pressure rise, affecting the nervous
> system and causing acute stress. This process then sped up the depletion of
> stem cells that produced melanin in hair follicles."_

~~~
poiuyt098
Would caffeine lead to early graying then?

~~~
mikelyons
Not sure, pain seems more stressful than caffeine, but you'd have to test.

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sjg007
Some chemotherapy drugs cause white hair too.

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onyva
No wonder Drumpf’s “hair” is not responding... It’s either a wig, or he’s
clueless of the circumstances.

------
guelo
Too bad for science purposes that Trump dyes his hair.

~~~
davidw
That fascist is turning my hair white.

~~~
dang
I don't know why you went back on ten years' worth of advocating to keep
politics off HN, but your HN posts have been getting increasingly political,
increasingly partisan, and (to judge by this one) increasingly degenerate.
Would you please not just stop this trend but reverse it? We badly need the
senior users of this site to contribute to preserving it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
davidw
Hi, you're right, I'll eliminate them.

My guts are tied in a knot half the time wondering what's going to happen; if
this is the end of free and fair elections, and maybe the beginning of
something worse (this is a good summary:
[https://twitter.com/willwilkinson/status/1219638176953839617](https://twitter.com/willwilkinson/status/1219638176953839617)
), and I guess that seeps through in my comments.

As to my degenerate comment - it's actually the truth. I've started to get
white hairs in the past 6 months, and while I can't prove the cause, as above,
I am very worried. My wife's family lived through fascism in Italy, and I've
read enough, in both Italian and English, to not feel uncomfortable using that
term even if it's a strong one. But, yeah, I guess it's incendiary and not
appropriate here until it's in the history books.

A question for you: housing and urbanism come up a lot here, and I think
that's also something that's inherently political, but I don't see moves to
keep it out. Without doubt, it towers over local politics in the Bay Area, and
has repercussions up here in Oregon (and beyond) as you may have seen perusing
my comments. I feel the level of discussion is generally better regarding
those issues, and it's certainly not as partisan in nature. But it is
certainly political.

~~~
dang
Thanks for the thoughtful reply David. Unfortunately I'm on a plane and am
about to be told to close my laptop. Will try to come back later—but also we
can discuss this via hn@ycombinator.com anytime.

------
markdown
Now if only they'd get on to MPB. There's money to be made hand over fist in
the untapped exploitation of male vanity. I'd be first in line.
Rogaine+fin+nizoral just doesn't cut it.

~~~
IIAOPSW
I don't know that I'd call what I have "vanity" so much as "not wanting to
come to terms with the state of bodily decay as a reminder of my inexorable
march to the grave". But you're right there's money to be made hand over fist.
How much to press the snooze button on the mortality alarm?

~~~
twic
I don't care what you call it, just make it stop and i'll give you money!

