There is an opinion that severe stress can cause an almost instant heating. We decided to check if such stories are true.
Similar stories go about some historical personalities. In particular, writethat the French Queen Maria Antoinette completely turned gray literally on the night before the execution. This phenomenon is even They called it In her honor. The same story They tell About the English philosopher Thomase Sea - refusing to recognize the English monarch Henry VIII as the head of the Anglican Church Thinker supposedly I went out On the block with completely gray hair, although the day before they were not like that. Biographers Reportthat the Russian poet Fedor Tyutchev during the night after the death of his first wife also completely turned gray. Contemporaries RememberThat completely during the night before the arrest, Admiral Kolchak turned gray. They also write about such metamorphosis in fiction - take, for example, poem Anna Akhmatova "The gray -eyed king":
“Glory to you, hopeless pain!
The gray -eyed king died yesterday.
Autumn evening was puffed and al,
My husband, returning, calmly said:
"You know, they brought him from hunting,
The body of the old oak was found.
Sorry to the queen. So young! ..
Over the night she became gray -haired. "
For hair color answers Pigment Melanin. His subspecies Eumlanin gives his hair a dark shade, and Feomelin - red. Their ratio And he determines whether a person will be by nature a blond, brunette or red -haired. For the production of melanin, areas of cells in hair bags - follicles are responsible. With age (for each it is individual), the pigment is produced less and less, respectively, the hair growing from the follicle has less and less color saturation. At the same time, even using household observations, it is clear that the pigment usually does not disappear from the already overgrown hair - gray hair is painted at the roots.
Medicine known Also, cases of poliosis are the absence in some zone of follicles producing melanin, which is why a person has a gray stain in his hair or a gray strand. The island of gray hair can be not only on the hair of the head - there are poliosis localized on eyebrows or eyelashes. Polyosis can accompany Some genetic diseases are VARARDENburg, type I neurofibromatosis, piebaldism and tuberculous sclerosis. One of the celebrities living With poliosis,-Steisi London, stylist, TV presenter and beauty browser.
In addition to reducing the number of pigment produced, another plays the role process. Cells responsible for the production of melanin produce hydrogen peroxide, which is also used to bleach hair, and the enzyme of the catalase, which breaks down the peroxide, preventing it from reaction. However, with age, balance It changes: The body produces less and less catalase, therefore, more and more peroxide remains not neutralized and reacts, giving a gray -haired tint to the growing hair.
No matter how strong stress is, it is not able to start an instant bleaching reaction for the whole mass of grown hair. Scientists Spent Experiment on mice. Rodents were subjected to one of three influences: the first were closed in a cramped cage, the latter was subjected to constant swinging of the cell, resettlement and loud sounds, and the third was injected with a burning substance under the skin. Then they shaved the mice and followed the color of the newly growing wool. Almost a third of the overgrown hairs of the third group had no color. Further studies made it possible to understand what was due to this with the exhaustion of stem cells located at the base of the follicles. At the same time, the reaction was not instant - gray hair appeared after a couple of weeks.
At the same time, what happened with Maria Antoinette, Thomas Mor, Fedor Tyutchev and Admiral Kolchak is a plausible scientific explanation. Scientists call this phenomenon of Canities Subita - a sudden graying. In 2013, researchers Analyzed Cases documented precisely in the medical literature, and not in biographies and memoirs, starting in 1800. In total, in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, 196 cases of sudden graying were described. They divided them into groups on previous influence. The first group was described by sudden sowing after severe pain or against the background of a serious illness (mainly an extensive stroke). The second group was a stressful sowing (after severe accidents, losses of loved ones or military operations). In the third, the cases of graying, combined with baldness, and in the fourth - occurring against the background of mental illness.
It is worth noting that in not all 196 cases, a change in hair color was constant. In some patients, the hair partially or completely returned their color. Scientists were able to explain what happened by two factors. In some observed, colored hair simply fell out (in science it is called Alopecia Areata Diffusa - focal diffuse alopecia). The second part has a change in the structure of the hair, which entailed the penetration of air into the hair and, as a result, the loss of its color. Most likelythat the case of Maria Antoinette is associated precisely with the first factor-having the color of the French queen simply fell out, observers did not evaluate the density of hair and therefore reported a completely gray-haired queen.
At the same time, other factors can be responsible for a quick, but not one -day sowing. Chronic stress can call Such DNA damage that will make our hair turn white. Described Also, the case of a patient with focal alopecia treated with steroids. In six months, her hair completely changed the color, although she did not survive any severe stress during this period.
Thus, the rapid graying (from several weeks to several months) can really be caused by severe stress or emotional shock. However, in one night, hair cannot completely change its color. In cases described in history, most likely, focal alopecia was observed, when all or almost all colored hair fell out, leaving the impression of a completely gray -haired person.
Most of the untruth
Read on the topic:
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please inform us of this, highlighting the text with an error and by pressing Ctrl+Enter.
