Study links 'stuck' stem cells to hair turning gray
phys.org
phys.org
When I was a teen I heard my dad say that my uncle (his older brother) would make a habit of advice that he liked, and then keep the habit forever. For example, a long time ago someone had advised him to massage his scalp daily for healthy hair. He was in his 70s at that point and had far less grey than my much younger dad.
So, around that time I started to vigorously massage my scalp every day while taking a shower. I spend about 15-20 seconds doing so.
My uncle passed away in his mid eighties with far less grey than is normal at that age.
I’m now approaching my mid fifties with only a handful of grey and keep on getting “you don’t look your age” comments.
It may be genes or it may be this practice.
You think wrongly, they're definitely linked:
"Exercise: Resistance training increases testosterone levels acutely, however, in older men, that increase can be avoided by protein ingestion. Endurance training in men may lead to lower testosterone levels." [0]
Why on earth would you want to avoid it? That's like saying weight loss could be avoided by eating lots of cake.
"In people who have undergone testosterone deprivation therapy, testosterone increases beyond the castrate level have been shown to increase the rate of spread of an existing prostate cancer."
So there's probably myriad scenarios where one needs to balance testosterone levels with maintaining physical activity/strength training.
We know massaging an area increases blood flow to that area, in turn promoting better cellular metabolic processes. Dermarolling seems to do this through inflicted trauma/irritation to said area. I know one of the actions of minoxidil is a vasodilator.
Checks out. Worst case you just have really clean hair and developed a new daily mindfulness technique.
Pretty sure it was just genetics, but i still do the same thing 40 years later and now I am afraid to stop.
Zinc Promotes Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cell Proliferation and Differentiation towards a Neuronal Fate https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932442/
Quercetin/Zinc complex and stem cells: A new drug therapy to ameliorate glycometabolic control and pulmonary dysfunction in diabetes mellitus: Structural characterization and genetic studies https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Copper increases melanin and collagen production in the body.
Was low-calorie diet -> lower mortality ever proven when accounting for likely resulting lower muscle mass/fitness?
Eating normal and exercising regularly to maintain muscle mass will reduce chances of all cause mortality and delay morbidity for as long as possible, however you must also maintain creatine supplementation well into old age to support the muscles and brain. The effects of creatine on the brain are often understated but they are significant.
Considering "normal" these days is metabolic syndrome, this doesn't even pass the smell test.
And once it didn't turn all the way, but it got stuck on a curious reddish-yellow colour, then reverted.
...
edit:
The researchers in this case decided to pluck hairs from young mice repeatedly until it started growing in grey instead of just looking at grey hairs on older lab mice.
I think with animal research there needs to be a careful balance struck between the amount of pain/harm caused to the animal and the potential good that can come from the research. Like, in animal studies that are done to try to prevent future cancer deaths, purposefully inducing cancer in lab rats is defensible.
In this case, without looking at the research paper to get more details, it sounds like they basically tortured live lab mice without a defensible reason, due to the fact that alternative methods were available.
Their methodology also makes the results less useful for the thing they were trying to research. Instead of knowing that stem cells exist but get stuck in older mammals who go grey, we instead know that if you repeatedly pluck out your own hair while you're young and then you go grey where you plucked out your hair, it's likely due to stem cells getting stuck.
ps: timeless intro
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-str...
Sharpen your machetes, tape up your baseball bat handles, time for the zombies.
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The cars had smashed so hard