Why Does Hair Turn Gray?

In today’s busy world often we don’t even notice our hair started turning grey. Happened to you? Grey hair- the classic sign making us realize we are getting older. Ahhh… hate that. Don’t we? But sometimes it can be seen before the expected time or age. So what are the reasons behind it? And what can be done to prevent it?

In this article we are going to find out all the causes and some of the main factors affecting graying.
In Brief: Age at which your hair will start covering itself grey can be assumed by your genetics. Most probably you will get the first touch of grey around the similar age your mon-dad or grandparents got.
But the rate of hair greying depends on some other under control factors too. Smoking is one of the vital reason for having grey hair sooner than your expectation. Insufficient level of vitamins B, Poor nutrition and neglected thyroid conditions also increase the hair greying rate. Increasing pollution can be another reason.

Mentioned above are the reasons why hair turns to grey. But what actually happens and how it effects? Our body produces a pigment called melanin, same thing that tans our skin while we are out in the sun. In short, melanin is the reason behind every black particle in our body.
Every hair follicle in our body has particular cells containing this pigment. These cells are called melanocytes. The pigment melanin can be divided into some deeper & major parts. Melanocytes produce eumelanin, the reason for black & brown, and pheomelanin, which is little reddish-yellow and the melanin gets passed to the cells producing keratin, the chief hair protein. When the keratinocytes (Cells that produce keratin) die, they retain the coloring.

At the primary stage, when one starts to go grey, the melanocytes become less active, they are still present though. Due to the deposited pigment is low, the hair appears to be lighter. The more dying melanocytes increases the greying process.
Though greying is absolutely natural and not associated with diseases. You might have seen people going grey in their 20s but perfectly healthy. Increasing stress can be another reason for grey hair.
We can’t pause the natural process but we surely can decreasing the self-made reasons to delay greying.