haidut

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Not exactly news for most of my readers, but it is a popular topic for many people and, as usual, the response of most doctors is that the premature greying is genetically influenced and not much can be done about it. While the study below conclusively links greying to stress, I think the mechanism provided in the article is not the major one, even though the link to noradrenaline excess makes sense as a mediator of stress. Older studies who looked at the issue before it became so controversial discovered that greying is due to elevated tryptophan/serotonin in the blood (and thus hairs) and serotonin antagonists and/or dopamine agonists can reverse it. Topical solution of copper may also work but it can also encourage the appearance of moles on the skin. So, something like Benadryl, cyproheptadine or even bromocriptine may be better options and their effects make perfect sense considering they mitigate the effects of stress. Avoiding stress would be ideal of course but that is not really an option for most people these days. And if the sympathetic system does play a major role then adding a bit of extra salt to the diet may also be helpful, especially considering salt increase serotonin uptake/deactivation.

Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells | Nature
How stress causes gray hair

"...Stress can have a variety of negative effects on the body. The idea that acute stress can cause hair to turn gray is a popular belief. But until now, that link wasn’t scientifically proven. Hair color is determined by cells called melanocytes, which produce the pigment melanin. New melanocytes are made from melanocyte stem cells that live within the hair follicle at the base of the hair strand. As we age, these stem cells gradually disappear. The hair that regrows from hair follicles that have lost melanocyte stem cells has less pigment and appears gray. Researchers set out to determine if stress could also cause hair to gray, and if so, how. The study was funded in part by NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and other NIH components. The findings appeared in Nature on January 22, 2020. The research team, led by Dr. Ya-Chieh Hsu of Harvard University, used mice to examine stress and hair graying. The mice were exposed to three types of stress involving mild, short-term pain, psychological stress, and restricted movement. All caused noticeable loss of melanocyte stem cells and hair graying. Having established a link between stress and graying, the scientists then explored several potential causes. They first tested whether immune attack might be responsible for depleting melanocyte stem cells. But stressing mice with compromised immune systems still led to hair graying. The team then investigated the role of the stress hormone corticosterone, but altering its levels didn’t affect stress-related graying. The researchers eventually turned to the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which, along with corticosterone, was elevated in the stressed mice. They found that noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, was key to stress-induced hair graying. By injecting noradrenaline under the skin of unstressed mice, the researchers were able to cause melanocyte stem cell loss and hair graying. Noradrenaline is produced mostly by the adrenal glands. However, mice without adrenal glands still showed stress-related graying. Noradrenaline is also the main neurotransmitter of the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” reaction in response to stress. The team ultimately discovered that signaling from the sympathetic nervous system plays a critical role in stress-induced graying. Sympathetic nerves extend into each hair follicle and release noradrenaline in response to stress. Normally, the melanocyte stem cells in the follicle are dormant until a new hair is grown. Noradrenaline causes the stem cells to activate."
 
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haidut

haidut

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jyb

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Not exactly news for most of my readers, but it is a popular topic for many people and, as usual, the response of most doctors is that the premature greying is genetically influenced and not much can be done about it.

From what I read in the standard medical viewpoint a few years ago: the time at which grey hair first appear is genetic, but the speed of greying may depend on other factors and could possibly be reversed, even if how to do it reliably is yet to be determined. For acute greying when it is unexpectedly quick and of a specific patch of hair, I think it is more widely accepted that it is due to stress and can be reversed when stress ends. For long term greying, the genetic influence seems plausible to me as I get the impression some populations get consistently less grey hair and I don't believe differences in stress can explain it, however this remains speculation until I see population statistics.
 

Peater

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I think I was happier when I knew this was an old wive's tale, and with enough gelatine/glycine, copper, and low tryptophan I'd be set :(
 

mrchibbs

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From what I read in the standard medical viewpoint a few years ago: the time at which grey hair first appear is genetic, but the speed of greying may depend on other factors and could possibly be reversed, even if how to do it reliably is yet to be determined. For acute greying when it is unexpectedly quick and of a specific patch of hair, I think it is more widely accepted that it is due to stress and can be reversed when stress ends. For long term greying, the genetic influence seems plausible to me as I get the impression some populations get consistently less grey hair and I don't believe differences in stress can explain it, however this remains speculation until I see population statistics.

Everytime I see the term ''genetic'' it always feels to me like a huge copout, because it in essence stops the discussion. Sorry for the rant but ''Genes'' don't determine if your hair turns gray at 34 and 52 days. The different rates of aging between 2 people can be explained by metabolic differences and yes a tendency can be inherited, but its not deterministic (i.e. set in stone). There's a reason why we inherit certain traits, and its because our parents and grandparents were exposed and then ''adapted'' or more often ''maladapted'' to certain stressors and this in turn has modulated our development patterns. During development and early years, small differences can set powerful patterns long term, but it can always be compensated if enough effort is put it. (Not my quote, but rather Ray's, loosely worded)
 

mrchibbs

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I think I was happier when I knew this was an old wive's tale, and with enough gelatine/glycine, copper, and low tryptophan I'd be set :(

If only we could deal with stress more effectively...The adaptogens (or different protective factors) like you mention should be tools to reduce chronic stress as much as possible. They're often no enough for really metabolically compromised people (like many on this forum). We need to remove the roots of the excessive stress in our lives, and sometimes it involves taking steps which are hard/seem impossible to take in the current culture. People feel trapped and I don't think a few supplements can prevent rapid aging and gray hair if the wrong kind of chronic stressors are in place.
 

Peater

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If only we could deal with stress more effectively...The adaptogens (or different protective factors) like you mention should be tools to reduce chronic stress as much as possible. They're often no enough for really metabolically compromised people (like many on this forum). We need to remove the roots of the excessive stress in our lives, and sometimes it involves taking steps which are hard/seem impossible to take in the current culture. People feel trapped and I don't think a few supplements can prevent rapid aging and gray hair if the wrong kind of chronic stressors are in place.

You're completely right
 

baccheion

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I've read about (grape) juice fasts reversing grey hair. Need more catalase. And obviously less of what's increasing H2O2 production.
 

mrchibbs

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You're completely right

I wish it wasn't so, I speak from experience the chronic stress is an awful thing to try to deal with.
 

Lejeboca

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We need to remove the roots of the excessive stress in our lives, and sometimes it involves taking steps which are hard/seem impossible to take in the current culture. People feel trapped and I don't think a few supplements can prevent rapid aging and gray hair if the wrong kind of chronic stressors are in place.

I'd say that that if one generally increases their metabolism, one would have enough energy to find creative solutions for the feeling of being trapped (aka learned helplessness), and would be more resistant to all sorts of stressors (either less sensitive or rebound faster).
Yeah, a bunch of supplements might not do the trick but something more fundamental. such as decreasing PUFA, would.
 

Lorof

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Ray has written about this in Generative Energy - Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

CHAPTER 12

RESTORING HAIR COLOR


Largely because of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi's explorations in
biological pigments as factors in cell-regulation and immunity,
I have paid special attention to several pigments, such as
melanin, the black or brown pigment of hair and skin, of in-
jured potatoes, and of certain fungi, when damaged. When I
lived in Montana, I knew many people whose hair became
grey in their late 20s; I wondered whether it was caused by
low thyroid, by an odd mineral balance, by frequent chilling of
the skin and scalp, or maybe just by their lack of fresh fruit
and vegetables. In Mexico, people in warm, humid tropical
areas seldom lost their pigment. When I heard Carl Pfeiffer
speak, 1 noticed that both his skin and his hair were free of
pigment, though he was not an albino, and I wondered wheth-
er his various mineral nutritional supplements had contributed
to his fading. (He took sulfur every day, and avoided copper.
He also advocated the use of molybdenum as a nutritional
supplement.)

Until I was 4 or 5, my hair was white, and I took it as a hu-
miliating stigma of sexual immaturity; in fact, everyone tends
to darken as they grow up, especially around puberty. Many
people have wondered what function the melanin in frogs'
eggs might have, and a few years ago someone demonstrated
that it is what binds progesterone in the egg, and suggested
that it might have a similar function in other animals and other
cells.


86



A Japanese researcher found that each hair color is asso-
ciated with a certain pattern of several trace minerals. When
he removed all the trace minerals, every type of hair became
white. When he added a characteristic pattern of trace miner-
als, associated with a particular hair color, to a sample of de-
mineralized hair, the color which was produced corresponded
to the minerals added, and not to what the original color of
the hair had been. He concluded that people inherit a tendency
to concentrate certain minerals in their hair.

People who studied the effects of steroids on aging skin
found that the steroids which reversed structural age changes
in the skin (progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone) some-
times restored hair growth. Occasionally, the hair that grew
was pigmented. Estrogen and cortisone accelerated the struc-
tural changes of aging in the skin, but their effects on hair
were not mentioned. Vitamin A has anti-estrogen effects in
skin and other tissues, and part of this effect might result from
its ability to promote synthesis of pregnenolone and
progesterone.

Physicians have mentioned that a depigmented spot some-
times appears in the skin over an area where they have in-
jected cortisone. The familiar association of severe stress
with sudden greying of the hair also would suggest that exces-
sive cortisone destroys melanin. The average stress caused by
a particular climate would probably combine with any other
factors that are involved in regions where there is more or less
white hair than average.

1 think oxygen wastage is a central event in aging. Just as a
cut potato requires oxygen to make melanin, so do our tis-
sues. Iron tends to keep accumulating in our tissues with ag-
ing, and iron appears to be a factor in wasting oxygen
(especially in age pigment). When oxygen is deficient, iron


87



becomes very toxic. Copper is involved in a process which re-
stores iron to its non-toxic form.

Vitamin C in excess can contribute to the toxicity of iron,
but in the right amount, vitamin C is metabolically linked with
vitamin E in protecting against the toxic free radicals pro-
duced by iron. Vitamin A also functions as an anti-oxidant,
when the amount of oxygen present is very low-which is
when iron toxicity is at its worst.

Someone suspected that copper accelerated aging by caus-
ing free radical reactions, and fed a chelator (gluconic acid) to
animals, and extended their lives by 10 or 12%. In his next
experiment, he fed them both the chelator and extra copper,
thinking he would counteract the life extension, but these ani-
mals lived 22% longer. He next fed copper alone, and found
that it extended the life-span by about 11%, so its effect was
additive with that of the chelator. 1 suspect the chelator was
removing iron, and maybe other toxic metals. At a dose
about 50 times larger than normal, copper did shorten the life-
span by several percent.

Black sheep will produce white wool if they are fed an ex-
cess of molybdenum. This is supposedly caused by a displace-
ment of copper. I think we probably accumulate too much of
the wrong metals, such as iron, with aging and stress.

I had some eyebrow hairs that were pure white; when one
matured and fell out, another white one would replace it.
They grow quickly, and have a short life cycle, so they are
nice to experiment with.

1 went on a very low iron diet, eating mostly milk, with
some eggs, cheese, and citrus fruit, but with very little meat
for several weeks. I cooked eggs in a copper pan, to increase
my copper intake and to avoid iron absorbed from an iron



88



pan. I found a source of vitamin A without preservative, and
began using large amounts of that, which I had not done for
several years because of an allergy to the preservative. I in-
creased my doses of DHEA and pregnenolone.

Usually on alternate days, I would rub vitamin A and vita-
min E (sometimes with DHEA), or a solution of copper ace-
tate, into the skin around the white hairs. Within a few
weeks, the bottom of one of the white hairs had begun to
darken (Figure 1— the hair on the right). Another hair (the
center one) came out a couple of weeks later, and was dark-
ened along about half of its length. The third hair (on the left)
came out two or three weeks later, and was all black except
for 3 millimeters at the tip, which had begun growing about
the time the other two were changing color. It has been about
two months since I stopped cooking regularly in copper (the
taste gets very tiresome), and none of the hairs has reverted to
white. (The black lines were about 2 mm. apart; they allow
both colors to be seen in the xerox copy.) The fine tops of
the hairs end at lines 8, 9, and 7, going from left to right; each
hair has a few mm. of intermediate light brown, which doesn't
reproduce well.
 

mrchibbs

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I'd say that that if one generally increases their metabolism, one would have enough energy to find creative solutions for the feeling of being trapped (aka learned helplessness), and would be more resistant to all sorts of stressors (either less sensitive or rebound faster).
Yeah, a bunch of supplements might not do the trick but something more fundamental. such as decreasing PUFA, would.

You're right, with a high rate of metabolism, you can come to view the world in the right perspective. But for many people it's a struggle to keep that high rate of metabolism.
And I think the way we perceive things can feed into the metabolic problems, as a feedback effect, and maintain and adaptively suppress metabolism further.

There have been reports of people who broke off bad relationships and had a big jump in basal temperature. Making big changes in our environment can support our energy production, which will then feedback onto itself and help make even more changes.
 

golder

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May 10, 2018
Messages
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I’m really keen to get hold of some copper acetate, which Ray topically applied to the eyebrow hairs. Can’t seem to find any, has anyone had any luck? Great reading, thanks.
 

Mossy

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Jun 2, 2017
Messages
2,043
I’m really keen to get hold of some copper acetate, which Ray topically applied to the eyebrow hairs. Can’t seem to find any, has anyone had any luck? Great reading, thanks.
You can create this at home. Search this forum and you will find several threads. Ray noted to drop a copper penny (1982 or older for US) into some vinegar and let it sit for a week or so. You can find the powder on amazon as well.
 

golder

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Thanks mate, I’ll do that. By the way, is there anything to look out for with regards to copper cookware? There seems to be so many different varieties that I wanted to briefly call on you guys expertise before I took the plunge and got myself a saucepan/frying pan.
 

mts29

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Not exactly news for most of my readers, but it is a popular topic for many people and, as usual, the response of most doctors is that the premature greying is genetically influenced and not much can be done about it. While the study below conclusively links greying to stress, I think the mechanism provided in the article is not the major one, even though the link to noradrenaline excess makes sense as a mediator of stress. Older studies who looked at the issue before it became so controversial discovered that greying is due to elevated tryptophan/serotonin in the blood (and thus hairs) and serotonin antagonists and/or dopamine agonists can reverse it. Topical solution of copper may also work but it can also encourage the appearance of moles on the skin. So, something like Benadryl, cyproheptadine or even bromocriptine may be better options and their effects make perfect sense considering they mitigate the effects of stress. Avoiding stress would be ideal of course but that is not really an option for most people these days. And if the sympathetic system does play a major role then adding a bit of extra salt to the diet may also be helpful, especially considering salt increase serotonin uptake/deactivation.

Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells | Nature
How stress causes gray hair

"...Stress can have a variety of negative effects on the body. The idea that acute stress can cause hair to turn gray is a popular belief. But until now, that link wasn’t scientifically proven. Hair color is determined by cells called melanocytes, which produce the pigment melanin. New melanocytes are made from melanocyte stem cells that live within the hair follicle at the base of the hair strand. As we age, these stem cells gradually disappear. The hair that regrows from hair follicles that have lost melanocyte stem cells has less pigment and appears gray. Researchers set out to determine if stress could also cause hair to gray, and if so, how. The study was funded in part by NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and other NIH components. The findings appeared in Nature on January 22, 2020. The research team, led by Dr. Ya-Chieh Hsu of Harvard University, used mice to examine stress and hair graying. The mice were exposed to three types of stress involving mild, short-term pain, psychological stress, and restricted movement. All caused noticeable loss of melanocyte stem cells and hair graying. Having established a link between stress and graying, the scientists then explored several potential causes. They first tested whether immune attack might be responsible for depleting melanocyte stem cells. But stressing mice with compromised immune systems still led to hair graying. The team then investigated the role of the stress hormone corticosterone, but altering its levels didn’t affect stress-related graying. The researchers eventually turned to the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which, along with corticosterone, was elevated in the stressed mice. They found that noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, was key to stress-induced hair graying. By injecting noradrenaline under the skin of unstressed mice, the researchers were able to cause melanocyte stem cell loss and hair graying. Noradrenaline is produced mostly by the adrenal glands. However, mice without adrenal glands still showed stress-related graying. Noradrenaline is also the main neurotransmitter of the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the “fight-or-flight” reaction in response to stress. The team ultimately discovered that signaling from the sympathetic nervous system plays a critical role in stress-induced graying. Sympathetic nerves extend into each hair follicle and release noradrenaline in response to stress. Normally, the melanocyte stem cells in the follicle are dormant until a new hair is grown. Noradrenaline causes the stem cells to activate."


Would I just apply cyproheptadine to the gray areas or just topically over the head? Also is this something I would be able to mix this with my Solban that I am currently using?
 

mrchibbs

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Would I just apply cyproheptadine to the gray areas or just topically over the head? Also is this something I would be able to mix this with my Solban that I am currently using?

It's a systemic issue, not topical.
 

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