Publish at December 03 2025 Updated December 03 2025
It may be said to be a sign of wisdom, but graying hair is generally viewed in a negative light. In fact, hair coloring is just as popular with women as it is with men.
This sign of old age in a society that favors the new and the young has, alas, no place for most people. However, this graying may not be inevitable. Scientists may have found an explanation for their presence and how to reverse the trend.
Contrary to popular belief, white hair is not an inevitable sign of old age. In fact, it's well known that people can start to go grey as early as age 30 or even earlier. So it's not a question of the biological clock, but rather of what happens during hair growth.
In a follicle, two elements are important for color. The hair germ, which sends the chemical message to color the hair, and the hair bulge, which acts as a medium where there is no message to color.
In a normal cycle, stem cells travel from the bulge to the germ as soon as it starts to grow. The WNT proteins then give them the signal to become melanocyte stem cells and give the hair its color.
However, by forcing regular hair replacement on mice, as the cycles progressed, they noted that stem cells remained stuck in the bulge, a bit like caught in cell traffic, leading to white hair. So, it wouldn't be time as a countdown to life responsible for whiteness, but rather a matter of movement and rhythm going out of whack.
Since mice and men share the same type of follicle and stem cells when it comes to hair, the scientists in charge of the study at NYU Langone came to the conclusion that the solution to gray hair would not, for example, be to send stem cells to activate the color.
The solution lies in ensuring the rhythm by giving neighboring cells the right messages. So, when it's time for a hair to grow, a message could potentially be given so that stem cells can emerge from the bulge and reach the sprout at the right moment to color.
For the moment, there's no recipe for reversing grey hair. Nevertheless, the discovery is a superb step towards eventually finding a way for stem cells to keep their rhythm throughout life, no matter which follicle cycle they're in.
References
Gray hair may soon be permanently reversible, thanks to a scientific breakthrough - https://www.earth.com/news/gray-hair-may-soon-be-reversible-at-cellular-level-according-to-study-results/
A Study Says Gray Hair May Be Reversible - https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a65035876/gray-hair-could-be-reversible-study/
Hair Follicle Stem Cells Provide a Functional Niche for Melanocyte Stem Cells - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S193459091000651X
The back-to-school scourge: lice - https://cursus.edu/fr/10248/le-fleau-de-la-rentree-scolaire-les-poux
Reversing male baldness is closer to reality with natural new treatment - https://www.earth.com/news/new-natural-cure-male-baldness-highly-effective-sugar-2-deoxy-d-ribose/
Wnt Protein - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/wnt-protein
Granfluencers: seniors who are popular online - https://cursus.edu/fr/30885/les-granfluencers-ces-aines-qui-ont-la-cote-en-ligne
Learn more about this news
You might also like:
From "buyer personas" to "student personas", defining them for educational activities
It's sometimes tricky to take up marketing concepts given that the teaching objective is fundamentally different. However, when marketing is customer-centric like our teaching is student-centric, it can make perfect sense.
More than a technical adjustment, peer assessment requires a different posture, for students and teachers alike.
Protect, destroy and restore [Thesis].
To start again from scratch, or to be in the state of mind of renewal, is to open one's capacity to dream and to desire for oneself a new world. How Europe reinvented itself in its post-war reconstruction (1939-1945), by setting up a critical and artistic restoration of its heritage works.
Succeeding in your professional pairing
Forming professional couples, a history of intimacy and trust
