The Upside to Going Gray

Going gray is a change in appearance that many of us would like to do without. We may pluck offending strands, and if the onslaught is particularly rapid and widespread, we may mask it with hair dye.

But while we cringe upon being confronted by visible evidence of the aging process, an interesting finding now suggests that going grey may actually have cancer preventive properties.

Cells called melanocytes produce hair pigments, and the number of these color-producing cells are kept at adequate levels by stem cells. When the number of stem cells declines — typically due to DNA damage that we collect over the years — their capacity to maintain our natural hair color decreases, and hair turns gray.

Harvard Medical School cancer researcher David Fisher observes in a recent study in mice that radiation-damaged stem cells were permanently transformed into melanocytes, no longer stem cells, and therefore unable to produce more pigment-maintaining melanocytes.

The most critical implication from Fisher's study is that by changing into a different type of cell, the DNA-damaged stem cells did not replicate and pass along this genetic damage through new cell production.

"One likely beneficial effect is the removal of potentially dangerous cells that may contain pre-cancerous capabilities," according to Dr. Fisher.

Going gray just might be good news.