Harvard study: People with long gray hair are less likely to get cancer, really? How to turn white hair back to black?
"Hey, why do I have more and more gray hairs? A few strands are gray every day. Do you think I should dye my hair?" Grandma Zhang faced the mirror, looking at more and more gray hairs, with a sad face.
Grandma Liu beside her responded, "Why dye your hair? Let me tell you, long white hair is a good thing. There are articles that say that people with long white hair are less likely to get cancer."
Grandma Zhang was very puzzled. If this is the case, people will almost have gray hair when they are old. Could it be that people are less likely to get sick and get cancer when they are old? Is what Grandma Liu said makes sense?
1. Long white hair is not prone to cancer, true or false?
The reason why it is rumored that people with long gray hair is not easy to get cancer. It is said to be because of a study from Harvard, published in the British "Daily Mail".
This study believes that the generation of white hair is actually a protective mechanism of the body. The generation of white hair means that the stem cell gene that produces melanin has been damaged and has been cleared. If these damaged stem cells are not cleared in time, they will replicate crazily and form cancer cells.
In fact , this statement is actually baseless . Long gray hair is related to the reduction of melanin particles in the hair, but so far no research has confirmed the correlation between gray hair and cancer.
The specific causes of white hair are actually more complicated, the most important one may be caused by aging , when the aging of cells leads to the decrease of tyrosinase activity, and the decrease of melanin synthesis leads to white hair, so we can see that when people get older, There are many white hairs. In addition, there are these reasons.
· Genetic factors: congenital white hair people often have a family history of white hair, among which limited white hair is more common, and the front hairline is in the majority. Some children and teenagers have gray hair at a young age, commonly known as "juvenile white".
Disease factors: Diabetic patients may have gray hair. In addition, there are diseases such as vitiligo, albinism, tuberculosis, hyperthyroidism, pernicious anemia, etc., which will also reduce the synthesis of melanin in the body, and eventually lead to gray hair.
·Mental factors: Being in a high-pressure environment for a long time or staying up late for a long time and lack of sleep can easily lead to mental stress and emotional depression, which may accelerate the occurrence of gray hair.
·Nutritional factors: If a person is malnourished for a long time and lacks nutrients such as protein and B vitamins in the body, it will affect the synthesis of melanin needed by the hair and cause gray hair to grow in clusters.
Hu Yang, deputy chief physician of the Respiratory Department of Shanghai Lung Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University, explained that both gray hair and cancer are caused by aging. There is no evidence that people with gray hair are not prone to cancer . Fatigue, excessive stress, staying up too late, etc. are the factors that increase the risk of cancer.
2. The rumors are not credible, and there are no predictors for cancer
Why do people get cancer? Cancer evolves from normal cells as a result of many factors.
The evolution of normal cells into cancer cells and then into visible cancer is actually a long-term, gradual, and multi-stage process that usually involves first going through abnormal hyperplasia, then progressing from dysplasia to precancerous lesions, and then to Carcinoma in situ develops into invasive carcinoma until lymph node metastasis and distant tissue and organ metastasis.
This cancerous process can take several years at least, and decades at most. Therefore, we should not listen to rumors in our daily life, and paying attention to physical examination is the last word. Preventing problems before they happen, early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment.
In general, high-risk groups for cancer include the following:
1. Family history of cancer
For example, if the mother and sister in the family have been diagnosed with breast cancer, the chances of other women in the family suffering from breast cancer will be much higher than those without a family history of breast cancer. For example, patients with familial multiple polyps have a higher probability of developing bowel cancer than ordinary people .
2. Have a personal history of infection and medical history
People with leukoplakia and erythema of oral mucosa are at high risk of oral cancer, people with hepatitis are at high risk of liver cancer, and people with chronic gastropathy are at high risk of gastric cancer. Clinical medicine has found that certain viral or bacterial infections are associated with the occurrence of cancer, such as Epstein-Barr virus and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, human papillomavirus and cervical cancer, etc.
3. Environmental and occupational factors
Because occupational relationships require long-term exposure to harmful gases, liquids, or dust, the risk of lung cancer is high, and workers who have long-term exposure to synthetic rubber, aniline, and benzidine have a higher risk of bladder cancer.
4. Age > 40, with a special lifestyle
People over the age of 40 and people who have long-term special lifestyles are high risk of cancer. Special lifestyles include: long-term smoking, alcohol abuse or passive smoking, long-term consumption of smoked, roasted and pickled foods, long-term high-protein, high-fat and low-fiber diet, sexual Premature life, long-term psychological pressure and so on.
3. Can the white hair go back to black?
This varies from person to person, and it's actually quite difficult.
Generally, doctors will first find out the cause of gray hair. If the gray hair is caused by age, genetics, etc. , it is irreversible. The solution is to pull out or dye the hair.
If the gray hair is caused by mental factors , you need to relieve your emotions and stress, change your lifestyle, and it is possible to achieve a gradual reversal. For the white hair caused by the disease, active treatment is needed to solve the cause.
If it is due to nutritional deficiencies or the effects of medications , it can be treated but may not be effective. There are some oral medications available, but success is rare or relapses occur after a period of time.
Many people feel anxious about growing white hair on their heads, so they are more likely to listen to rumors and advertisements, and even take health care medicines by themselves. So far, in the public literature, the level of scientific evidence about the effect of health products that can "restore gray hair" is relatively low, so don't blindly believe in the legend that "health products can restore your black hair".
4. If you don’t want to have premature gray hair, pay attention to these diets
In addition to the gray hair brought about by aging, more and more people are growing gray hair before they reach their age. It is rumored that eating black sesame, black rice and black beans can improve gray hair, is it true?
Many people believe that using black to supplement blackness, in fact, although black food may have more nutrition than other foods, the melanin in it cannot be directly converted into hair pigment. However, the protein, B vitamins and trace elements in it can improve the gray hair problem caused by nutritional deficiency to a certain extent .
Although it cannot improve the problem of white hair, we can do the following to prevent white hair and improve hair quality:
First of all, eat less high-sugar diet, high-sugar diet may cause hair loss, and a large amount of sugar is easy to form a large amount of organic acid in the process of metabolism, this organic acid can easily interfere with the pigment metabolism of the hair, making the hair dull and dull Get solid yellow and dry.
And pay attention to nutritional supplements, such as copper deficiency, will promote the generation of white hair. According to the data of Popular Science China, generally speaking, the average daily intake of people is only about 0.8 mg, while the required copper content is 2 mg. Then you can moderately increase the intake of copper-rich foods such as animal liver, shellfish, fungi, nuts, apricots, oats, etc. , to alleviate the formation of gray hair.
In addition to diet, it is also necessary to regulate stress, pay attention to releasing emotions , develop regular work and rest habits, avoid staying up late, smoking and drinking and other bad behaviors, and reduce the number of hair perms to avoid hair damage.
It is unscientific to say that people with white hair are less likely to suffer from cancer. For cancer, don't place your hopes on rumors. Physical examination is very important. If you have white hair, whether it can be reversed to black needs symptomatic discussion. Compared to troubles with gray hair, it is better to prevent premature gray hair before.
References:
[1] "White hair is not easy to get cancer? The rumors are not credible, there are no predictors for cancer, and physical examination is very important." Hu Yang, a respiratory doctor. 2019-10-13
[2] "The Big Truth of Oncologists: How Cancer Gets, You Need to Know These 7 Points". Medical and Food Reference. 2021-02-26
[3] "White hair looks old, how can we make the white hair "black back"?" ". Eat three meals a day. 2019-10-22
[4] "The age is not up, why is the white hair growing out impatiently?" ". Human Health. 2020-03-19
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