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  • Look at that silver fox.

  • So distinguished, so sophisticated.

  • Wow!

  • But what if I told you that this guy was a millennial?

  • It's true; just barely.

  • According to Joe, he started going gray when he was 16.

  • By 22, he was pretty much totally gray.

  • Why does that happen?

  • And why does hair turn gray in the first place?

  • There's something about a silver foxif you can pull it off.

  • When I got rid of my gray hair, I wanted a natural look.

  • But many people hate the idea of going gray.

  • There's an entire industry built around fighting it.

  • It's like you took off 10 years.

  • And in just five minutes.

  • Just For Men.

  • She'll love the way you look.

  • So, why does it happen?

  • The process of hair changing from darker color to white or gray with age is mainly due to genetics.

  • It can be inherited from either parent.

  • The color of our hair is determined by the form of hair pigment that we have.

  • The pigment is actually produced along the hair shaft, and there are two main forms of hair pigment.

  • There's eumelanin and pheomelanin.

  • Eumelanin is what we see in brunettes and darker-haired people, and pheomelanin is what we see in blonds and redheads.

  • The cells in our hair bulb produce a little bit of hydrogen peroxide, which is a metabolic byproduct, and typically, there's an enzyme called catalase that breaks this down to water and oxygen.

  • But as we age, there's declining levels of catalase, and this allows the build-up of hydrogen peroxide in the hair bulb, which damages and destroys the melanocytes, or the pigment-producing cells, of our hair.

  • So, I wanted you to take a look at my colleague Joe here.

  • Joe is technically a millennial.

  • He started to go gray when he was 16, and by 22, it was pretty much gray all over.

  • What happened to Joe?

  • So, when individuals gray early in life before the age of 20, it's called premature graying, and this is due to genes.

  • And we know there's one gene, in particular, that's been targeted called "interferon regulatory factor 4", which is important in regulating and producing melanin in the hair.

  • Joe was lucky enough to inherit some genes that predisposed him to developing gray hair early in life.

  • Obviously, Joe has gray hair on his head.

  • When you go gray on your head, does the hair on the other parts of your body go gray as well?

  • No, no, no, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe!

  • We can picture it.

  • So, you can grow gray hair anywhere on your body; wherever you have hair.

  • The hair is susceptible to oxidative damage and, eventually, going gray.

  • So, the main cause of going gray is genetics, but what role can stress play?

  • After all, Obama didn't look like this when he showed up at the White House.

  • So, it's controversial the role stress has in hair graying.

  • We know that stress creates oxidative damage in the body, and it's been linked to a lot of premature aging syndromes.

  • So, it's thought that the stressthat stress causes oxidative damage, which may cause damage to the melanocytes and may cause us to grow gray earlier.

  • We know that smokers tend to go gray more so than the general population.

  • And, again, it's felt that it's probably due to the oxidative damage that smoke causes and how it affects the pigment-producing cells in the hair.

  • I think eating a well-balanced dietso, you make sure that you don't develop any nutritional deficienciesthat's another thing that can be done.

  • And modulating your stress.

  • That's another thing you have control over, which, over time, can cause oxidative damage and, again, make you prone to potentially more gray hair.

Look at that silver fox.

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