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Science
Brit Hanson, NPR, Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR and Aaron Scott, NPR

How age, stress and genetics turn hair gray

Short Wave from NPR

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Why a person's hair turns gray has to do with melanocytes, or pigment-producing cells that are concentrated around the hair follicle that give it color. One stops producing pigment, that strand of hair turns gray.
Why a person's hair turns gray has to do with melanocytes, or pigment-producing cells that are concentrated around the hair follicle that give it color. One stops producing pigment, that strand of hair turns gray.
Christopher Robbins/Getty Images

Why does hair turn gray? Is it stress? Age? Genetics?

As a kid, host Aaron Scott would dress up for Halloween as an older version of himself — complete with a cane, a set of polyester britches and painted gray hair. These days, that costume is becoming a bit more of a day-to-day reality. At least, the gray hair is.

So today, in honor of all you out there flirting with gray hair, whether for a witch costume or just that exciting and terrifying thing called aging, we're digging into why hair turns gray. And we turn to dermatologist Dr. Jenna Lester for answers.

Have an idea for an episode, or questions for the team? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

This episode was fact-checked by Rasha Aridi, and edited by Gisele Grayson and Viet Le. Dennis Nielson was the audio engineer.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.