Does Stress Turn Hair
G
RE
Y
?
壓力會令人頭髮變
白
嗎？
It
was said that Mar ie Antoinet te’s hai r
turned white the night before she was sent to
her execution. The event was so peculiar that it
was given its own name, the Marie Antoinette
Syndrome, used to describe the phenomenon of
hair turning white within a short period of time.
While many believe that hair greying has a certain
degree of correlation with stress, much of the
‘evidence’ is anecdotal and hardly that dramatic.
Does stress really whiten hai r and was Mar ie
Antoinette’s sudden change of hair colour merely
an exaggeration or does it hold a certain amount
of truth?
Greying or whitening of hai r is caused by
several factors. An accumulation of hydrogen
peroxide, naturally produced by hair cells, is a
likely culprit. An excess of hydrogen peroxide
blocks the synthesis of a type of pigment called
melanin, which gives hair its colour, and is also the
determinant of skin colour and the colour of the
iris in the eye. Under normal conditions, enzymes
By Flora Ng
吳紫瑜
