Grey Hair Natural Remedies

First you must understand what causes loss of hair pigment and color. The skin contains melanocytes which are responsible for skin pigmentation or color. The more melanocytes, the darker the skin.

Hair follicles also have melanocytes which gives hair its color. As we age, melanocytes in hair follicles stop producing color. The hair follicles continue to grow and make hair, but the color slowly goes from gray to white. The timing of getting gray is genetically determined but there are conditions that make it happen a bit faster!

Conditions causing grey hair include:

• Thyroid conditions (hypothyroid)
• Vitiligo where the skin and hair lose melanocytes.
• Prolonged unrelieved stress
• Prolonged Vitamin B12 deficiency which can come from poor diet or GI surgical procedures such as gastric bypass.
• Early menopause
• Smoking which causes lower oxygen to skin and hair (wrinkles and grey hair!)
• Genetics, both in women and men

At the present time there are no research studies indicating that anything can reverse greying of hair. I know we all want this as we age, but honestly your best choice is to cover the hair with hair color.

Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda medicine of India believe that greying hair is a sign of an underyling problem. One of the recommendations is to take kelp or seaweed, but this supplement contains iodine. Excess amounts of this for grey hair natural remedies could actually cause thyroid problems, thereby making the hair issue worse. At the present time I would not recommmend doing this.

Read about more herbs at the Herb Dictionary Online.



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