Today, when hair quality is deteriorating day by day, it becomes very necessary to understand the whole procedure and rectify things at the starting point. Long and dense black hair is a dream of every girl. The hair is becoming thinner and thinner with the age. Unlike, in olden days, Indian hair colour was dark brown or jet black. But, now the basic genes of hair colour have changed a lot and the Indian hair colour is now light brown or dark brown.
The Hair and ‘Melanin’
Even the infants are born bald or with less hair. This is happening due to the lack of required amount of pigment ‘melanin’ or poor quality of ‘melanin’ present in the hair-root. Melanin is responsible for the colour of hair. It is stored in ‘follicles’. These follicles are scattered all over the body. These are sac-like small bodies secreting melanin to give colour to hair and skin. the colour of our hair is decided by the melanin present in the roots of the hair. It varies from blond to brown to black as per the genes present in our DNA. The best-studied hair-colour gene in humans is called MC1R. This gene provides instructions for making a protein called the melanocortin 1 receptor, which is involved in the pathway that produces melanin.
Stress Affecting Melanin
With time these follicles start losing melanin or the secretion decreases and the hair starts graying and skin starts losing glow. But, here we are to discuss why this loosening of follicles at such an early age of ’20s and then resulting in white hair strands. What has changed from the children of the ’90s and the children in 2000+, yes, only one thing and that is “STRESS”. Young boys and girls are facing hair loss and hair whitening at a very early age of twenties. This needs to be controlled timely, as it is taking the youth towards easy options for baldness like a hair patch or hair weaving.
Why Graying of Hair at Early Age in Teens?
Due to “Stress”, our youth is facing hormonal imbalance at a very early age i.e. in teens. This stress leads to several deficiencies, as whatever we eat has a very strong relation to several psychological factors affecting our hunger and health. Children are unhappy and unsatisfied as they are always under some for the other pressure, either by friends or by parents.
Besides stress, there are other reasons also like vitamin and mineral deficiencies resulting in the form of a lack of a balanced diet. These are Vitamin B6, B12, D, E, Iron and Copper. Today, due to increased interference of Dieticians, people have stopped taking fats and cholesterols, this is a major factor for whitening of hair as the follicles are not getting good cholesterol and thus the process of production of melanin is reduced or stopped at an early age.
Rich foods with nutrients and iron etc should be included in daily diet. This might stop or reduce the process of whitening of hair to some extent.
But, when things go out of hand, there is no other option than consulting a good dermatologist. There are several doctors who are perfect in giving the best and latest hair loss treatment.
