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Shades of Grey. Gotcha. When you clicked, maybe you thought I would be talking about what goes on in a very popular book series. Nope, not even. I am going to talk about whether your kid really can turn your hair gray.

We've heard our mothers say that someone stressed them out so much it turned their hair gray, or that an acute stress turned their hair white overnight. There are some references to it in the "Talmud," the Jewish holy book, and supposedly Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France, had her hair turned white overnight between the time that she was sentenced to the guillotine to the next morning when she met with the guillotine. Of course, that's very unlikely, and maybe being a queen during the French Revolution was so stressful that her hair turned white over several months and she covered it with a wig. And when she took it off at her final performance, her hair was white.

First, a little discussion on the anatomy of the hair follicle. The hair is produced under the skin in a hair follicle that's lined with pigment-making cells called melanocytes. Melano means dark or dark-colored and cytes means cells. Melanocytes are in our skin and make pigment either naturally, given our genetics, or when we tan. For those of us who are freckled, we have patches of melanocytes that make more pigment.

In the hair follicle, the melanocytes arise from stem cells that replenish the number of melanocytes. As these stem cells divide, some become melanocytes and some stay as stem cells. This is a strategy for cells that are renewed all over our body. As we age, we run out of stem cells, so we don't make so many new specialized cells like melanocytes. That means no more color to the hair as we age. At least that's the theory. Genes and diseases, like autoimmune diseases, can determine when and if you go gray.

So back to the stress theory. Some clever researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute just reported some interesting studies in mice in the journal "Nature." So, first, they thought maybe going gray was the loss of the melanocytes from an immune problem. It's known that some people with immune problems go gray. So they injected mice with capsaicin, the stuff in chili peppers, which is known to cause an immune stress response in mice. They did this in mice without immune cells, and the mice went gray. So it wasn't the immune system in this case.

The second was to stress out the mice in another way. They were exposed to short-term pain or stressful living conditions in their cages, and they went gray. But was this due to cortisol, which our adrenal gland and mice's adrenal glands make when they get stressed out? Or was it something else? So they took out the adrenal gland of the mice, and they still went gray. By the way, the human race owes the mouse race a serious debt of gratitude for all that they go through for medical research.

So maybe it was the sympathetic nervous system. Each hair follicle has nerves around it. Your hair stands up when you're scared. And when the mice were stressed acutely, their nerves were flooded with norepinephrine. When that happened, all the melanocyte stem cells got programmed to make melanocytes. So there were no more stem cells left to make melanocytes in the future. Now, this didn't happen overnight, but a relatively short period of time. And then the mice didn't have any more stem cells. They didn't have any more melanocytes, and they went gray. So this is a plausible reason for the old wives' tale that acute or chronic stress can turn you gray.

So what do you do about this? Well, having gray hair is a sign of wisdom. You let the gray hairs figure it out. Maybe people who've been through a lot of stress and survived it have a visible cultural signal of their resilience -- their gray hair. Of course, we could suggest that you avoid all stress, but that's pretty hard to do and impossible if you have any kids or any kind of extended network of people you love.

So you can love your gray. For American women over 50, we don't do that so much. It's been suggested that at some time 90% of women over 50 dye their hair. When you finally decide to go gray, you can dye your hair white, but that would be a shock. You could color your hair but put gray highlights and then let it grow out. You could color your hair gray with colored highlights and let it grow out. Best of all, you shouldn't even listen to me because I'm clueless. Talk to your colorist about what's the best way to go gray gracefully, but don't stress out about it.

Interviewer: The woman's body and mind are complex. What's hormonal and what isn't? Find out now. This is "Am I Normal?" with Dr. Kirtly Jones, the expert, on All Things Woman.

Announcer: Questions every woman wonders about here health, body, and mind. This is "Am I Normal?" on The Scope.
Dr. Jones, I'm sure so many women out there have this problem, because I have this problem. My hair grows fine when short, and then it gets to a certain length and then it just never grows anymore. Is that a problem?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Well, it's actually not a problem.

Interviewer: It's not a problem?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: It's a problem for you.

Interviewer: Yes.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: So women and hair; women believe that hair is a secondary sex characteristic. We think of breasts as being a secondary sex characteristic. But women's skin and their hair they treat and feel as if it's important for their femininity. We share roots with the primates who are hairy all over. So what happened?

Well we lost hair on our body, at least girls did mostly. We saved hair in our pubic area and axillary area to catch scents that tell others what we're doing hormonally. And we grew hair on our head. Now how long your hair grows depends on your ethnic background, your age, and your health. Hair grows in cycles. There is the anagen phase, and this is where the hair follicle is actually pushing out new hair and making hair grow longer. There's the catagen phase where the follicle, the base, is actually dying, but a new little follicle is growing and it's going to push out the old hair.

And then there's the telogen phase, which is where the hair falls out. Now part of your body, like your eyelashes and your eyebrows, have a shorter anagen phase. So thank goodness your eyebrow hair has a short growing phase before it falls out. Otherwise your eyebrows would be as long as your head hair.

Interviewer: No, that's not good.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: No, not good. And the same thing I would say for our pubic and axillary hair. That would be kind of weird.

Interviewer: Just a little bit.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: A little bit weird. Some people's anagens are shorter, which means when their hair gets to be a foot long it just isn't going to grow anymore, and new hair grows in. So it pushes out the old hair, and new hairs start growing, and then...

Interviewer: Then you lose hair?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: That's why you lose hair.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: So pushing the hair out, where the hair falls out, is called telogen; there are times in a woman's life where she loses a bunch of hair at once, and pregnancy, of course is the most famous. It's called this lovely word, telogen effluvium.

Interviewer: That sounds beautiful.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Isn't it a lovely name? And that's where the hair is synchronized in pregnancy and when the hormones go away it's synchronized in telogen so a bunch of hair falls out. So luckily the stage that each hair follicle is in is a little different. So that way we're using and losing about 100 follicles a day. So when people say, oh my gosh, I lose so much hair. If they wanted to, if they brushed their hair, and collected all of them and counted them, somewhere between 50 and 500 is pretty normal.

Interviewer: That's normal?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Yeah.

Interviewer: And so you lose that much, but then you grow...

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Then you're growing a new one.

Interviewer: But it seems it take forever for that to grow that long.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: It does. Being sick, being chronically ill, being malnourished of course is a big one. Being hypothyroid, meaning low on thyroid, being vitamin and nutrient deficient, all can be associated with hair loss and poor hair growth.

So how long your hair grows is a function of your anagen. Can you do anything? Are there any potions or products?

Interviewer: You're just asking all the questions for me.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: The answer is no.

Interviewer: Okay, I can't do anything?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: No. Of course if you dye or bleach, or sun damage your hair...

Interviewer: That's a different story.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: That means your hair can break, and so the longer it's out the more it's damaged. But in fact there isn't a whole lot that you can change how long your telogen is. Is it two years, is it three years, is it ten years before your hair drops out? You do want to make sure that you have a diet that's rich in omega 3 fats, vitamin D, zinc, and biotin. These are the ones that if you go to the health food store they sometimes have pills which are specifically geared with vitamins for hair and nails. So it's important to eat a balance diet.

If your hair is falling out and is getting very thin, it's worthwhile seeing a dermatologist, see your primary care doctor first, to make sure that you're not sick, that your thyroid is okay.

And then it's important if maybe you're losing it in patches, if you're losing it and getting bald patches to see a dermatologist.

Interviewer: I've heard the rumor that if you trim your hair often your hair grows back faster. Is that right or wrong?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: That's wrong.

Interviewer: That's wrong. Why is that?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: It just looks like it's growing faster. So when you've had a buzz cut, then an inch, which you might grow an inch in a month or two, looks like a lot, because you're starting from zero to an inch.

Interviewer: Right.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: When your hair is already two feet long, the inch you may not notice. So what happens at the follicle inside your skin has nothing to do with what happens at the end.

Interviewer: I would assume so, but just something I'm not familiar with.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: My mother told me that if I shaved my legs when I was 13, that my hair would grow faster, and that I would have to shave more. And the answer is not exactly.

Interviewer: My mother told me the same thing.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Yeah, yeah, our mothers just didn't want us taking razors to ourselves when we were 12.

Interviewer: And another myth is about air drying and heat drying.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: It does dry out the hair. So once the hair has come out of your skin, it can't really change anymore.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: So you do want to protect it, so anything which might damage it, which includes sunshine, UV light, some chemicals, dyeing, and drying may make the hair more fragile so it breaks off more easily. And the longer it's been around, meaning the longer your telogen, the longer the ends have a chance to break.

Interviewer: I've also heard that when let your hair flow down it grows faster, rather than when you put it up in a bun or something. Is that bogus, too?

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Yeah, that's bogus, too.

Interviewer: Where can all these bogus facts...

Dr. Kirtly Jones: Because in fact once the hair comes out it doesn't know how long it is, really. Having said that, there is something called traction alopecia. That means if you put it up in a bun and pull it really tight, then you're pulling on the little root. So if your bun is very smooth and very tight, or if you're doing braiding and pulling very tight, you can be pulling the hair out by the roots. We like tight buns, but not like that kind of bun.

Interviewer: Gotcha, okay.

Dr. Kirtly Jones: So take good care of your hair, by taking good care of your body. Stress isn't good for your hair. Acute, bad stress isn't good for your hair either, so take care of your mind. If you're noticing that your hair is growing bald in patches, see a dermatologist. If it seems to all fall out at once, and you just had a baby, good news; it'll come back.

And your hair will never be as thick as it was when you were 20.

Announcer: We're your daily dose of science, conversation, medicine; this is The Scope from the University of Utah Health Sciences Radio.