Greying of Hair

Greying of hair is a natural process. The age when greying starts depends on your genetic inheritance, but around 50 percent of Caucasians find that half their hair has turned grey by the age of 50. But premature greying is a morbid condition and it makes even the young look older. This causes a great deal of concern to affected persons, especially women. The hair is an appendage of the skin. Excessive intake of tea, coffee, alcohol, meat, and fried, oily, greasy, spicy, sour, and acidic foods can reduce the moisture and nutrients reaching the hair follicles and may lead to premature greying. To understand the greying process, one must have a basic idea of the structure of the hair. It is in the middle layer of the hair shafts, the cortex, that pigment,or coloring matter, forms. This gives the hair its colour. The more the pigment may not form, causing the hair to be without colour. The white colourless strands mix with the dark hair and give the impression of grey hair.

Hair fall and greying of hair at an early stage of life can be very embarassing, especially for young girls and boys who develop a feeling of social stigma. When hair starts greying permaturely, it can cause a great deal of anxiety and hopelessness. It does present a problem of how to camouflage the grey hair and also check the process. The stem is generally rounded and varies greatly in thickness, while in the case of a curly hair, it is oval or tlattened in section. The varying tint of the hair is due to pigment scattered in varying amounts throughout the hair. The rate of growth of hair is about 15 centimetres or 6 inches in a year, though in most persons, when the hair reaches a certain length, it ceases to grow at the root and is gradually pushed upwards till it falls out. It is then replaced by a new hair which develops from a fresh papilla.