Grey hair could be an early warning sign of a serious disease

Men who go grey early may be at an increased risk of heart disease, research presented this weekend shows.

Irini Samuel, a cardiologist at Egypts Cairo University studied more than 500 men, grading them by the whiteness of their hair and the presence of coronary artery disease in their body.

Her research team also took into account other traditional heart disease risk factors such as family history, smoking, diabetes and hypertension.

They found that a higher ‘hair whitening score’ – men who had at least an equal amount of dark and grey hair – was associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease, independent their age and whether they displayed any of the other risk factors.

Samuel says that that’s because atherosclerosis – in other words, the hardening and narrowing of the arteries – and hair greying are caused by similar mechanisms in the body, including poor DNA repair, a weakened ability to repair the damage of toxins in the body and the loss of cell regrowth. 

In other words, the level of hair greying is indicative of a body’s ‘biological age’, if not its chronological age.

“Our findings suggest that, irrespective of chronological age, hair greying indicates biological age and could be a warning sign of increased cardiovascular risk,” Samuel said.

She said more research was needed to look at genetic and environmental factors that could cause hair greying.

In the meantime, people who show no symptoms of coronary disease but have the risk factor of whitened hair should get regular check-ups with their doctor “to avoid early cardiac events”.

Did you go grey early? How old were you when the first grey hairs appeared?