In this Health News article from the BBC news site, it is reported that experts are close to discovering what makes your hair turn gray. Although graying hair is the easiest stage of ageing to solve (with hair dyeing) it is often inconvenient because you have to color your hair so frequently to keep the gray roots from constantly showing up. However, coloring your hair is easy, easier and cheaper than let’s say Botox or plastic surgery.

The grey hairs that develop with age really are signs of stress, at least of the cellular kind, say scientists.
Genotoxic stress, namely anything that damages the genetic code of life DNA, causes a malfunction of the cells ultimately responsible for hair colour.

The stress sets off a chain of reactions involving specialised cells called melanocyte stem cells, their work on mice in Cell journal reveals.

Similar mechanisms appear to be at work in humans too, they say.
The findings could help explain why people with Ataxia telangiectasia, a rare, neurodegenerative syndrome caused by a mutation in a gene called ATM, go grey prematurely.

In their study, Dr Emi Nishimura and colleagues found the ATM “caretaker” gene serves as a checks and measures system to stop melanocyte stem cells going awry.

It is the job of these cells within the hair follicles to make the mature pigment-producing melanocytes that give hair its youthful colour.

Damaged DNA

Researchers have already traced greying to the gradual dying off of the stem cells.

But this is not the only way the stem cells are depleted. They also progressively make errors, turning or differentiating into fully committed pigment cells in the wrong place within the hair follicle, where they are useless for colouring hair. And the latest work on mice shows irreparable DNA damage, as caused by ultraviolet light and ionising radiation, is responsible.

Dr Nishimura of Kanazawa University said: “Once stem cells are damaged irreversibly, the damaged stem cells need to be eliminated to maintain the quality of the stem cell pool. “We found that excessive genotoxic stress triggers differentiation of melanocyte stem cells.”

But others believe going grey is caused by a massive build up of hydrogen peroxide due to wear and tear of our hair follicles. The hydrogen peroxide ends up blocking the normal production of melanin, an team of European scientists recently reported in the FASEB scientific journal, published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Finding the cure to gray hair would be a miracle come true for most people.  Read more at the BBC Health Site by clicking here.

Blood pressure becomes a serious problem for many people as they grow older.  This article from the BBC news Health News site explains that people over 55 should be taking blood pressure medication and can also use natural cures for high blood pressure to reduce the risk of stroke and heart attacks.  Read the article further to find out more about this health condition.

“Everyone aged 55 and over should be taking drugs to lower their blood pressure, a London-based expert says. Epidemiology expert Professor Malcolm Law said blood pressure drugs cut the risk of heart attack and stroke even for those with normal blood pressure.

His conclusion, published in the British Medical Journal and backed by other experts, is based on a review of 147 studies, involving 464,000 people. However, the Stroke Association warned the drugs could have side-effects.

The research found most types of blood pressure drugs cut the risk of heart attacks and heart failure by around a quarter and the risk of stroke by about a third.

The studies looked at the effect on two blood pressure measurements; systolic – the pressure when the heart beats while pumping blood – and diastolic – the pressure when the heart is at rest between beats.

The lowered risk estimates were based on lowering systolic blood pressure by 10mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure by 5mm Hg.

Widespread benefit

Professor Law, an expert in epidemiology at the Wolfson Institute at Barts and The London School of Medicine, said: “Beyond a certain age, we’re saying everyone would benefit from taking drugs that lower blood pressure.

“Beyond a certain age, we all have high blood pressure and we would all benefit from lowering it.

“What we call ‘normal’ blood pressure is actually high, and what we call high blood pressure is actually higher.”

Professor Law said the universal use of blood pressure drugs should be seen as analogous to vaccinating the entire population in the event of a flu pandemic.

There was no case for trying to assess who was a top priority, he said, when everybody was potentially at risk.
In fact, Professor Law said giving everybody blood pressure drugs would minimise the risk that people would be alarmed when told they needed to take the medication.”

To read the rest of the story on the BBC news, click here.

It is commonly known that men ignore their health symptoms and often don’t go to the doctor before it’s almost too late. Many men, in the past, even avoided going to the doctor at all. There are early warning signs for many diseases that men should become acquainted with and learn all the facts about their health.

This story about men’s health from the Times of India follows:

Dr. Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, called this “the ostrich phenomenon”, warning that doing so could lead to worsening conditions and also cause severe illness.

“I call it the ostrich phenomenon. Guys are very prone to sticking their head in the sand. It’s a very bad idea,” the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

Friends Provident, in a study to mark the launch of Men’s Health Week, reported nearly 18 million overlooked aches and pains despite knowing about its potential dangers.

While 44 per cent did not check for cancerous signs like lumps and moles, more than 34 per cent confessed not knowing how to check for testicular cancer.

Just a quarter said that they recognised the signs of breast and prostate cancer.”

Source: Times of India