Could Genetics Keep Your Hair From Going Gray?

May 24, 2004 -- Chris Gummer believes a single strand of hair can be devastating.

"One gray fiber is enough to shatter a life," said Gummer, a senior research fellow at Procter & Gamble labs in London, U.K. "Even if someone has 20 million dark hairs on her head, this single strand can create a tremendous cascade of grief."

Enter genetics.

Someday soon, Gummer and others say, gray hair may be forever postponed by taking a pill that would prevent the estimated 110,000 hairs on the average head from going gray.

"It could be like using toothpaste to prevent tooth decay," said Gummer.

The possibility of tinkering with the scalp's genes to prevent the onset of graying gained momentum four years ago when scientists made an albino mouse turn black in one patch.

Kyonggeun Yoon and Vitaly Alexeev of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia created molecules of DNA that, when introduced to the mutant DNA within the albino mouse's hair follicles, corrected the mutation and restored pigment to its hair.

"The mutation was corrected," said Alexeev. "The hair turned black."

For Yoon and Alexeev, the experiment was exciting because it presented a new method that doctors could use to treat painful genetic skin disorders, such as epidermolysis bullosa, a condition that creates open sores and blisters on the skin's surface.

"As a localized treatment, it might lessen the pain and perhaps ease this very painful disease," said Yoon.

For cosmetic scientists, meanwhile, it offered a different kind of potential. If the gene therapy could make the white hair of an albino mouse turn black, it should also help banish gray hair — without dyes.

"I do think we'll achieve it within 10 years, but the challenges in delivering it will be quite hard," said Gummer.

In fact, most agree there are some formidable hurdles yet ahead since the target is a complex one.

About 85 to 90 percent of a person's some 110,000 hairs are actively growing while the remaining are dormant. Each strand grows for three to five years and then falls out after about four months, says Gummer. People generally shed about 50 to 100 strands of hair daily.