• Question: why does your hair turn grey when you are old?

    Asked by lafonda to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 27 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by shaniqua.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      The colour of hair results from the production of melanin at its roots. People with dark coloured hair tend to go grey as they produce less melanin and then white when they produce none. People with blonde hair go straight to white.

      Why do we produce less melanin for our hair as we get older? I’m not too sure on that one, only that stuff seems to work less well as it accumulates damage over our lifetimes.

    • Photo: Philippa Bird

      Philippa Bird answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      I’m not sure if it’s damage, or whether energy in our body is directed away from the less essential functions when we get older. Like, in terms of evolution, if the colour of our hair is to attract a sexual partner, when we are past the age of sexual reproduction it is not needed anymore so the body no longer wastes energy producing the pigment.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      I don’t know the answer to this one. Both these answers look good though.

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