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Life

02nd Mar 2016

Scientists may be able to stop hair from turning grey

Paul Moore

McSavage Clooney

Is this the end of the Silver Fox?

To some people, grey hair can make a man looked distinguished and sophisticated because they’re embracing their inner George Clooney or Fabrizio Ravanelli – they probably don’t run around in public celebrating a goal like the Italian striker did though.

On the other side of things, some men have probably freaked out at the very first sight of a grey lock because it’s a sign that they’re getting older. These men probably want a time machine to stop the ageing process but we think that they should just embrace the Doc Brown look.

Doc Brown

 

Your hair doesn’t need a time travelling DeLorean though to beat those grey locks though because scientists have identified the gene for grey hair which opens the possibility for further research into treatments that could pave the way to delay, halt or even reverse the process.

That pesky IRF4 gene is the mo’fo responsible for ensuring that Revlon stock will always remain high and the researched showed that those silver strands are caused by the absence of the pigment melanin whose production and storage is regulated by a process involving IRF4.

Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares, from University College London, said: “We have found the first genetic association to hair greying, which could provide a good model to understand aspects of the biology of human ageing. Understanding the mechanism of the IRF4 greying association could also be relevant for developing ways to delay hair greying.”

Clooney

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