> Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause PGH through unknown mechanism. About 55% of patients with pernicious anemia had graying before 50 years as compared to 30% in the control group.[32]
/soapbox
Get your B12 tested (before taking supplements!).
B12 deficiency is known to present in many ways, and also to be often overlooked in clinical settings[1]. It’s known that not everyone presents with the anaemia from it[2], which is often why it’s skipped as a diagnostic option. Additionally, long-term/severe deficiency can present with symptoms almost identical to multiple sclerosis[3]. Deficiency of other B vitamins, such as B2, can cause a functional B12 deficiency as well[4]. It’s also known that supplementation will falsely elevate levels even in the presence of a deficiency.
The paradoxical B12 deficiency might have a relation with the inactive form being supplemented. If one supplements cyanocobalamin, and one expects the body to convert it to methylcobalamin, and if this conversion doesn't happen for whatever reason, and if the measured form includes the inactive form, then "paradoxical B12 deficiency" can be observed.
There is a more insidious form of it whereby the active form doesn't enter the brain. Symptoms are: difficulty speaking, tremors and ataxia. This can be tested by CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) testing. This assumes that the active form is supplemented and it is present in blood. It can be remedied by a course of corticosteroid pills, followed by megadosing B12 orally daily. Refer to PMID 38924428.
I take a triple active form of it which is methyl+hydroxy+adenosyl, covering all bases, but a total of just 500 mcg per day, above which it harms my sleep.
Would you mind sharing a brand or a link? I have had grey hair since I was in my 20s and struggle with energy. I have been taking nature made multi vitamin for a vitamin b deficiency that was high enough to cause craggy edges on my tongue, caused by the stomach acid suppressant I was prescribed. I would like to compare.
> The paradoxical B12 deficiency might have a relation with the inactive form being supplemented.
Yup, not everyone can convert cyanocobalamin or hydroxocobalamin to adenosyl-/methylcobalamin. Especially in severe cases, anecdotally I’ve seen people not make progress with the standard cyanocobalamin injections, but then make huge progress with methylcobalamin injections. Unfortunately, methylcobalamin is often not preferred in injectable form due to very quick degradation into hydroxocobalamin upon exposure to light.
There's no risk in non-smokers if you stick to a sane dose. Megadosing it can harm sleep and severely increase blood pressure and heart rate, although these gradually reverse upon cessation. This can take time to manifest. It is why I limit the dose to 500 mcg per day. Older people, such as those over 70, can need more and tolerate more, even 5 mg per day, due to deteriorated absorption.
Also, don't forget the other B vitamins. In truth I take them all.
> There's no risk in non-smokers if you stick to a sane dose.
Also, B12 is water soluble, which generally means that your body is pretty good at flushing out any excess it can't use, making it difficult to overdose on. (Compared to fat-soluble substances.)
The reason I take B12 as a supplement is unrelated to this - I have MTHFR mutation and as such I need to take methyl folate (methylated B9). Apparently this form of B9 absorbs better if it’s combined with the methylated form of B12 (methylcobalamin)
I guess if it will keep my hair color longer that’s a nice side effect!
> Apparently this form of B9 absorbs better if it’s combined with the methylated form of B12 (methylcobalamin)
B9 and B12 are interdependent. When the body uptakes cobalamins, the ligands are pulled off and replaced with ligands sourced from other processes. IIRC in the case of methylcobalamin, the methyl group is pulled off and replaced with a methyl group that’s moved over from methylfolate via a riboflavin-dependent reaction. Been a hot minute since I looked into this so I may have some details incorrect.
It may help, but it will also throw off lab tests while you’re taking it and for a time after. Also, B12 absorption depends strongly on good gut health (ex. no SIBO[1], low gastric acid, pernicious anaemia, etc.), as well as on other medications (ex. metformin[2]) not interfering with absorption.
Most multivitamins are useless because they generally contain suboptimal forms, doses, and ratios. If you want to see good effects, consider individual vitamins in appropriate forms and doses.
It’s one of the reasons that regulation would help a lot here. One simple example is chelation. Your body absorbs magnesium when it’s chelated at a rate many multiple times higher than what you might typically get from an OTC multivitamin.
So a multivitamin might contain some magnesium, but what it doesn’t tell you on the label is that the form of magnesium they give you is not going to be absorbed at all and just pass right through your body. Most people need some other formulation of magnesium to actually be absorbed. I would go so far as to say that a fair amount of what goes into a lot of multivitamins on the label is borderline fraud because of stuff like this
Regarding PABA, I have been taking 500 mg/day for years, and it hasn't done anything at all for restoring my hair color or even for freezing further change. A much higher dose of it can be risky and it's not worth the gamble.
I have also been taking B5 as both calcium pantothenate at 500 mg/day and also as pantethine at 300 mg/day for years, neither of which has done anything either in this context.
Similarly, B12 hasn't visibly helped either.
I suspect that copper is the issue with me.
The lowest dose of MitoQ, a 5 mg capsule per day, had lowered my blood pressure significantly after a month of use, well below normal, approaching an unsafe low. Moreover, it took another month after discontinuation of MitoQ for the blood pressure to normalize. I shudder to think how much more powerful SkQ1 would be if taken orally. My first impression is that SkQ1 seems more relevant for local use than for systemic use.
Or if you're a male, why bother with coloring at all? Just own the young silver fox look and rock with it. Or shave it and grow a huge beard. As a male you have a lot of natural workarounds against imperfect hair color..
Just because you are uninformed about certain things doesn't mean everyone else is too. For example, driving on the highway could look dangerous to a person from the jungle, but it isn't to someone who knows what he's doing. Your comment is the same way. If I try or take something, it's because I have studied it reasonably. The things I named are not untested high-risk substances.
In fact, hair colors contain toxic harmful chemicals that even increase the risk of certain cancers. I do color my hair, but I don't like it, and I do it as little as necessary.
In our world today it seems impossible to complain about stress. Everyone around me from boss to family to even therapist keep telling me to remind myself of how great of a life I have and that I should know better than to complain. But it feels to me like I'm drowning in an ocean stress everyday with no way to escape it. I keep being compared to others who can seemingly take the stress well and am questioned why I can't take similar level of high-stakes, indeterministic responsibilities with severe dangers that are beyond my control, and little to no positive pay-off for me. Some people around me are extremely health conscious, they avoid all kinds of chemicals, eat religiously well, work-out regularly, sleep well etc yet when they show obvious signs of stress because they're working 12 hours a day in their torturous FAANG job, I'm treated like an antivaxxer for pointing it out. In this world of hustle culture, it seems like a taboo to talk about how unhealthy stress is. Stress today is like 70s cigarettes, everybody is doing it, so no need to worry about its health effects.
And yes I have graying hair at mid-late 20s. Sometimes I'm astonished how people don't complain about their stress levels. I feel weak, child-like, immature, and feeble being unable to tolerate maybe 10% of what my wife can.
You can work hard and not be stressed. Stress often comes from lack of control, what are the severe dangers?
The most significant danger seems to be you get a low performance review. As a faang engineer that's a pretty weak a significant danger as there are many other jobs that will simply assume you're good.
Not just lack of control, but lack of a light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of people can tolerate high stress for a while provided they know there's a payoff at the end, an assurance that things are gonna get better.
But when that payoff is gone (no money, shit living conditions, no chance of home ownership, no having a family, friends group, etc) people can start to fall apart even with low amounts of stress.
Being able to tolerate stress comes down to reasons. If you're doing stuff for good reasons you focus on those and keep your head down. If you don't have good reasons either find some or stop taking on pointless stress.
> In men, graying first occurs in the temples and sideburns. It spreads to the vertex and rest of the scalp involving the occiput the last.
My graying started when I was 15 and first appeared as a single silver strand at the center of my hairline. At 28, I now have a cluster of them in that center spot, as well as diffusely all over my head, including the occiput. I think my temples and sideburns were actually relatively spared.
Also of interest to me: once in a blue moon, I shed a hair that appears to be reverting from gray back to pigmented -- it's gray close to the tip and black closer to the root. I wonder what factors might cause this reversal.
I know this is anecdotal but I know someone that experienced / is experiencing a similar thing. Several silvery hairs reverting back to pigmented after leaving an overly stressful work environment. She only had a few, but of those few perhaps 30%-50% have reverted.
I have no graying of head hair. But I do have several white hairs in my facial hair. I wouldn't have expected to read that "graying first occurs in the temples and sideburns".
(I also have one white hair that grows inside my nose...)
I would guess you are a man. It's way less bad for us, visibly aging.
One of my oldest friends is a lady who went gray in her 20's. I only found out in her late 30's when she went through some mental health issues and missed aggressively dying to hide the roots.
> Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause PGH through unknown mechanism. About 55% of patients with pernicious anemia had graying before 50 years as compared to 30% in the control group.[32]
/soapbox
Get your B12 tested (before taking supplements!).
B12 deficiency is known to present in many ways, and also to be often overlooked in clinical settings[1]. It’s known that not everyone presents with the anaemia from it[2], which is often why it’s skipped as a diagnostic option. Additionally, long-term/severe deficiency can present with symptoms almost identical to multiple sclerosis[3]. Deficiency of other B vitamins, such as B2, can cause a functional B12 deficiency as well[4]. It’s also known that supplementation will falsely elevate levels even in the presence of a deficiency.
/unsoapbox
[1] https://www.mcpiqojournal.org/article/S2542-4548(19)30033-5/...
[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj-2022-071725
[3] https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...
[4] https://www.iomcworld.org/articles/paradoxical-vitamin-b12-d...
The paradoxical B12 deficiency might have a relation with the inactive form being supplemented. If one supplements cyanocobalamin, and one expects the body to convert it to methylcobalamin, and if this conversion doesn't happen for whatever reason, and if the measured form includes the inactive form, then "paradoxical B12 deficiency" can be observed.
There is a more insidious form of it whereby the active form doesn't enter the brain. Symptoms are: difficulty speaking, tremors and ataxia. This can be tested by CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) testing. This assumes that the active form is supplemented and it is present in blood. It can be remedied by a course of corticosteroid pills, followed by megadosing B12 orally daily. Refer to PMID 38924428.
I take a triple active form of it which is methyl+hydroxy+adenosyl, covering all bases, but a total of just 500 mcg per day, above which it harms my sleep.
Would you mind sharing a brand or a link? I have had grey hair since I was in my 20s and struggle with energy. I have been taking nature made multi vitamin for a vitamin b deficiency that was high enough to cause craggy edges on my tongue, caused by the stomach acid suppressant I was prescribed. I would like to compare.
> The paradoxical B12 deficiency might have a relation with the inactive form being supplemented.
Yup, not everyone can convert cyanocobalamin or hydroxocobalamin to adenosyl-/methylcobalamin. Especially in severe cases, anecdotally I’ve seen people not make progress with the standard cyanocobalamin injections, but then make huge progress with methylcobalamin injections. Unfortunately, methylcobalamin is often not preferred in injectable form due to very quick degradation into hydroxocobalamin upon exposure to light.
Ok, so assuming you don’t want to have your CSF tested, is there any risk of harm to supplementing with the active form?
There's no risk in non-smokers if you stick to a sane dose. Megadosing it can harm sleep and severely increase blood pressure and heart rate, although these gradually reverse upon cessation. This can take time to manifest. It is why I limit the dose to 500 mcg per day. Older people, such as those over 70, can need more and tolerate more, even 5 mg per day, due to deteriorated absorption.
Also, don't forget the other B vitamins. In truth I take them all.
> Megadosing it can harm sleep and severely increase blood pressure and heart rate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Osama-Arafat/publicatio...
> METHYLCOBALAMIN HAS AN EFFECT ON HYPOTHALAMIC–HYPOPHYSEAL– ADRENAL AXIS
In rats, but may apply to humans too.
> There's no risk in non-smokers if you stick to a sane dose.
Also, B12 is water soluble, which generally means that your body is pretty good at flushing out any excess it can't use, making it difficult to overdose on. (Compared to fat-soluble substances.)
Does it help you with grey hair ?
Interesting. I had it 5 years ago and then it went away. It started again a few weeks ago and I halved my vitamin B supplementing a while before that.
The reason I take B12 as a supplement is unrelated to this - I have MTHFR mutation and as such I need to take methyl folate (methylated B9). Apparently this form of B9 absorbs better if it’s combined with the methylated form of B12 (methylcobalamin)
I guess if it will keep my hair color longer that’s a nice side effect!
> Apparently this form of B9 absorbs better if it’s combined with the methylated form of B12 (methylcobalamin)
B9 and B12 are interdependent. When the body uptakes cobalamins, the ligands are pulled off and replaced with ligands sourced from other processes. IIRC in the case of methylcobalamin, the methyl group is pulled off and replaced with a methyl group that’s moved over from methylfolate via a riboflavin-dependent reaction. Been a hot minute since I looked into this so I may have some details incorrect.
It’s also known that supplementation will falsely elevate levels even in the presence of a deficiency.
It sounds to me that what you’re saying is that a daily multivitamin would not help in this case.
It may help, but it will also throw off lab tests while you’re taking it and for a time after. Also, B12 absorption depends strongly on good gut health (ex. no SIBO[1], low gastric acid, pernicious anaemia, etc.), as well as on other medications (ex. metformin[2]) not interfering with absorption.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_intestinal_bacterial_ove...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metformin CTRL-F "B12"
Most multivitamins are useless because they generally contain suboptimal forms, doses, and ratios. If you want to see good effects, consider individual vitamins in appropriate forms and doses.
It’s one of the reasons that regulation would help a lot here. One simple example is chelation. Your body absorbs magnesium when it’s chelated at a rate many multiple times higher than what you might typically get from an OTC multivitamin.
So a multivitamin might contain some magnesium, but what it doesn’t tell you on the label is that the form of magnesium they give you is not going to be absorbed at all and just pass right through your body. Most people need some other formulation of magnesium to actually be absorbed. I would go so far as to say that a fair amount of what goes into a lot of multivitamins on the label is borderline fraud because of stuff like this
> INTRODUCTION Haalthy hair is a sign of general well-being and youth.
Not exactly confidence inspiring when the very first word is a typo.
I looked at INTRODUCTION letter-by-letter several times before realizing the spelling issue is in “Haalthy”. That’s the second word.
Headings don’t count as the body text
Author list, author affiliation and past history all suggest this might be a green card paper.
+1 how is this even possible to do?
Regarding PABA, I have been taking 500 mg/day for years, and it hasn't done anything at all for restoring my hair color or even for freezing further change. A much higher dose of it can be risky and it's not worth the gamble.
I have also been taking B5 as both calcium pantothenate at 500 mg/day and also as pantethine at 300 mg/day for years, neither of which has done anything either in this context.
Similarly, B12 hasn't visibly helped either.
I suspect that copper is the issue with me.
The lowest dose of MitoQ, a 5 mg capsule per day, had lowered my blood pressure significantly after a month of use, well below normal, approaching an unsafe low. Moreover, it took another month after discontinuation of MitoQ for the blood pressure to normalize. I shudder to think how much more powerful SkQ1 would be if taken orally. My first impression is that SkQ1 seems more relevant for local use than for systemic use.
> I suspect that copper is the issue with me.
Prolonged copper deficiency can cause irreversible neuropathies and CNS damage. You should try to get tested for it if you can.
seems like unnecessary dangerous experimentation with the hopes of something cosmetic. why not just color hair?
>why not just color hair?
Or if you're a male, why bother with coloring at all? Just own the young silver fox look and rock with it. Or shave it and grow a huge beard. As a male you have a lot of natural workarounds against imperfect hair color..
Just because you are uninformed about certain things doesn't mean everyone else is too. For example, driving on the highway could look dangerous to a person from the jungle, but it isn't to someone who knows what he's doing. Your comment is the same way. If I try or take something, it's because I have studied it reasonably. The things I named are not untested high-risk substances.
In fact, hair colors contain toxic harmful chemicals that even increase the risk of certain cancers. I do color my hair, but I don't like it, and I do it as little as necessary.
The highway is remarkably dangerous for even excellent drivers
Dangerous compared to what?
Because in terms of driving highways are safer (have less accidents) than urban and rural roads, and the most dangerous areas are intersections.
In our world today it seems impossible to complain about stress. Everyone around me from boss to family to even therapist keep telling me to remind myself of how great of a life I have and that I should know better than to complain. But it feels to me like I'm drowning in an ocean stress everyday with no way to escape it. I keep being compared to others who can seemingly take the stress well and am questioned why I can't take similar level of high-stakes, indeterministic responsibilities with severe dangers that are beyond my control, and little to no positive pay-off for me. Some people around me are extremely health conscious, they avoid all kinds of chemicals, eat religiously well, work-out regularly, sleep well etc yet when they show obvious signs of stress because they're working 12 hours a day in their torturous FAANG job, I'm treated like an antivaxxer for pointing it out. In this world of hustle culture, it seems like a taboo to talk about how unhealthy stress is. Stress today is like 70s cigarettes, everybody is doing it, so no need to worry about its health effects.
And yes I have graying hair at mid-late 20s. Sometimes I'm astonished how people don't complain about their stress levels. I feel weak, child-like, immature, and feeble being unable to tolerate maybe 10% of what my wife can.
Unsolicited advice : have you tried stopping coffee / caffeine? This improved my stress levels immensely although I only drank one cup a day.
You can work hard and not be stressed. Stress often comes from lack of control, what are the severe dangers?
The most significant danger seems to be you get a low performance review. As a faang engineer that's a pretty weak a significant danger as there are many other jobs that will simply assume you're good.
>Stress often comes from lack of control
Not just lack of control, but lack of a light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of people can tolerate high stress for a while provided they know there's a payoff at the end, an assurance that things are gonna get better.
But when that payoff is gone (no money, shit living conditions, no chance of home ownership, no having a family, friends group, etc) people can start to fall apart even with low amounts of stress.
Being able to tolerate stress comes down to reasons. If you're doing stuff for good reasons you focus on those and keep your head down. If you don't have good reasons either find some or stop taking on pointless stress.
> In men, graying first occurs in the temples and sideburns. It spreads to the vertex and rest of the scalp involving the occiput the last.
My graying started when I was 15 and first appeared as a single silver strand at the center of my hairline. At 28, I now have a cluster of them in that center spot, as well as diffusely all over my head, including the occiput. I think my temples and sideburns were actually relatively spared.
Also of interest to me: once in a blue moon, I shed a hair that appears to be reverting from gray back to pigmented -- it's gray close to the tip and black closer to the root. I wonder what factors might cause this reversal.
> I wonder what factors might cause this reversal.
Very likely: Stress. Also diet and exercise. They are interrelated. But for people that I’ve known have hair go gray and back again, it was stress.
I know this is anecdotal but I know someone that experienced / is experiencing a similar thing. Several silvery hairs reverting back to pigmented after leaving an overly stressful work environment. She only had a few, but of those few perhaps 30%-50% have reverted.
I have no graying of head hair. But I do have several white hairs in my facial hair. I wouldn't have expected to read that "graying first occurs in the temples and sideburns".
(I also have one white hair that grows inside my nose...)
Man I sure know a lot of early 30 year olds with graying hair
OT, but I can't not notice the wild domain.
This title had me hoping that this was a gwern article
Well I have gray hair since I was 16. It never made me feel insecure.
I would guess you are a man. It's way less bad for us, visibly aging.
One of my oldest friends is a lady who went gray in her 20's. I only found out in her late 30's when she went through some mental health issues and missed aggressively dying to hide the roots.
It can also be caused by autoimmune thyroidism
So what's the best brand for coloring grey hair. Preferably non toxic.
I use this.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Crew-Precision-Blend-Hair/dp...
It’s a temporary hair color, which tends not to damage your hair. I find it lasts about a month.
Henna? Though it will give your hair a shade of red and not black.
There seems to be a lot about immune system activation attacking melanocytes like this:
https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/9390-study-explains-o....
Thus not surprisingly “Covid and gray hair” brings some results too, including reversing of Covid associated gray hair.
TLDR: root cause is working with dynamic and weakly typed languages and poorly documented and maintained spaghetti code
tldr: stress