What Your Gray Hair Says About Your Health Risk
QHHL 
Mar 07 2019
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0 QHHL
As you age, your risk of heart disease naturally increases. But a recent study also suggests that having gray hair could further increase that health risk.
Heart disease is one of the most serious health problems in the modern world. It’s the top cause of death in western countries and can also cause serious and ongoing health problems. That’s why it’s so important that people understand the health risk factors that increase your chances of health disease. This is the best way to avoid health problems on an individual and global scale. There are a lot of factors that increase your risk of heart disease. And a new study suggests that gray hair may be one of them.
If you’re looking to improve your health, one of the best things you can do is address risk factors for heart disease. This will markedly decrease your chances of suffering from heart disease and associated issues. Some of the most dangerous risk factors include:
About half of all Americans have at least one of these risk factors, which is why heart disease is so common. So, if you’re concerned about any of these factors, you need to take steps to reduce your risk today before the issue becomes life threatening.
Aging is obviously an important health risk factor for heart disease. As you age, there are changes in your body that increase your chances of heart problems. For starters, plaque builds up on the artery walls over time, and if left untreated it can block blood flow. And secondly, aging causes DNA damage, which results in oxidative stress and weaker, flawed cells. Both aging mechanisms increase your health risk. But recent research suggests that gray hair on its own may also increase this risk.
A new study examined 545 men who were all suspected of having heart disease. The participants in the study had data collected on their health risk factors for heart disease. This included information on their blood pressure, cholesterol levels and family history. They were divided into groups depending on whether they had heart disease and according to the amount of gray hair they had.
Upon analysis, the study found that patients with heart disease had more white hair. They also had more coronary artery calcification than their healthy counterparts. This correlation between white hair and heart disease was independent of other risk factors such as age. And the researchers suggested that there was a biological reason for this. Hair graying and atherosclerosis, or the build up of plaque on the artery walls, occur through similar biological pathways. That is, graying indicates biological age versus chronological age, and so could be a reliable warning sign of heart disease.
There are two problems with the results of this study, both to do with health measurement. The first is the degree of connection. At the moment, there are no metrics about the degree to which gray hair causes or affects heart disease. This makes it an imprecise measurement that’s hard to calculate for a health assessment.
The second problem is the difficulty of measuring this health risk. After all, are you really going to sit down and count how many gray hairs you have during every health assessment? This would be both very difficult to do and time consuming. And both of these issues mean you may struggle to use this new information to improve your health measurements.
This information isn’t completely useless, however. You probably can’t get your doctor to count your gray hairs and estimate your health risk, thought this technology may be coming with AI. However, you can use this test at home as an objective metric of your biological age. After all, it’s fairly easy to see if you’re going gray, so it’s a simple assessment to make. This quick test can also be used to measure your health risk over time. This will allow you to monitor your risk progression so you can act as soon as it becomes necessary.
If you’re concerned about a health risk, try using HomeLab to keep track of your condition and any preventative measures you take. And if you see signs of a significant problem, you should check with your doctor as soon as possible.
Tags: health risk, aging, heart disease