Medindia LOGIN REGISTER
Medindia

Grey Hair may Protect from Cancer

by Rajashri on Jun 26 2009 7:49 PM

A Japanese study has said that grey hair may actually confer a bit of cancer protection on individuals. Grey hair means the absence of melanocytes, which could in fact trigger cancer when their DNA gets damaged with age.

Dr David Fisher, director of the melanoma programme at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School wrote that the new findings may help in the development of new cancer treatments.

"The study demonstrated that stem cells containing DNA damage are removed, and it is theoretically possible that such a mechanism may exist for numerous types of cells (outside of hair follicles) in the body," Fisher wrote. "Perhaps if we had a similar mechanism of removing cells from the epidermis, melanoma may be less common."

The details appear in the New Scientist magazine.



Source-Medindia
RAS


Advertisement