Teammates sacrificed, first love got married, and police officer An Xin's hair turned white overnight. Can people really turn white overnight when they suffer a major blow?

"Kuang Da" has reached its finale. The protagonist, Police Officer An Xin, encountered major changes such as the sacrifice of teammates in the process of fighting against evil forces, and even gave up love for his ideals.

When her first love Meng Yu married someone else, An Xin, who was in her early thirties, had her black hair turn white overnight.

In some movies and TV series, some people who have experienced a major setback will have their hair turn white overnight. What is the reason for "white hair overnight"? Can people really "turn white overnight" when they suffer a major setback?

According to chief physician Lu Zhongfa, deputy director of the Department of Dermatology at Zhejiang University Second Hospital , the saying "turning hair white overnight" is a bit exaggerated, but it has been found in clinical practice that some people have indeed experienced great ups and downs in life, or extremely sad things, and their emotions fluctuate violently. In a short period of time, they have a lot of white hair on their heads, and the whole person becomes abnormally old.

In addition, staying up late for a long time, overwork, and high work pressure are also more likely to cause more gray hair. "I met a 27-year-old young man in the outpatient clinic, who was also a policeman in the police station. Because he was busy with work and often had to work overnight shifts, he had a lot of gray hair at a young age and looked at least ten years older than his actual age," said Lv Zhongfa.

Yu Hualiang, deputy chief physician of the Department of Psychiatry at the Second Hospital of Zhejiang University , also believes that "white hair overnight" is often related to emotions and stress. Huge emotional stimulation can indeed cause more white hair in a short period of time. He once met a father in his 50s whose son had just graduated with a doctorate and was diagnosed with cancer and wanted to commit suicide. The father accompanied his son to the psychiatric ward. His hair, which was originally black, turned almost completely white in just two or three days.

Chief Physician Lv Zhongfa said that, in fact, white hair overnight does not mean that the black hair on the head suddenly turns white, because the color of the hair that has already grown is fixed and it is impossible to change the color. Instead, it is because the black hair is originally mixed with black and white hair, and suddenly most of the black hair falls off, so there are a lot of white hair.

This phenomenon of massive hair loss is called "diffuse alopecia areata" and can be caused by great psychological stress. This is because hair follicles are responsible for synthesizing both melanin and keratin. When melanin synthesis is blocked, the remaining energy will be used to synthesize keratin, causing white hair to be thicker than black hair and less likely to fall off.

Deputy Chief Physician Yu Hualiang said that when people are under great psychological stimulation, the neurotransmitters in the brain may change, which will affect the production of tyrosinase, which is the main substance for synthesizing melanin. In addition, great emotional stimulation will also affect the immune system. The decline in immunity may lead to immune escape, which has a certain impact on the production of melanin.

In fact, the saying of "white hair overnight" is not groundless. There is a story about "white hair overnight" in history: According to legend, in the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu Zixu, a native of Chu, had his father and brother killed by the King of Chu, and he himself was also arrested. Under grief and pressure, Wu Zixu's hair turned white overnight. Since then, "white hair overnight" has become an exaggerated description of a character suffering a great blow and pressure in many literary works.

In fact, we can indeed feel the connection between stress and gray hair in our daily lives.

In January 2020, a research team from Harvard University published a study in Nature, proving that excessive excitement of the sympathetic nerves of mice can lead to damage to melanin stem cells and ultimately cause gray hair.

On June 22, 2021, Martin Picard's team at Columbia University published relevant research results in eLife, which not only proved in human experiments that stress can cause hair to turn gray, but also proved for the first time that this process can be reversed as stress is reduced. When stress levels increase, hair begins to turn gray, and when stress levels decrease, originally white hair quickly begins to turn black. This shows that stress has a very strong effect on hair color, and "turning hair gray overnight" is not just an exaggeration.

Reporter Yu Qianqian video Zhou Wenrui

Correspondent Fang Xuluqing

Editor: Yu Qianqian, Deputy Editor-in-Chief : Yu Qianqian, Jin Jing

Producer Xu Fang