Graying Hair? Yoga may help!
March 11, 2009
The news going around about how hair turns gray by bleaching itself from the inside out because of peroxide present in the follicle got me to do some digging. Catalase in the hair follicle helps to neutralize the peroxide, keeping your hair from going gray. Catalase is an enzyme that reduces peroxide to water and oxygen. There are several factors that affect the amount of catalase available in your blood. Alcohol, it turns out, reduces catalase amounts, and studies have linked alcohol consumption with the graying of hair. Depression also plays a role in reducing available catalase. Yoga, however, has been shown to increase catalase amounts by 13%!
Graying hair is merely cosmetic. But graying hair can now be seen as an indicator of oxidative stress on the body. Looking in the mirror, my graying hair tells me it’s time to think more seriously about my health. Time to break out the yoga mat!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/health/10well.html?em
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalase
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19272208?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
