35 replies to this topic

[nowayout]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

[Skötkonung]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

There was some discussion about this already in which some novel solutions were presented based on the mechanism of hair graying.

http://www.imminst.o...-we-grow-older/

[tintinet]

I've seen several anecdotal reports of wheat grass ingestion resulting in reversal of hair graying.

[superbman]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

I'm going to speak from my personal experience.

Depends on your age. If you are below 30, then gray hair might be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency. I'm 28, and a year back I spotted a lot of gray hair in the mirror a day after I got a hair cut. Anyway, I did some research, and some of it pointed to Vitamin B12 deficiency. So I got my B12 levels tested and turned out to be severely deficient. I supplemented with 1000 mcg Vitamin B12 a day, and in 3 months the gray hair completely vanished!

Hope this helps.

Edited by superbman, 23 November 2010 - 06:09 PM.

[nowayout]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

I'm going to speak from my personal experience.

Depends on your age. If you are below 30, then gray hair might be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency. I'm 28, and a year back I spotted a lot of gray hair in the mirror a day after I got a hair cut. Anyway, I did some research, and some of it pointed to Vitamin B12 deficiency. So I got my B12 levels tested and turned out to be severely deficient. I supplemented with 1000 mcg Vitamin B12 a day, and in 3 months the gray hair completely vanished!

Hope this helps.

Thanks, might be worth checking out. I am 44 but already started graying in my 20s.

[superbman]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

I'm going to speak from my personal experience.

Depends on your age. If you are below 30, then gray hair might be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency. I'm 28, and a year back I spotted a lot of gray hair in the mirror a day after I got a hair cut. Anyway, I did some research, and some of it pointed to Vitamin B12 deficiency. So I got my B12 levels tested and turned out to be severely deficient. I supplemented with 1000 mcg Vitamin B12 a day, and in 3 months the gray hair completely vanished!

Hope this helps.

Thanks, might be worth checking out. I am 44 but already started graying in my 20s.

Also I've seen some young gluten intolerant people report reversal of gray hair upon quitting wheat. However, Vit B12 might be worth looking into first.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Edit: By the way I must add. If you are on Metformin for diabetes, your Vit B12 levels might be low, since Metformin blocks B12 absorption in the intestine. So you might require to take injections instead. One course lasts for 4 years from what I know.

Edited by superbman, 23 November 2010 - 06:24 PM.

[Logan]

I would take a full head of gray hair if it meant my mind and body were youthful and healthy. I think if everyone that wants to reverse their graying were to experience what I and many others do, their priorities would change a bit. I admit, looking and feeling youthful is ideal, but feeling youthful and well, and functioning on a high level, is far more important than looking youthful. I also admit, I care more about a youthful looking face than I care about gray hair. I see a lot of youthful and healthy looking individuals with gray hair that feel great and wish I were more like them.

One other thing that bothers me more than gray hair is out of control eyebrow hairs. I have to assume this is a result of the damage that occurs with stress and the aging process. I would take grey eyebrows that were full and well kept than eye brow that were just a little gray and starting to grow out of control like weeds. So, I care more about hair quality and quantity than hair color.

I've read of some anecdotal reports of astragaloside IV turning some grays to a darker color. It's worth a try. It may just slow down the process some.

There will likely be a cure for gray hair in the next ten years, until then, cover it up.

Edited by morganator, 23 November 2010 - 09:22 PM.

[nowayout]

I would take a full head of gray hair if it meant my mind and body were youthful and healthy. I think if everyone that wants to reverse their graying were to experience what I and many others do, their priorities would change a bit. I admit, looking and feeling youthful is ideal, but feeling youthful and well, and functioning on a high level, is far more important than looking youthful. I also admit, I care more about a youthful looking face than I care about gray hair. I see a lot of youthful and healthy looking individuals with gray hair that feel great and wish I were more like them.

One other thing that bothers me more than gray hair is out of control eyebrow hairs. I have to assume this is a result of the damage that occurs with stress and the aging process. I would take grey eyebrows that were full and well kept than eye brow that were just a little gray and starting to grow out of control like weeds. So, I care more about hair quality and quantity than hair color.

I've read of some anecdotal reports of astragaloside IV turning some grays to a darker color. It's worth a try. It may just slow down the process some.

There will likely be a cure for gray hair in the next ten years, until then, cover it up.

Eyebrows grow because of DHT, I think, for the same reason some guys' body hair grows out of control and they lose their scalp hair. I do not think any of these side effects of DHT have anything to do with aging in the sense it is understood on these forums (i.e., decrepitude). Eyebrows are trivial to trim - I do this every couple of weeks with a trimmer myself.

Grey hair cannot be covered easily in the beard if you are the type who grows a shadow by 5 o'clock. Also, if you have to keep your hair buzzed very short because you are balding, it is almost impossible to cover it up. If you have nicely uniform thick gray hair like that Anderson Cooper, you can still look young, but with patchy blobs you just tend to look like an unkempt middle-aged man.

Sure, there are other issues that are more important. I have chronic debilitating pain that I would love to be cured of, but that is in part why I am wasting my time on here trying to improve other aspects of my life and looks - i might as well try to do something that is in my control to make me feel better about my body.

Edited by viveutvivas, 24 November 2010 - 12:34 AM.

[Logan]

I would take a full head of gray hair if it meant my mind and body were youthful and healthy. I think if everyone that wants to reverse their graying were to experience what I and many others do, their priorities would change a bit. I admit, looking and feeling youthful is ideal, but feeling youthful and well, and functioning on a high level, is far more important than looking youthful. I also admit, I care more about a youthful looking face than I care about gray hair. I see a lot of youthful and healthy looking individuals with gray hair that feel great and wish I were more like them.

One other thing that bothers me more than gray hair is out of control eyebrow hairs. I have to assume this is a result of the damage that occurs with stress and the aging process. I would take grey eyebrows that were full and well kept than eye brow that were just a little gray and starting to grow out of control like weeds. So, I care more about hair quality and quantity than hair color.

I've read of some anecdotal reports of astragaloside IV turning some grays to a darker color. It's worth a try. It may just slow down the process some.

There will likely be a cure for gray hair in the next ten years, until then, cover it up.

Eyebrows grow because of DHT, I think, for the same reason some guys' body hair grows out of control and they lose their scalp hair. I do not think any of these side effects of DHT have anything to do with aging in the sense it is understood on these forums (i.e., decrepitude). Eyebrows are trivial to trim - I do this every couple of weeks with a trimmer myself.

Grey hair cannot be covered easily in the beard if you are the type who grows a shadow by 5 o'clock. Also, if you have to keep your hair buzzed very short because you are balding, it is almost impossible to cover it up. If you have nicely uniform thick gray hair like that Anderson Cooper, you can still look young, but with patchy blobs you just tend to look like an unkempt middle-aged man.

Sure, there are other issues that are more important. I have chronic debilitating pain that I would love to be cured of, but that is in part why I am wasting my time on here trying to improve other aspects of my life and looks - i might as well try to do something that is in my control to make me feel better about my body.

I understand. If I look good it makes up some for the current condition of my body and mind. But if I really feel good, it shows in my face, and I look way more vibrant and young. So I really need to feel good in order to look good.

I don't mind thick bushy eyebrows. What I do mind are the more curly eyebrow hairs that start to stick straight out or grow beyond the rest of the hairs. These are a sign of aging and the do not look good. Andy Rooney from 60 minutes is a good example. I see older guys that come into my workplace that flat out shave most of their eyebrows off, leaving just enough length to have visible brows. Their eyebrow hairs are growing straight out. God I really hope I don't ever reach this point. Maybe there will be a treatment to keep your eyebrows looking more youthful.

Sorry about your chronic pain bro, that really sucks. What is the cause of it?

[infinityXme]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

I'm going to speak from my personal experience.

Depends on your age. If you are below 30, then gray hair might be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency. I'm 28, and a year back I spotted a lot of gray hair in the mirror a day after I got a hair cut. Anyway, I did some research, and some of it pointed to Vitamin B12 deficiency. So I got my B12 levels tested and turned out to be severely deficient. I supplemented with 1000 mcg Vitamin B12 a day, and in 3 months the gray hair completely vanished!

Hope this helps.

How do you take your B12? I take mine sublingually because only injecting or sublingual ingestion will help hair related issues.

[superbman]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

I'm going to speak from my personal experience.

Depends on your age. If you are below 30, then gray hair might be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency. I'm 28, and a year back I spotted a lot of gray hair in the mirror a day after I got a hair cut. Anyway, I did some research, and some of it pointed to Vitamin B12 deficiency. So I got my B12 levels tested and turned out to be severely deficient. I supplemented with 1000 mcg Vitamin B12 a day, and in 3 months the gray hair completely vanished!

Hope this helps.

How do you take your B12? I take mine sublingually because only injecting or sublingual ingestion will help hair related issues.

I took regular Vitamin B12 in tablet form. It wasn't sublingual, but it still worked in reversing my gray hair. I think it doesn't matter which form of Vit B12 you are taking provided your Vit B12 blood levels increase and your Vit B12 liver stores get repleted. Regardless of the kind of Vitamin B12 supplement you are taking, I'd advice you take a Vit B12 blood test at the beginning, after 3 and 6 months to be sure the supplementation is working.

[infinityXme]

I noticed no results from B12 in tab form. Someone recommended taking B12 sublingually and after I did I started seeing some decent results. I'd also recommend PABA, Para Amino Benzoic Acid and Pantethene for helping to prevent greying.

[Dhodges777t]

I know this is anecdotal but I had 2 dime size Places of grey in my beard and one lose hair in my brow and several in my nose. I started taking 2000 mg resveritrol ( obesity and heart care) with green tea extract and all 3 are gone. I've read on here that it shouldn't do that and it must be something else but I have no idea what.

[niner]

That's not the first time I've heard a report of resveratrol causing some darkening of facial hair. It never seems to work on people's heads, though. It's usually a little bit here and there, as I recall. If you searched the resveratrol forum, you could probably find some of it.

[mustardseed41]

Copper peptides have been reported to reverse greying hair.

[Want_more_hair]

I used to follow a vegan diet for 4 years and my hair started greying dramatically. Funnily enough, when I went back into a diet incorporating meat and dairy, I reversed some of the greying although MPB kicked in. I do however attribute the latter to genetics as all males in my family have started balding in their early 30's.

[Werner]

I have an experience of 10 years with using vitamin b6.
It definitely works but you have to be a bit patient.
You have to wait about 3 months to see a result.
Starting with about 50% grey hair 10 years ago I took
100mg/day and this decreased it to 10-15%. Two
years ago I had to take 200mg/day to keep this level
until today.
The younger you are the better the result.

[SloMoSandy]

They should sequence the genome of my grandma. She has her hair of exactly the same color as in her youth at about 80 (forgot exact age lol).. A few strands of gry hair, wouldn't ever notice if one wouldn't know. Literally all her friends of a similar age have "belached" hair (by natural greying obviously) and accuses her of dying hers haha..
On a side note - my hair is of an identical color (and "structure") so I'm pretty sure my risk of getting grey hair is very small hehe (not to make you sad guys... Well.. maybe a little.. :D)

Edited by VidX, 05 December 2011 - 04:33 PM.

[scottknl]

VidX, my mum is the same way at 75. You just don't really see any real difference from decades ago. She's always had a healthy diet with lots of fruits and veggies. Very healthy too compared to her friends of similar ages.

My experience with graying is that CRON diet combined with the Chinese herb he-shou-wu(15 g/d) and asltragalus (5 g/d) has helped me stop MPB and graying that was starting to advance very quickly a few years ago. In particular, stopping the he-shou-wu for a few days will result in more hair in the shower drain. I also take 5mg biotin and ginko bilboa(60 mg) daily. Now I don't notice any advancement in the graying of either my hair or beard. I tried briefly using resveratrol suspended in dmso and it did encourage growth of hair in spots that had stopped growing new hair, but suspended my efforts out of nervousness of safety long term usage dmso. New growth then disappeared. For what it's worth, I also take 10 - 20 mg resveratrol each day in a small glass of pinot noir.

[SloMoSandy]

Well my grandma eats horrible. Plenty of simple carbs, day in day out, fried foods, A LOT of sugar, etc... Still not obese and her blood sugar is perfect. Just shows how genes may overtake whatever one does...

[scottknl]

Well my grandma eats horrible. Plenty of simple carbs, day in day out, fried foods, A LOT of sugar, etc... Still not obese and her blood sugar is perfect. Just shows how genes may overtake whatever one does...

For those of us that didn't come from the best gene pool
Three words for ya: epigenetic gene expression

[Luminosity]

I didn't have any luck with supplements or herbs stopping the graying of my hair which started at 29. I think I tried Fo Ti also known as He Shou Wu as well as B12 and B6 among other things. I am happier when I dye my hair. Herbatint is a less toxic dye that is pretty good.

[Danail Bulgaria]

The only way to bring back the color of Your hair is to color it.

[mikey]

I had made statements about my belief that my grey and white hair was darkening slightly with C60 use.

And before that my hair definitely was darkened by taking Tocomin Suprabio tocotrienols - but it took 18 months before I saw this. I saw thicker hair - more hair count in about five months. Then after about 18 months I AND friends noticed that my hair was darker.

I did a lecture in Albuquerque and there was someone in the audience who moved there and knew me from when they lived in LA a few years ago.

He told me that my hair was definitely thicker and darker, as well as others, so I know it's not just my imagination.

Anyway,there's new data that goes beyond what I found out about the body's own hydrogen peroxide bleaching our hair as we age.

They have a compound that apparently can reverse the greying of hair.
See: http://www.scienceda...30503132958.htm

Edited by mikey, 05 May 2013 - 04:04 AM.

[niner]

They have a compound that apparently can reverse the greying of hair.
See: http://www.scienceda...30503132958.htm

Here's the paper. (warning: lead author sells pseudocatalase)

Hard to say if this will work on head hair. It's been around for some years now- one of the early papers was 2005. If it really worked well, it seems like it would have caught on by now. There's a site that sells it, but they want the name of your doctor so they can get a prescription. Looking elsewhere, I found the ingredients, though not the concentration or vehicle:

Comments: PCAT is available by doctor's prescription as a freshly prepared, extemporaneous formulation containing USP-designated ingredients: calcium chloride, manganese chloride and sodium bicarbonate. PCAT functions to remove increased skin levels of hydrogen peroxide. When successful detoxification of epidermal hydrogen peroxide occurs, tissue biopsies have demonstrated that the stressed epidermis is able to recover.

There's a lot of vitiligo treatment info on the web- more info could probably be found.

Edited by niner, 05 May 2013 - 02:27 PM.

[Climactic]

Sigma-Aldrich and possibly others sell numerous catalases. But what then?

[mikey]

So here's a new twist. A vitamin D analog that is reported to grow hair back.
http://saypeople.com.../#axzz2SRgJZsMR

Here's the case report - http://www.ncbi.nlm....f/ad-24-341.pdf

I wonder if it would affect hair color.

A doctor can prescribe it as a prescription called Daivonex, 50 ug/mL (calcipotriol).

There are numerous sources of another version on the net, sold as non-prescription Dovonex, such ashttps://www.northwes...ovonex ointment which is not just calcipotriol - also containing calcipotriene. I don't know what differences might there be.

Maybe one of the chemists here can chime in and provide details.

Michael

[niner]

So here's a new twist. A vitamin D analog that is reported to grow hair back.
http://saypeople.com.../#axzz2SRgJZsMR

Here's the case report - http://www.ncbi.nlm....f/ad-24-341.pdf

I wonder if it would affect hair color.

That was a case of alopecia areata, a relatively rare inflammatory condition. It has a different etiology than typical male pattern baldness, which is also called androgenic alopecia. I don't think it would work for most people, and probably wouldn't affect hair color

[Climactic]

So here's a new twist. A vitamin D analog that is reported to grow hair back.
http://saypeople.com.../#axzz2SRgJZsMR

Here's the case report - http://www.ncbi.nlm....f/ad-24-341.pdf

I wonder if it would affect hair color.

That was a case of alopecia areata, a relatively rare inflammatory condition. It has a different etiology than typical male pattern baldness, which is also called androgenic alopecia. I don't think it would work for most people, and probably wouldn't affect hair color

Premature graying may however have an auto-immune and inflammatory connection, similar to alopecia areata, and distinct from age related graying.

Edited by Climactic, 06 May 2013 - 06:26 PM.

[mikey]

Has anybody had success reversing graying hair with supplements or medication?

There was some discussion about this already in which some novel solutions were presented based on the mechanism of hair graying.

http://www.imminst.o...-we-grow-older/

I experienced darkening of hair, apparently with tocotrienol intake, over about 18 months.
Please seehttp://www.michaelmooney.net/hair.html