Hair Greying Correlates with Heart Disease Risk
Since aging is a global phenomenon in the body, an accumulation of a small number of forms of root cause molecular damage that produce many more secondary and later consequences, it should be expected to find strong correlations between observed measures of aging. Chance and lifestyle gives some people a larger amount of root cause damage, and that means they have greater degrees of all of the related secondary and later consequences. Better assessments of the correlations between those consequences do not necessarily tell us anything new.
Grey hair has been linked with an increased risk of heart disease in men. "Ageing is an unavoidable coronary risk factor and is associated with dermatological signs that could signal increased risk. More research is needed on cutaneous signs of risk that would enable us to intervene earlier in the cardiovascular disease process." Atherosclerosis and hair greying share similar mechanisms such as impaired DNA repair, oxidative stress, inflammation, hormonal changes and senescence of functional cells. This study assessed the prevalence of grey hair in patients with coronary artery disease and whether it was an independent risk marker of disease.
This was a prospective, observational study which included 545 adult men who underwent multi-slice computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography for suspected coronary artery disease. Patients were divided into subgroups according to the presence or absence of coronary artery disease, and the amount of grey/white hair. The amount of grey hair was graded using the hair whitening score: 1 = pure black hair, 2 = black more than white, 3 = black equals white, 4 = white more than black, and 5 = pure white. Each patients' grade was determined by two independent observers. Data was collected on traditional cardiovascular risk factors including hypertension, diabetes, smoking, dyslipidaemia, and family history of coronary artery disease.
The researchers found that a high hair whitening score (grade 3 or more) was associated with increased risk of coronary artery disease independent of chronological age and established cardiovascular risk factors. Patients with coronary artery disease had a statistically significant higher hair whitening score and higher coronary artery calcification than those without coronary artery disease. In multivariate regression analysis, age, hair whitening score, hypertension and dyslipidaemia were independent predictors of the presence of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. Only age was an independent predictor of hair whitening. "Our findings suggest that, irrespective of chronological age, hair greying indicates biological age and could be a warning sign of increased cardiovascular risk."
Not very surprising but pretty interesting nonetheless because this is a missing puzzle piece. As we all know greying hair is caused by declining stem cell activity,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5928147_Aging_Graying_and_Loss_of_Melanocyte_Stem_Cells
which is both a SENS target and a hallmark of aging and it's a dirt cheap biomarker as well. And now it's calibrated for the #1 killer in developed countries.
The second dirt cheap biomarker is subcutaneous fat which can be estimated by the depth of grooves in the face. These are caused by the SASP which should correlate to cancer risk.
Third one are small wrinkles (skin elasticity) early on and liver spots in later age which indicate AGEs.