If someone asked you to list all the different health-related rumors you've ever heard, it would probably be a long list. And somewhere on that list is probably the rumor that stress can turn a person's hair gray well before their time.

如果有人让你列出所有你听过的与健康有关的传言，可能会有一长串。在这个列表上的某个地方可能有这样的传言:压力会让一个人的头发提前变白。

When you take a look at all the horrible things stress does to the human body, it's easy to see where the idea comes from. The American Psychological Association makes it clear that stress doesn't just put you in a bad mood. It can affect every system of your body, from the musculoskeletal to the nervous and reproductive systems.

当你看看压力对人体造成的所有可怕的事情，就很容易明白这个想法的来源。美国心理学协会明确指出，压力不仅仅让你心情不好。它可以影响你身体的每一个系统，从肌肉骨骼到神经和生殖系统。

Chronic stress can lead to muscle tension because it puts the body on high alert. It can also cause shortness of breath. Moreover, stress dilates blood vessels, which increases blood pressure, and the effects don't stop there.

长期的压力会导致肌肉紧张，因为它会使身体处于高度警觉状态。它也会导致呼吸短促。此外，压力会扩张血管，导致血压升高，而且影响还不止于此。

But can stress really turn your hair gray? A group of researchers at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center got together and put the theory to the test.

但是压力真的能让你的头发变白吗?哥伦比亚大学欧文医学中心(Columbia University Irving Medical Center)的一组研究人员聚集在一起 ，对这一理论进行了验证。

Some rumors are true

有些传言是真的

The researchers selected hairs from 14 volunteers and studied not only their color over time but also the levels of proteins in the hair, as well as the stress levels of the volunteers. Per Science Daily, the study found that stress did actually contribute to loss of hair pigmentation, but that's not all.

研究人员从14名志愿者身上挑选了头发，不仅研究了头发随时间变化的颜色，还研究了头发中的蛋白质水平，以及志愿者的压力水平。据《科学日报》报道，这项研究发现，压力确实会导致头发色素沉着的减少，但这还不是全部。

Researchers found that color changes were tied to mitochondrial activity. Mitochondria receive and process signals, such as stress. In this study, it turned out that people who reduced their stress level — most notably one volunteer who went on vacation — actually renewed the pigmentation level in their hair.

研究人员发现，颜色变化与线粒体活性有关。线粒体接收和处理信号，如压力。在这项研究中，结果表明，那些减轻了压力水平的人——最明显的是一位去度假的志愿者——实际上恢复了头发的色素沉着水平。

Though this finding is exciting, researchers cautioned readers that graying could not always be reversed. People had to be at a certain time threshold, meaning that they had to be fairly young and the graying fairly recent. Hair that had been gray for decades, for example, is unlikely to regain its former pigment levels. That said, there is no telling what this breakthrough may mean for future research.

尽管这一发现令人兴奋，但研究人员提醒读者，头发变灰并不总是可以逆转的。人们必须处于某个特定的时间临界点，这意味着他们必须相当年轻，头发也必须是最近才变白的。例如，几十年来一直是灰色的头发不太可能恢复到以前的色素水平。也就是说，这一突破对未来的研究可能意味着什么还不得而知。