Most mums admit that rearing a gaggle of kids could well leave you with some grey strands.
And while our concerns about changing hair colour might be purely cosmetic (remember when Duchess Kate got a LOAD of abuse online for displaying a few silvery roots at – shock! – 33?), now we might need to worry about our health too.
That’s because whitening tresses have been linked to… heart disease.
Eeek!
Author of the study Dr Irini Samuel, a cardiologist at Cairo University in Egypt, said of his team’s research: “Artery disease and hair greying occur through similar biological pathways and the incidence of both increases with age.
“Our findings suggest that, irrespective of chronological age, hair greying indicates biological age and could be a warning sign of increased cardiovascular risk.
“A larger study including men and women is required to confirm the association between hair greying and cardiovascular disease in patients without other known cardiovascular risk factors.
“If our findings are confirmed, standardisation of the scoring system for evaluation of hair greying could be used as a predictor for coronary artery disease.”
The research was presented at EuroPrevent 2017, the annual meeting of the European Association Of Preventive Cardiology, in Malaga, Spain.
In response Emily Reeve, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, told Telegraph.co.uk: “A much larger study is needed before we start using hair colour as a measure of heart disease risk.
“If you’re over 40 and worried about your heart health you should ask your GP for a free health check.”
