gray hair…and blood types
I’ve always been interested in people who seem to “turn gray” (their hair that is), but otherwise seem to age well. For example, my own brother developed the salt-and-pepper look in his twenties, and now, in his late 50s, he has mostly gray hair but his skin still looks great…and I’m sure he doesn’t use any facial creams whatsoever. He took up marathon running at age 56, now runs at least six marathons per year, and at the finish of each one, he’s not very worn out…he could run much further if the race demanded.
And I, with much less gray hair…I’m sure right now there’s no way I could finish a marathon. In general I haven’t noticed any correlation between gray hair and aging of the skin, or internal aging…what has been your experience in that realm, for yourself or by observing others?
You might be interested in this article in the New York Times, which discusses that studies show no correlation between gray hair and aging of the skin or, more important, with lifespan. Gray hair seems to be just a characteristic found on a gene and has nothing to do with aging in general. Don’t let that stop you from tinting your hair (in a quality and safe way) if you want, and we’ll cover that sometime later in this blog, or in my book…
Another thing I find interesting is that here in Brazil most everyone knows his or her blood type, whereas in the United States, many people don’t know. And here’s a good reason to be blood-type aware: your chance of getting pancreatic cancer (unfortunately one of the deadliest and most difficult to detect early), is much higher with certain blood types.
A recent report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showed that those with blood type O appear to have the lowest risk, and if you have are type A, you have a 32 percent higher risk than a type O individual. If you are type AB, you run a 51 percent higher risk, and type B, a 72 percent higher risk.
Some hints for avoiding pancreatic cancer I covered in a previous post, and certainly if you are type O, you still could develop this cancer, but if you have type A, AB, or B blood, I would pay particular attention over the years to the latest research in detection and prevention. Hopefully this new blood type research will lead to fresh ways to prevent and treat this killer.
