أسرار ظهور الشيب بين العلم والقرآن

Recently, international universities conducted a study in which they discovered the secret behind the appearance of gray hair. Interestingly, the Holy Quran had already indicated this phenomenon fourteen centuries ago. How is that possible?

Researchers from Germany and Britain have found that an increase in the production of a substance called "hydrogen peroxide" is one of the main causes of gray hair as one ages. This substance, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), is a transparent liquid that is denser than water and can cause skin burns. It is highly flammable when exposed to temperatures around 100 degrees Celsius. This liquid is commonly used in a 3% concentration for hair dyeing and as a medical disinfectant. It can also be used as rocket propellant due to its high oxygen content and easy flammability. Therefore, this substance responsible for gray hair is both explosive and flammable, and its concentration increases with age, leading to chemical reactions that result in the appearance of gray hair.

In a study published in the American Journal of Experimental Biology (ASEB), Professor Heinz Decker from the Institute of Biophysics at Johannes Gutenberg University stated that hydrogen peroxide increases and accumulates as a person ages, while the body's efficiency decreases, making it difficult to convert it into water and oxygen. Consequently, the production of melanin, the pigment responsible for hair, eye, and skin color, is hindered. Hair color depends on melanin-producing cells, so whether the hair is blonde or dark is determined by the amount of melanin produced and distributed.

The average number of hairs on a human head is approximately five million, and a person loses about 100 hairs per day, with 90% of them being replaced through new growth. The researchers also explained that hydrogen peroxide is naturally present in various parts of the human body but increases in quantity as a person ages, coinciding with a decrease in the concentration of the enzyme catalase inside the cells. Catalase is responsible for converting hydrogen peroxide.

Scientific research confirms the existence of hydrogen peroxide, a flammable substance that increases with age and is also associated with an increase in bone fragility.

The Holy Quran remarkably connects the inflammation of the head with gray hair and bone weakness. Scientific facts confirm that bone fragility is linked to the appearance of gray hair due to the deterioration of certain biological processes with age, as well as a decrease in cellular efficiency after the age of forty.

(4) He said, "My Lord, indeed my bones have weakened, and my head has filled with white, and never have I been in my supplication to You, my Lord, unhappy.

Here we find a Quranic reference to a chemical ignition process occurring in the head that results in gray hair. If we contemplate the recently discovered scientific truth, we find that hydrogen peroxide is a flammable substance whose concentration increases, as if it ignites and inflames these follicles and cells responsible for producing melanin, consequently reducing the production of this substance.

Therefore, this expression used in the Quran fourteen centuries ago aligns with the modern scientific findings.