Historically, the search for anti-greying remedies was cluttered with unproven supplements and indirect treatments. A major hurdle has always been the timeline: because true age-related greying takes decades to unfold, proving a "cure" in humans is slow and expensive.

However, our understanding of the mechanism has sharpened. Scientists can now pinpoint exactly why the system fails — from stem cell depletion to signalling breakdowns. This allows researchers to focus on high-potential biological candidates that realistically protect these pathways. Leading this new class are specific antioxidants that help the follicle cope with oxidative stress before damage becomes permanent.

Many antioxidants are plant-derived polyphenols and flavonoids, such as Luteolin, Hesperetin and Diosmetin, which are already used in dermatology to help shield skin from environmental damage. The logic is straightforward: if oxidative stress helps push follicle stem cells and pigment cells toward dysfunction, then targeted antioxidants might slow that drift and preserve the niches that keep hair coloured.

In line with this idea, a team from Nagoya showed in a lab model that the flavonoid Luteolin can protect melanocyte stem cells and significantly reduce age-related greying [Ref 1], making it one of the first concrete antioxidant candidates for an anti-greying remedy.

Hair follicles are tiny factories that run on energy and signals. Pigment cells (melanocytes) and their stem cells (MSC) sit in a crowded niche with keratinocyte stem cells, blood vessels and nerves. To keep producing coloured hair, this mini-ecosystem has to manage oxidative stress and maintain the molecular “conversations” that tell stem cells when to divide, survive or mature.

Oxidative stress is what happens when the balance tilts too far toward reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as hydrogen peroxide. These molecules are normal by-products of metabolism, UV light, inflammation and pollution. In small amounts they act as signals. In excess, and when antioxidant defences are overwhelmed, they damage DNA, lipids and proteins and push cells toward dysfunction or death.

Oxidative stress is one of the key culprit of hair greying [Ref 2]. In hair follicles, several lines of evidence link oxidative stress to:

Greying is also a story of signalling failure. Pigment stem cells do not work alone. They depend on messages from nearby keratinocyte stem cells and the surrounding tissue, including endothelins and their receptor Ednrb, to stay alive and keep making new pigment cells. With age and chronic stress, these messages weaken: keratinocyte stem cells age, endothelin levels drop, Ednrb is expressed less, and melanocyte stem cells receive fewer “stay, divide, become a pigment cell” signals. As this communication line breaks down, the pigment system slows and more hairs grow out grey.

The Luteolin study sits exactly at this intersection. It treats oxidative stress and weakened signalling as key, changeable drivers of greying. If oxidative damage can be reduced and the endothelin–Ednrb conversation between keratinocyte and melanocyte stem cells supported, the pigment unit can keep working for longer and delay the visible shift from coloured to grey hair.

Standard mice are poor models for human greying. They simply do not live long enough to develop the gradual "salt-and-pepper" pattern characteristic of human aging. Their greying is often slow, inconsistent, or driven by artificial damage (like radiation) rather than natural biological decline. This has historically made it difficult to test remedies that claim to slow down the aging process.

This offers a high-fidelity window into human aging. Unlike other models that turn grey because of a single broken gene, RET-mice begin life with normal dark fur and gradually accumulate grey hairs as the pigment system becomes exhausted. This unique trait allows researchers to test if candidates like Luteolin can truly slow down the MeSC depletion process that humans experience.

In the 2020 study, the team simply treated these mice as a living timeline of greying [Ref 3]. They kept groups of ordinary mice and groups of RET-mice and followed them from youth into old age. At key ages, they plucked small samples of trunk hair and counted 100 hairs per mouse, classifying each one as dark or grey to calculate how the proportion of grey hairs changed over time. They also took small skin samples so they could later compare what was happening inside dark versus grey follicles. This step-by-step tracking of hair colour and follicle structure, across many ages and in both normal and RET-mice, is the backbone of the model; the next question is what they found when they started looking inside those follicles.

In this lab model, which recapitulates key steps seen in human greying, researchers tested the plant flavonoid Luteolin in two ways: applying a 1% Luteolin solution to shaved skin and administering Luteolin orally mixed into the food.

In both setups, mice that received Luteolin developed grey hairs more slowly than untreated animals. When the researchers looked at the follicles, they saw that treated mice kept more pigment stem cells and pigment-producing cells, which means the follicles could stay “in colour mode” for longer [Ref 1].

To check if this was just any antioxidant effect, they repeated the experiment with two related flavonoids, Hesperetin and Diosmetin. Those did not slow greying and did not protect the pigment stem cells in the same way. So in this model, Luteolin stood out as the only flavonoid that clearly slowed the build-up of grey hairs.

In the Nagoya model, greying starts when the “support cells” of the follicle begin to fail. Keratinocyte stem cells in the bulge divide too much, become old and senescent, make less endothelin (a survival signal), and melanocyte stem cells lose their Ednrb receptor and gradually disappear. Fewer melanocyte stem cells means fewer pigment cells in the bulb, and the hairs from those follicles grow out grey.

Luteolin seems to intervene at several points in this cascade. In treated mice, bulge keratinocyte stem cells showed fewer senescence markers, which suggests they stayed biologically “younger” for longer. In parallel, Endothelin signalling and Ednrb expression were better preserved, so the communication line between keratinocyte stem cells and melanocyte stem cells stayed more intact. As a result, more melanocyte stem cells and bulb melanocytes survived in Luteolin-treated follicles.

The group also showed that under experimentally induced oxidative stress, follicles greyed faster, and Luteolin could blunt this effect.

In this study, Luteolin helped preserve the “stem-cell bank” responsible for hair pigment by reducing oxidative stress and maintaining the survival signals that keep pigment cells active.

The same endothelin-based pathway exists in human hair follicles, suggesting that this mechanism likely operates in people as well. Luteolin was the only compound in the study that effectively protected this system, helping pigment stem cells resist stress and continue producing colour. Confirming its full potential in humans requires well-designed clinical research.