Q. I am 76 years old and I take Centrum Silver vitamins, calcium, low-dose aspirin, Crestor for cholesterol, lisinopril for blood pressure, Coenzyme Q10 and Osteo Bi-Flex for arthritis. My doctor has approved all this medication.
My problem: I have had gray hair since I was thirty-five and over the years it has turned white. Now I have black hair growing from the roots and it seems to grow every day. I am very unhappy about this, as I have never had black hair. Could one of my medications be responsible?
A. We have heard from many other readers that cholesterol-lowering drugs like Crestor, Zocor or Zetia can turn gray hair dark. One woman wrote: “My 84-year-old mother let her naturally black hair go silver gray about ten years ago. Several years later she began taking Zocor and after about a year she noticed the roots of the new growth were black! She is not pleased about this because it makes her otherwise lovely silver hair look ‘dirty!’”
There is no information in the medical literature about this side effect, but we suspect that Crestor might be responsible.
