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In different parts of the body I have skin moles or in medical terms, nevus. In some of them hair grow seemingly either darker/thicker (I'm not sure how much of the two) and notably longer. Here are pictures very similar to what happens. What is the reason behind this?

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  • $\begingroup$ You could have easily find this answer on the internet (e.g. here: zocdoc.com/answers/3728/why-do-hairs-grow-on-some-moles $\endgroup$
    – KingBoomie
    Nov 4, 2016 at 18:22
  • $\begingroup$ @RickBeeloo I ask this question here because I want this site to improve and to have many interesting biology questions. There was a discussion if easily google questions should be deleted or embraced, my position on that is that there are not stupid question and that this site should become the actual place where the answer is, the place that shows up when a google search is made. That's why I want the question to remain here. I thank you the link and not downvoting me, however! $\endgroup$ Nov 4, 2016 at 23:35

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Before answering the question (about the hairs) I will first go in some detail about what moles actually are:

Moles are growths on the skin that are usually brown or black.  They are formed by clusters of melanocytes, the pigmented cells responsible for your skin color.  Moles typically appear during the first 30 years of life, can be flat or raised, and can darken with sun exposure, puberty, or pregnancy.

There are no articles covering this topic in detail (most of them are about the skin cancer, if you are interested in this topic check out this article). However there are some medicial experts talking about the hair growth.

Joshua Zeichner, M.D., Director of Cosmetic & Clinical Research at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. "If the mole also contains a hair follicle, the hyper-pigmentation can cause the hair that comes out of it to be coarser and darker."

Junji Takano, a Japanese health researcher said the following about this topic:

This is due to the fact that capillaries of a mole are growing rapidly and excessively, and this includes the hair follicles

Actually moles are benign tumors(wiki), the cells in the body in charge of normal skin color, are being produced at an extremely fast rate. Thus causing the melanocytes to form in clusters instead of spread out, causing abnormal skin pigmentation in some areas of the body(wiki). So based on the above quotes this "fast production" also affects the hairs which are present in this piece of skin. More interesting is that people hate these hairs (which make sense offcourse) but in most of the cases this is a sign that this mole isn't cancerous:

A mole that has a hair growing out of it usually means that is was present since birth or at a young age and is typically normal.

references: first quote, second quote, third quote, last quote

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