2019
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-54662-5
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Skin fairness is a better predictor for impaired physical and mental health than hair redness

Abstract: About 1–2% of people of European origin have red hair. Especially female redheads are known to suffer higher pain sensitivity and higher incidence of some disorders, including skin cancer, Parkinson’s disease and endometriosis. Recently, an explorative study performed on 7,000 subjects showed that both male and female redheads score worse on many health-related variables and express a higher incidence of cancer. Here, we ran the preregistered study on a population of 4,117 subjects who took part in an anonymou… Show more

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Cited by 8 publications
(25 citation statements)
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References 73 publications
(74 reference statements)
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“…Our data showed that dark-haired women but not men had a lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and a less severe course of Covid-19. This higher resistance of dark-haired subjects is probably the result of generally better health of dark-haired individuals in the Czech population 13,15 . It is thus telling that dark-haired subjects – and even more so subjects with darker skin tone – had also a less severe course of Covid-19 (though it was significant only in women) and reported better physical health in the second questionnaire.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 94%
“…Our data showed that dark-haired women but not men had a lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and a less severe course of Covid-19. This higher resistance of dark-haired subjects is probably the result of generally better health of dark-haired individuals in the Czech population 13,15 . It is thus telling that dark-haired subjects – and even more so subjects with darker skin tone – had also a less severe course of Covid-19 (though it was significant only in women) and reported better physical health in the second questionnaire.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 94%
“…Based on previous observations of impaired health in fair-skinned people (Flegr & Sykorova, 2019), we predicted that redhaired subjects, who can be expected avoid sun exposure because of their sensitive skin, would have lower calcidiol levels. We confirmed that they indeed protect their skin from the sun by chemical and mechanical means.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It has been suggested that the resulting selection against redhaired individuals counterbalances the positive sexual selection in favor of redhaired women, thereby maintaining the corresponding alleles at a low but stable frequency (Frost et al, 2017). Another study which used a similar population later showed that it is not the red hair as such but rather the pale skin frequently associated with redhaired phenotype that is responsible for the observed signs of impaired health of redhaired persons (Flegr & Sykorova, 2019). Pale skin can be the result of either congenitally low eumelanin concentrations in the skin or a sign of absence of suntan, usually due to avoidance of sun exposure (A.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
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“…Several clinical and population-based studies have also reported that individuals who naturally have red hair tend to be more resistant to local anesthetics and more sensitive to thermal and dental pain [13]. Red hair, as well as fair skin and freckles, is associated with genetic variations of the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), and it has been suggested that these mutations could directly modulate pain sensitivity, particularly in women [14][15][16].…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%