Posted on 12/11/2005 2:03:17 PM PST by paulat
Stoic Redheads
By AMY SULLIVAN Published: December 11, 2005
Redheads have long been portrayed in literature and art as strong-willed and fiery. Now there may be a scientific explanation for these traits. The key, according to researchers at McGill University in Montreal, is a gene that is linked both to red hair coloring and to higher levels of pain tolerance. It has been known since the mid-1990's that mutations of the MC1R gene are responsible for hair color - and fair skin and freckles - in about 70 percent of redheads. But when Jeffrey S. Mogil and his colleagues at McGill set out to find a genetic link to pain inhibition, MC1R wasn't at the top of their list of targets. "We normally only get excited about genes in the brain when it comes to pain," he says. "This is in the skin." There was, however, a little-noticed paper that said MC1R was in fact expressed in the brain. It was enough of a clue to go on.
So, earlier this year, Mogil ran some mice through a battery of pain tests, using mice with the red-hair gene as his test group. (A collaborator in the Netherlands ran the same study with humans, giving them electrical shocks to the leg.) When animals and humans experience pain, their brains release natural opiates similar to morphine. In most cases, however, the MC1R gene produces a protein that interferes with the efficacy of those substances as well as of artificial painkillers. What Mogil found is that the variant of MC1R that causes red hair also appears to allow these opiates to work unimpeded. As a result, redheads can withstand up to 25 percent more pain than their blond and brunet peers do before saying "stop."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Don't tell anyone who thinks I'm a real party animal (LOL), I don't drink much, either.
I won't.
Oooo, that's a good one.
That David Caruso pic is just wrong!!!
LOL!!! Thing is, no matter how many *tough guy* roles he tries to play, I will always think of him as the wimpy wuss from An Officer and a Gentleman.
Gorgeous redhead, but check out those eyes. Cold as ice.
Imagine them behind the muzzle of a .40 Glock.
Double tap you in a heartbeat, and laugh!
Well, as someone with firsthand experience, I vote for the older article. I have a very low pain threshhold.
Vikings then?
There is no evidence that red hair was introduced to to Scotland and Ireland by the Vikings. The high occurrence of red hair in Scotland (13%) and Ireland (10%) is more indicative of a local mutation.Well, they are the ones responsible for producing the redheaded Irish and Scots you see today.
I'm in the Army Reserve. One fellow reservist (we've both deployed, going back) is more right wing than me. His lovely wife is both a flaming liberal and a flaming redhead. She quietly begs us not to make fun of her liberalism. I comply, but she has lived with her husband now fifteen years.
Quiet endurance of pain, surely now.
Um, what were you saying? Oh yeah, vile and discusting...that's it.
Strap-On tools?
When people refer to me as one, I expect them to verbally CAPITALIZE the "B".
My tolorance for pain has always been extremely high, and the one chestnut-haired kid I namaged to produce also has a high tolorance for pain. My brunett son has a high tolorance, but my blond youngest daughter doesn't have much pain tolorance at all. This article explains a lot. Don't forget the results come from averaging subject response.
Blond 115,000
Brunette 100,000
Red Head 85.000
Spent alot of time canvassing scalps and nether regions but that's another story!
You're kidding? Mine is medium thick. Always has been.
She could inflict it, too.
Not anymore....I went back to blonde. Being feisty all the time was exhausting.
LOL...but I gotta give props to the redheads who have the vanity license plates...you see 'em everywhere...usually a red convertible or Corvette with some red statement....
If she is suffering any discomfort from having mislaid her clothing, she seems not to be showing it.
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