red heads

Why redheads have a head start in the health stakes


Actress Julianne Moore

It is not the image classically associated with peak health and fitness.

But scientists have found that ginger hair and a pale skin offer an important advantage in the survival game.

Redheads, it would seem, boast a secret genetic weapon which enables them to fight off certain debilitating and potentially deadly illnesses more efficiently than blondes or brunettes.

A pale complexion permits more sunlight into the skin, where it encourages the productionof vitamin D. This helps to prevent rickets, a disease which progressively...

A close-up view of red hair
The pigment pheomelanin gives red hair its distinctive color. Red hair has far more of the pigment pheomelanin than it has of the dark pigment eumelanin.

The genetics of red hair, discovered in 1997, appear to be associated with the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), which is found on chromosome 16. Red hair is associated with fair skin color because of low concentrations of eumelanin throughout the body of those with red hair. This lower melanin-concentration confers the advantage that a sufficient concentration of important Vitamin D can be produced under low light...