Unfortunately for three per cent of England’s population and thirteen per cent of Scotland’s, it’s not just the sun that can prove troublesome, a new study by Southampton University Hospital has initially shown that pale-skinned redheads in both countries are likely to feel more pain when visiting the dentist, and will require more anaesthetic. Researchers have discovered that the genes that affect the colour of hair and skin are the same as the ones that help produce endorphins – the body’s natural painkillers.
The study of volunteers over the age of thirty involves anaesthetising the subject and then administering a small electrical charge to their thigh, then comparing the reaction with another group of people with brown or black hair. Although the research won’t be complete until September, early evidence suggests that the red-haired volunteers do feel more pain, which concurs with a similar study carried out in the US that revealed that redheads were generally more nervous about receiving dental treatment, and more than twice as likely to avoid it.
Dr Edwin Liem, who led the first study at Louisville University, commented that ‘Redheads experience more pain from a given stimulus and therefore require more anaesthesia to alleviate that pain.’ A second experiment in the same field showed that women with red hair needed nineteen per cent more pain relief to stop them from reacting to negative stimulation, than those with dark hair that were tested in the same way.