Red Hair of Pathological Origin
Most red hair is caused by the MC1R gene and is non-pathological. However, in rare cases red hair can be associated with disease or genetic disorder:
- In cases of severe malnutrition, normally dark human hair may turn red or blonde. The condition, part of a syndrome known as kwashiorkor, is a sign of critical starvation caused chiefly by protein deficiency, and is common during periods of famine.
- One variety of albinism (Type 3, aka rufous albinism), sometimes seen in Africans and inhabitants of New Guinea, results in red hair and red-colored skin.
- Red hair is found on people lacking pro-opiomelanocortin.
Read more about this topic: Red Hair
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“Take a red book called TELEPHONE,
size eight by four. There it sits.
My red book, name, address and number.
These are all people that I somehow own.
Yet some of these names are counterfeit.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.”
—Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, 11:15.
“Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient’s ego freedom to decide one way or another.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)