Scientific Discovery: Redheads Have Higher Pain Tolerance, Study Reveals

2023-07-06 08:00:00

A team of researchers discovers an association between the pain blocker and the redhead phenotype. This finding will not only pave the way for the development of new pain relievers, but also for more precise treatment of sensitivity differences in patients. It has been developed a gene therapy to dull the pain Chronic without side effects.

Is there a difference in redheads? Although its main hallmark is the orange color of the hair due to a lower production of eumelanin, researchers have discovered a peculiarity that could benefit the rest of the population in the treatment of pain.

A team of experts has published a report in Science Advances which reveals that redheads have a higher pain threshold than other people. This is due to the production of the skin pigment that contains the melanocortin 1 receptor, responsible for the orange color of the skin and hair. In turn, this receptor is related to the inhibition of pain receptors, which results in a greater tolerance to pain.

Basically, people with orange hair inactivate certain pain perception receptors by secreting lower levels of hormones sensitive to this stimulus. This leads to a blockage of the pain signal and a decrease in pain sensitivity. In addition, the body produces more opioid receptors, which reduce the sensation of pain in a similar way to pain relievers.

Although research has been done in rodents with the red gene, the researchers believe these findings are relevant to humans. This study is expected to open up new medical avenues by looking at the relationship between hair color and the body’s response to pain.

These findings could also influence drug development.s, by allowing the alteration of the appropriate hormones to achieve greater pain control. In addition, pain treatments could be more personalized, taking into account variations in pain sensitivity for each patient.

Notably, this study also reveals that it is possible to disentangle this connection between the hair pigmentation process and the pain response. This implies that variations in pain threshold may be melanocyte-dependent, independent of the presence of melanin in the hair.