Redheads Need More Anesthesia than Others

Natural redheads need 20% more anesthesia than other people report scientists. "Redheads are likely to experience more pain from a given stimulus and therefore require more anesthesia to alleviate that pain." said Dr. Edwin Liem of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Anesthesiology is still very much a mystery to scientists, and picking the right dosage that keeps someone out without killing them is still very much an art. Studies like this will help them determine how anesthesics work and why.

Comments

About red hair

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

Red hair is a phenotype particular only to scarce areas of Northern Europe, mostly in Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia -- even there, it is not entirely common.

Blazing red hair is a very recessive trait created entirely by past inbreeding in Europe -- and past inbreeding is a common heritage for Europe, as well, since most Europeans can trace their ancestors back to a very small group of perhaps a dozen Ice Age survivors. It requires not only a 3rd-level hair gene (0-3 for red), it also requires a very low lightness gene (0 for platinum blond, down thru 12 to pitch black), which is extremely recessive as well.

Since the trait is so recessive, the extinction of redheads is predicted to be sometime in the late 21st or early 22nd century, due to population implosion of the native populations of northern Europe and the traits being lost due to interbreeding with those with dominant dark-haired traits.

It's no surprise that redheads have other strange recessive genes that we are only now discovering -- this could prove to be very interesting, and could help a lot in future gene therapy.

Re:About red hair

[The Tyro]

There is considerable genetic variation among racial groups with respect to many drugs.

For example, certain persons of american indian descent have an enzyme deficiency that results in certain paralytic drugs having a greatly prolonged duration of action. Naturally, this is not always something you want in a normally rapid-on/rapid-off neuromuscular blocking agent...

There are also racial tendencies with regard to what classes of blood pressure medications work best with certain racial groups.

This kind of variation (along with anatomic variants) can make the practice of medicine very challenging. Don't go into medicine if you don't like surprises!

Re:About red hair

[Anonymous Coward]

> Red hair is a phenotype particular only to scarce
> areas of Northern Europe, mostly in Scotland,
> Ireland, and Scandinavia -- even there, it is not
> entirely common.

Nope. I know from friends and relatives that red hair is also found among North Indians (especially among Kashmiris), though it is certainly in the minority. My own hair is dark brown with red highlights. But then again, Indians seem to have a wide range of phenotypes in everything from eye, skin, and hair color to the shape of eyes and faces.

Indians in many ways appear often to be more a collection of thousands of micro-ethnicities than a single ethnic group. Though these micro-ethnicities shade into each other at the boundaries, there is a lot of variation between them. It would be interesting to see if the results presented in this study (conducted on people with European ancestry) could be replicated with Indians that have red hair. After all, it could be that this has nothing to do with red-hair in general, but only with a particular way of getting red hair.

Re:About red hair

[Jugalator]

this could prove to be very interesting, and could help a lot in future gene therapy.

It could also help archaeologists understand the predecessors of Homo Sapiens better, if the research saying the "redhead gene" might come from neanderthals is true.

I mean, if redheads are slightly more sensitive to pain somehow, I think it is very likely that neanderthals were as well. And this is things we would never know from "common", material studies alone.

Besides, isn't it thought that blondes are making room for brunettes as well, for reasons similar to what you mention?

Re:About red hair

[AndroidCat]

And if you have the gene for Malignant Hyperthemia Susceptibility, certain anaesthetics cause every muscle in your body to spasm, your core temperature skyrockets and you die. Don't talk to me about surprises!

Luckily, when my brother was having his appendix out, it was by the chief surgeon of Toronto General, who just happened to be a friend of Dr. Britt, who at the time was one of the foremost researchers into MHS. He knew exactly what to do. (Ice bath, keep the heart going...)

I almost certainly have the gene too, but the 100% test involves sampling a chunk of muscle tissue from a leg. I'll pass!

Re:About red hair

[AndroidCat]

Thanks!

"Bad" genes is funny things. If they had no benefit and only harm, they'd remove themselves from the pool eventually. (Like Queen Victoria's genetic time-bomb to her in-bred descendants.)

Some, like Sickle Cell as I said above, have a benefit if you don't get the double reenforcement. (Trivia: There's a different gene from Africa that also gives resistance to malaria, and has the same problem when reenforced.) The games theory math for these genes must be very tricky -- on the one hand, they provide a benefit in half-dose and so tend to spread. On the other hand, if they spread too much, they reenforce and tend to kill the host. (Perhaps there are no bad genes, just genes that are misunderstood?)

Mother Nature is the ultimate kludge-artist: "Okay, if I hack this gene, it'll increase blood-flow. It'll cause problems later, but that's tommorow's problem, sucks to be you." I mean, she wired the eye receptor cells with the I/O coming out of the front of the cell! Hopefully all that "unused" genetic information will turn out to be code comments (as well as version control).

I Doubt It

[e8johan]

This proves that correlation studies can be used to find many results. You can find that statistically, red-heads feel pain easier, but this does not say anything about any single individual.
There is a reason to why one says "lies, damn lies and statistics. Correlation has been used to "prove" many things such as racist ideas (superiority due to colour), intelligence from weight etc. A good correlation between two parameters does *not* prove that they are connected!

Re:I Doubt It

[JMemmert]

I concur with the above statement and would like to add some more comments.
I am a dark blonde with no redheads in my family for roughly three generations back (No jokes about inbreeding here, please. ;-))
My tolerance for novocaine, diazepam (valium) and a host of other anesthetics is about 12x normal (tripple the dosage, 1/4th of the duration) and has puzzled more than one specialist. The result of careful analysis has shown that my body eliminates most anesthetics at a much higher rate than normal.
My pain level is no higher or lower than average though my sensitivity to stimuli is much higher than average (I can read a photocopy with my fingertips, sometimes even writing in ink).
Based on that point of data, I'd say that equating sensitivity to stimuli to sensitivity to pain, as it has happened in many posts is probably not a good (i.e. valid) idea. I should be screaming of pain most the time if this were true.
Only empirical evidence with a very limited set of data, I know, but as e8johan stated: "but this does not say anything about any single individual".
The next question is whether sensitivity to pain has any relevance to the effect of an anesthetic.
If I remember correctly, local anesthetics work vastly different from general anesthesia by targeting different areas in the body.
[1] states that Novocaine et al. supress the transmission of stimuli through the nerve while general anesthetics act in the brain ([2] has something about some anesthetics triggering the sleep cycle, for others, I don't know).
Desflurane now is a geneal anesthetic, acting in the brain. So, any reference to "I can do this, I can do that" that does not duplicate the function of a geneal anesthetic is useless...
This means that my impressive tolerance for Novocaine et al. does not have any significance for the research performed as it targets a different type of anesthetic. The same goes for many other comments along the same lines, including alcohol.
Alcohol acts as an inhibitor ([3] states: "Alcohol acts primarily at the GABAa receptor to facilitate its action, thus in essence creating enhanced inhibition.") but does not have a sufficiently strong effect that the person affected could consciously compare it to a geneal anesthetic...
As for the use of alcohol as geneal anesthetic, which would be the next logical argument... it's not been very effective prior to complete unconsciousness and the level and speed of alcohol absorption plays a huge role. That also rules out any comment along the lines of "I can drink more than an ox".

I won't ask for people to check what they're writing for relevance... after all, I enjoy many of the comments I read here, but it is considered bad style to criticize the work of others without enough commonalities between the work and the critical remarks.

Re:What about... sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is a redhead. For her, more stimulation is better. (She's getting a Sybian for christmas. If you don't know how STIMULATING one of those can be... well, you need to do some "research".)

Another interesting thing... one orgasm is 'it' for her. After she has finished, she is so sensitive that she cannot tolerate being touched sexually. Perhaps that is somehow related to this research... (nerve sensitivity?)

Their conclusion is flawed

[Dynedain]

Another comment now that I've read the article.

They claim their findings indicate redheads are more susceptable to pain.

Based on what is presented in their article, an equaly valid point can be made:
anesthesia is less effective on redheads.

Both are legit conclusions from the presented evidence. Either redheads could feel more pain, or their bodies may not absorb/be affected by intoxicants as much.

Explains why the redheaded cultures are known for impressive drinking skills.

Re:Their conclusion is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. fair. I'm *very* redheaded -- mom and dad both very red.

When I had to have a major op as a kid, they had to give me a whole bunch of anesthetic to put me out. The normal "count down from 10" act didn't work. I had to have three attempts that I remember. When I had my lower wisdom teeth out, the normal 5 injections in the jaw went up to 40 injections before I lost enough feeling to start, and they had to keep topping me up, and it still hurt.

I'm also extremely resistant to ibuprofen, paracetamol, codeine, morphine, and a whole bunch of other pharms. Aspirin's the only one that works, and I need about twice the dose of someone else my age/height/build. My alcohol tolerance has always been extremely high. Marijuana has no effect on me whatsoever. I'm allergic or resistant to most medicines I've ever had.

More importantly, my mom has have _woken up_ during a major operation. Luckily they noticed quickly and put her under again. She also has similar resistance to pharmaceutical drugs.

I'd have to go with "anesthesia is less effective on redheads". I'd also flag it (Score: -1, Well Duh). More research from the Institute of the Blindingly Obvious.

Posting anonymously, because I've already moderated some of the more bigoted posts in this article. Some people don't realise the reason redheads tend to have short tempers is the amount of shit they get from bigots while growing up -- something the bigots obviously don't do.

Anecdotal experience

[bollucks]

I'm a specialist anaesthetist and for many years we have anecdotal reports of redheads being more resistant to anaesthesia. We certainly find clinically that this is the case and also there is information that they are more likely to suffer a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis). Many of these anecdotal reports are what start these interesting studies initially conducted on small samples and lead to serendipitous discoveries of how things work.

I'm with you

[Wee]

What I've noticed is that when it comes to alcohol, caffiene, and other intoxicants/stimulants, I need a much higher dosage to feel the effects. I have a higher alcohol tolerance than antyone I know, matched only by a binge drinker who weighs 60 lbs more than I do.

I don't think that I'm more susceptible to pain either. Friends frequently refer to me as the guy with the 'asbestos hands'. If anything, I have a higher pain tolerance than most

I don't buy it either. I'm pretty blond-ish (I've got reds in my beard and mixed in with a bunch of light colors in my hair) and I'm rather light-skinned. I'd describe myself almost exactly as you describe yourself. I even have a friend like yours with a higher tolerance than myself (although he's recently stopped drinking). I hardly feel pain and when I do it's usually too late.

I've broken all of my fingers (most twice), most of my toes, a few ribs, both ankles and both wrists. I have a 10" long "depression" in my skull from when I cracked it playing football in the house at age 6 (dove for a "pass", hit the little metal striker plate on the door jamb). I had a double hernia at 18 months old. When I was growing up, I'd say I had a cast/splint on something for about 3 months out of every year. For the longest time, everyone thought I was really fragile. Turns out I just didn't feel it when something broke, and so never had that "Don't dive into a tackle with your fingers sticking out" negative reinforcement. I'd break something and not notice until I couldn't bend a joint or it hurt later on when I moved it in some way.

I've even broken fingers and not known it. I once went in to the emergency room for a sprain or whatever and they discovered an old break I didn't remember. That was when I did go into the emergency room. After a while, I stopped because it was too expensive (and I had a full set of splints anyway). That's why to this day I can't touch type; I took typing class three times but could never complete it (twice for fingers, once for wrist).

I don't get cold very easily. I mean, wiping ice off a windshield is no big deal. Hot isn't terribly bothersome, either. Reaching into a campfire to move a log around or into water to get corn (or whatever) isn't something I normally think about not doing. It takes a couple more beers than most people to get a head of steam going, and I never ever throw up from drinking. I'm not ticklish. When I get a splinter, I just take it out with a scalpel and a small incision because it's easier and quicker than digging around. A healthy splash of rubbing alcohol afterward isn't bad at all. I've had a tooth (accidentally) removed without anesthesia. That hurt a lot. It takes a couple Vicodins to do any good. Curisouly, aspirin works very well for most stuff. When I get a headache, it's migraine-quality.

Long story short, I don't buy the relationship between hair color/skin tone and nerve responsiveness. I know I'm only a sample of one (and a highly biased researcher :-) but the theory just doesn't hold water. I am not more susceptible to pain than most people.

BTW, I haven't broken anything in four years. If the lack of negative physical feedback didn't teach me to be careful, the feedback of "no type, no money" sure did. I still do stuff like play paintball, it's just that I tend to think a little more carefully about what I need to do before I do it.

Oh yeah, I'm not Dutch. Scotch-Irish/English, with a teensy bit of Polish.

-B