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Redheads Feel Pain Differently Than the Rest of Us
schwit1 writes "If you think redheads are inherently different, well, you'd be right; they're better than you. In fact, they have a higher pain threshold than most of us, and can handle spicier food, too. It turns out that gingers are less sensitive to stinging pain in the skin, according to researchers who injected capsicum, the active ingredient in chilies, into the arms of patients. Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen, one of the researchers, said, 'Our tests showed that redheads are less sensitive to this particular type of pain. They react less to pressure close to the injected area, or to a pinprick. They seem to be a bit better protected, and that is a really interesting finding.' The finding also means redheads can handle spicier food, reports Science Nordic. It lends some scientific weight to previous suggestions that gingers have a different pain response to the rest of, which were even investigated by MythBusters."
That's what happens when you are without a soul.
This report jibes with my own ongoing research into the pain threshold of redheads. In the videos, they seem to almost enjoy the pain. It is quite fascinating stuff!
"I'm not like other people. Pain hurts me" - Daffy Duck
All this time I thought that calling someone a 'ginger' was pejorative.
Redheads need more anesthetic to dull pain: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1362956
Greater response to pentazocine: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=153647
And morphine: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1736101
So there's clearly something about MC1R that differentiates pain / killer response; but please stay off the soulless daywalker stuff. It's not helpful and just sounds juvenile.
Oh wait, this is slashdot, I forgot. Whereas you had to invent kick a redhead day, why don't we have kick a geek day? Oh, because that's EVERY DAY... :-)
Ha, best of all the captcha is "placid".
You know, we've come a long way. We used to put people down for a host of things. About a century ago we got over the notion that women weren't smart enough to vote. Not so many decades ago being black and flirting with a white woman could get you killed. I'll bet more than a few of you are acquainted with the idea that "nerd" was not a badge of honor way back in high school. Like I say, we've come a long way, but it's somehow still cool to put down the "gingers".
Grow up already.
And not to be totally off topic, but this notion of people with red hair having a differing response to pain has been known for a long time. Wikipedia has references going back at least decade. I'm pretty sure I've known about this for longer than that. Finding older refs is left as an exercise for the reader.
according to researchers who injected capsicum, the active ingredient in chilies
TFS is wrong, as specified in TFA the ingredient is capsaicin
Cue the obligatory "you must be new here" for expecting editors to edit...
Are they testing someone in the same genetic pool that isn't a ginger? Because different ethnic groups are going to be conditioned to respond to and express things differently.
Personally, I have brown hair and a very high pain threshold. Everyone in my family is the same way and none of us are gingers. I further don't think it's genetic in our cases. We have an ingrained and conditioned intolerance to whining in ourselves and others. It's just a family thing. We don't express it and we don't respond to it.
So to take this seriously, I'd need to know they were doing an apples to apples comparison to remove cultural and ethnic distinctions.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yes, but not the upholstery. http://xkcd.com/508/</obxkcd>
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Time to rethink all of your redhead BSDM fantasies.
Actually I'd call bull on this one. My exwife ...
Oh your ex wife! OK then we'll just disregard the all the studies with those unnecessarily large sample sizes then, shall we?
Of course it hurts. This isn't saying it doesn't hurt. It's saying that for people without your hair genes, it hurts even more, especially when spiciness is involved.
I guess that explains why my wife has rules about how much chili powder and cayenne I'm allowed to use in the chili.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
This isn't saying it doesn't hurt. It's saying that for people without your hair genes, it hurts even more.
Well it's saying that for people with our genes as a population it hurts less. Of course I (and OP) would have to borrow a blonde body for a while to be sure on an individual level, but it's apparent to me that I deal with pain better most people I know. I'd always put it down to stoicism though, but perhaps I am actually feeling less pain.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Having the pain threshold be somewhat lower than the point at which physical damage occurs seems optimal.
People born without the ability to feel pain struggle to stay alive to adulthood, which many would interpret as worse rather than better.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I even had a doctor's confirmation of this.
Interesting. Please, go on.
We went to the same Chiropractor.
Fail
Required reading for internet skeptics
I am currently the servant of an Orange Tabby cat. He's about as close to the cartoon Garfield as a real-life cat could be.
First -- it seems obvious to me that the genes that make humans red-headed are the same as the ones that make cats orange -- the color is virtually the same and they have freckles on their nose and lips that darken as they spend more time in the sun.
He is not a "scaredy-cat" like other cats. He only hides when he is the hunter. He regular stands up to dogs 5 times his size when they come onto his yard.
This fearless seems to be normal for Orange cats -- anyone who has owned one will tell you the same.
I have also noticed that he seems to be virtually immune to pain. ;)
When he was young, he learned that he should never turn his back on a dog -- because his tail got bitten
It should have been a painful wound, but he never got very upset about it when the vet and I cleaned and dressed it.
I never deliberately hurt him -- but accidents happen -- and he never seems to be hurt.
I have always suspected that his fearlessness might be the result of reduced sensation of pain.
This might also explain the reputation for bravery that Lions have -- they are orange cats too !
Red-haired women (FTA notes most studies have been conducted on female mice and female women) have a resistance to capsaicin. Compared to whom? Blonde-haired white people? Brown-haired white people?
How about Koreans, NONE of whom have genetcially-derived red hair? Or Latinos? Or Vietnamese? One could to this all day.
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The fifth golden girl was a female communist cosmonaut from the USSR :)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Reduction in skin pain seems very useful when you're at a much higher risk of sun burn.
And if redheads are less sensitive to pain - does that include mental pain?
This may lead to an explanation to why it is said that redheads are wilder than others. When they were penalized for doing something wrong when they were kids wasn't hurting them as much compared to other kids even though the penalty was the same.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
A friend of mine has some "Dave's Total Insanity Private Reserve." Holy fuck that stuff is hot. I touched a toothpick to my tounge that had been dipped into the bottle. First my tounge went numb, about 20 minutes later the pain started and I had this wonderful aftertaste. All in all, it was not a totally unpleasant experience.
Are you sure she was really a redhead? There's a simple test you can perform, but sadly this comment box is too short to explain it to slashdot readers.
I had fire engine red hair when I was little, but it's more brownish-red now. The last cavity I had, the dentist had to give me three shots of local in my gums to numb the area. Not real pleasant. When I was around 10 I had a cyst in my jaw that had to be surgically removed, which they put me under for in the hospital. I had no problem going under, but woke up in a hallway next to several passed-out people on gurneys. As you can imagine, I was a bit disconcerted by this. A nurse finally walked by and looked over in surprise, "You're not supposed to be awake yet!" No, I guess not. Now at least I have an explanation...
What the researchers should do next is look into the instance for people who have supposedly "woke up" during surgery being paralyzed yet still feeling the intense pain of surgery in progress.
That will be hard to do. They normally give surgical patients a drug that inhibits the transcription of temporary to permanent memory. They might have been awake and suffering horribly - but they won't remember it afterward.
This does two useful things: It reduces post traumatic problems. And it also reduces malpractice suits.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My exwife was a red head and she had one of the lowest pain tolerances I've ever seen.
Are you sure you didn't accidently try to give her anal?
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I'd stay away from OpenBSDM, lest Linus Torvalds call you master-beating monkey.
Redheads as a group have both higher and lower than average responses to different types of pain.
I love this stuff (600000 Scoville units):
MadDog 357 Collector's Edition
One of the few high (100K+ is high to me. No, I am not a red head.) capsaicin sauces I have had which also tastes good. I would mix it into most any appropriate food, though rarely was more than a drop needed when cooking for one. Add to that the fun of putting one single drop on one random tidbit put out for unsuspecting snacking adds a wonderful dimension to an evening of gaming or any other event where you don't mind being called all manner of foul epithets when the person regains their ability to breath.
A friend who did the same toothpick test you did described it as the closest he has ever felt to having his tongue pierced with no preparation.
My wife, who is a red head, has a very low pain threshold as well. Whenever she accidentally bumps into something, you get the impression that she's broken a bone or cut off a body part. In the beginning I jumped up right away, but now I got used to it so whenever I hear a loud, spine chilling scream, I barely look up anymore. She's always using the "red heads are more sensitive to pain" excuse, but now I can point her to this article! :-)
All these years of torturing and burning must account for something! Are they fire-proof as well?
Have you tried this bad boy? We use it here at work for initiation of new guys. An amount the size of half a pea is enough to start you sweating and hyperventilating (and in some cases, panic, it would seem. Whoops.) Claims to be 6m scoville. I dunno about that, but it's definitely not something I could ever use as a condiment.
Right now I am having a disappointing pasta salad, made happy by this guy. Nice kick, garlic taste, lovely stuff.
Red hair can be caused by at least for different genes on MC1R Arg151Cys, Arg160Trp, Asp294His, and Arg142His and possibly others on HCL2
And all of these are recessive so non-redhaired people can and often do have them too...
So which are they testing, some of these, a mixture of these ... .. and what against, people without the recessive genes, people with some of the recessive genes ...?
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
What type of hotsauce? I've known a few people that claim to love hotsauce, but then I find out they're talking about tobasco sauce, which to me just tastes like vinegar. One drop of my 500,000 scoville sauce and they you wouldn't believe how fast they run! Good time, good times...
If you want to show how tough/stupid you are, and don't care about the taste, why not just drinik pints of piss like rugby players do here in the UK?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't understand how someone came up with the slang "Ginger" for redheads when ginger is yellow and red hair is closer to being or orange or the closer to the color of turmeric.
A teaspoon of The Hottest Fuckin' Sauce (600K Scoville) in my bowl of chilli, please. :)
Yeah, I'm a Ginger
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
We went to the same Chiropractor.
Fail
Not necessarily. If you have an actual problem that they fix, then it was worth it, no?
Crooked spine and pelvis... not crooked any more. I can walk/run for extended periods without crippling pain, now. I can actually move my neck around to it's fullest extent without hearing lovely grinding sounds.
Of course, he didn't hook me up to magical machines. He looked at an xray, took some measurements, and did some tweaking, and took some more measurements. Same kind of thing any other doctor would do, I'd expect?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
They use magical thinking. Otherwise they would be a physical therapist or a orthopedic doctor.
That's assuming what you say is actually true. You wouldn't be the first person to go to a chiropractor, be told lies about there spine, and when it got better through normal stretching and exercise claim all the benefit.
Was he an MD? in some states they don't have to be. I man they'll wear a white coat and call themselves Dr.
I'm can legally call my self a Dr. I got an online degree in religious studies. IN fact I can do several magical thinking based 'therapies' Not that I would, just an example how easy it is to get the public to give you credence.
Doesn't make me a MD.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on