Is Red Hair Now a Disease? By Brian Simpson
I have had this Nordic racial article to do for some time now, but with all the excitement of the coming collapse of the West, China war, the rise of communist totalitarianism, medical fascism, and probably other things which slip my disc, I did not get to it until now. Disclaimer; I have red hair, well, now mainly grey, but I am a defender of gingers until the end.
The claim I am going after is that red hair may have a genetic connection to melanoma and Parkinson’s disease. Well, just imagine if the claim was made about African American hair, or even the black hair of the Chinese. Whoooooa! But, red heads, they won’t bite back. Think again, buddy.
Even the normally medical sceptical Natural News.com carried this story, back in February 22, 2019, to my disappointment: “Red Hair Gene May have Connection to Melanoma and Parkinson’s Disease”:
The research I want to attack was published as:
Xiqun Chen (et al.), “The Melanoma-Linked “Redhead” Influences Dopaminergic Neuron Survival,” Annals of Neurology, (2017): DOI: 10.1002/ana.24852.
For starters, the genetic research involves not human subjects, but mice, cooked up to carry the alleged “red hair” gene variant of the melanocortin receptor MC1R. Apparently this gene reproduced the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the substantia nigra. This is an area where Parkinson’s disease destroys the dopamine-producing neurons. To make matters worse, variants of the MC1R gene are supposed to determine skin pigmentation, with the red-hair variant producing a pigment known as pheomelanin, which allegedly provides less skin protection, and may have a link to melanoma development. As red-haired people are usually have the lightest skin colour of the Nordic Whites, melanoma is a potential problem, even without some alleged genetic link, but, even if there was a genetic link, there usually needs to be an environmental causal agent, such as UV light exposure, and paradoxically, many red-haired people eschew the insane cult of sun baking and cover up, so that this so-called weakness can become a strength. It would be the crudest of genetic reductionist arguments to see this as in any way a problem for red haired people with double digit IQ, which is the vast majority of us. Next.
https://www.elitedaily.com/life/culture/redheads-stronger-more-successful-than-everyone/957407
https://pulptastic.com/blondes-aint-dumb/
So what do we make of the claim that the MC1R gene in the mice had a propensity to lower the production of dopamine in the substantia nigra of the mice in the experiment? Well, mice studies are suggestive, but not definitive, and no valid inference can be made for the sorts of claims, misstating the research, that red hair causes Parkinson’s disease.
For a start, this is known to be absolutely false, since people of all races get the disease, including Blacks and Asians, with no red hair at all. So that the disease is worldwide. And it is not red heads who have the highest incidence of Parkinson’s disease, but Hispanics:
According to Kumar and Clark, Clinical Medicine (sixth edition, 2005), the cause, if there is one cause of his disease is not known, there “are few real clues to the cause of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease.” (p. 128) Some genetic factors that may be relevant, not excusive to red heads, are mutations of the alpha-synuclein gene and UCHL1 gene, and other genes such as GBA, LRRK2, PRKN, and SNCA. MC1R is but one of many.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00441-004-0917-3
Environmental factors, perhaps interacting with the genetic, may also be causative, so causation may be multifactorial:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-211-45295-0_23
The best that could be made of this material as a genetic hypothesis about red headed people is that they have a greater propensity to Parkinson’s disease because of the MC1R gene. Many studies have failed to find a link between the MC1R gene and Parkinson’s disease, and even if there was a link established, the risk is likely to be small relative to a whole host of other genes.
Finally, is the cause of red hair in humans the sole result of one gene, MC1R, when most complex phenotypical traits are caused by multiple gene interactions? “Red hair color is not an example of a simple genetic trait. While the amount of red pigment may be mainly determined by one gene (MC1R), there are a large number of different MC1R alleles, and other genes affecting the amount of brown pigment that plays a major role in determining hair color. The complicated genetics means that it is possible for two red-haired parents to have non-red-haired children.”
https://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythredhair.html
That is yet another problem with the research supposedly linking red hair and Parkinson’s disease, as it adopts a simplistic causation of red hair.
Comments