Ginger people have hard nuts

13 April 2012

What with all those jokes about gingers, and a study which revealed only two per cent of women would go out with them, life for redheads is already bad enough.

Now scientists have found they are harder to knock out before surgery. Natural redheads need 20 per cent more anaesthetic than patients with other hair colours.

To make matters worse, even if they do 'go under' there is a risk they will wake up on the operating table unless closely monitored.

American scientists gave ten redheaded women and ten brunettes similar doses of anaesthetic and then administered gentle electric shocks. Redheads needed further doses to reach the same level of numbness.

Scientists believe the reason could lie in a defect in a hormone that triggers the production of melanin, the pigment responsible for skin and hair colour.

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