The MC1R (or melanocortin 1 receptor) gene determines hair, skin and eye color. If you're a redhead, your MC1R gene has a mutation—or possibly several.
Red may be the rarest hair color in the world, but the world is big and redheads are here to stay. While they make up about 2% of the population, that means 158 million gingers
This includes melanoma, cancer that starts in the cells that produce melanin and potentially the most serious of skin cancers.
According to a large review published in PLOS One in 2017, female redheads have a higher risk of gynecological cancers, such as cervical, uterine and ovarian cancer.
A 2016 study in Current Biology found that people who had two copies of the MC1R gene (which confers red hair) appeared as many as two years older
Several studies have found that women with red hair have a higher pain threshold. "The pain threshold is the limit from where you don't feel anything to where you just start to feel pain,"
While studies suggest that the general pain tolerance of redheads may be higher, it also suggests that redheads experience pain differently and may even have different pain management requirements
Vitamin D is essential for bone health and is synthesized when you're exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) rays from the sun.