Red hair is associated with pain sensitivity, and more so in women than in men. Hair redness may thus interact with a female-specific factor. We tested this hypothesis on a large sample of Czech and Slovak respondents. They were asked about the natural redness and darkness of their hair, their natural eye color, their physical and mental health (24 categories), and other personal attributes (height, weight, number of children, lifelong number of sexual partners, frequency of smoking). We found that red-haired women did worse than other women in ten health categories and better in only three. In particular, they were more prone to colorectal, cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer. Cancer risk increased steadily with increasing hair redness except for the … Continue reading Women with red hair worse off health-wise