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For some reason that brings to mind the old MS conundrum which was based on figures from 40 or 50 years ago in which Japanese Americans who migrated to Hawaii from Southern California found lower incidence of MS, yet Japanese migrating to Hawaii from Japan found higher MS incidence.

Red hair is caused by a recessive gene that can skip generations before reappearing, and it is also relatively rare.

It's true that people with red hair, fair skin, and freckles have the highest risk.

But people who carry one gene for this high-risk trio also face an increased risk of skin cancer, even if their skin color is olive.

Those with two "red-hair" variants of the gene that codes for the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) will have red hair, fair skin, and freckles--and have the highest risk for sun-induced skin cancer, Richard A. Sturm, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Society for Human Genetics. When only one of these variants is inherited, the person's skin color can be any one of a variety of hues, even shades that are usually considered relatively resistant to skin cancer. Even as a heterozygous allele, the "red-hair" variant of the MC1R gene boosts skin cancer susceptibility

Dr Compston now thinks that the American blacks have interbred enough that they too have the genetic predisposition.

Chasing the Viking gene is something that retired British research neurologists do in their retirement.

It keeps them out of their wife's hair.

Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Marston Bates

Conclusions: This is the first study to show a functional role of MC1R in intestinal inflammation. The data suggest a pivotal role of non-haematopoietic cell expressed MC1R in the host’s response to pathogenic stimuli.

In 1995 a landmark study demonstrated that over 80% of humans with red hair or fair skin have a dysfunctional variant of the Mc1r gene.[12]

This discovery provoked interest in determining why there is an unusual prevalence of red hair and pale skin in some northern European populations, specifically Britain and Ireland. The Out-of-Africa model proposes that modern humans originated in Africa and migrated north to populate Europe and Asia. It is most likely that these migrants had an active Mc1r variant and, accordingly, darker hair and skin (as displayed by indigenous Africans today). Concordant with the migration north, the selective pressure maintaining dark skin decreased as radiation from the sun became less intense. Thus variations in Mc1r began to appear in the human population, resulting in the paler skin and red hair of some Europeans.


Human skin color map, demonstrating the prevalence of pale skin in northern latitudes. Data for native populations collected by R. Biasutti prior to 1940Studies find no evidence for positive selection driving these changes. Instead, the absence of high levels of solar radiation in northern Europe relaxed the selective pressure on active Mc1r, allowing the gene to mutate into dysfunctional variants without reproductive penalty, then propagate by genetic drift.[13]

The reason for the unusually high numbers of dysfunctional Mc1r variants in certain human populations is not yet known, though sexual selection for red hair has been proposed.[14]