Red Hair May Be the Gene That Links Melanoma and Parkinson's

Captions: 1. A redhead (?) with a red/orange wig and an orange shirt adorned a Fools' Ride in La Porte City, Iowa. 2. On left, Iowa City Council member Pauline Taylor; on right, Iowa City Council member Rockne Cole, who definitely has red hair. 3. A nice young redhead we met on a recent Ididaride at the Sag Wagon in Cedar Rapids (2016). I wish I could remember her name.

An article in Annals of Neurology referred to in a pharmacological journal says that the gene for red hair (MC1R) might be the culprit linking melanoma with Parkinson's disease. Why? Because red hair is coupled with fair skin ("you're a Fitzpatrick 1" is how physicians label people with the palest of pale skin types) and is less protective against UV rays. The same gene, MC1R, produces less dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain responsible for responding to reward, pleasure; dopamine also regulates movement and emotions. The production of less dopamine is implicated in the development of Parkinson's disease because dopamine is the brain-signaling chemical that's lost in Parkinson's.

Think there's nothing you can do if you're fated to develop Parkinson's? Not true. A study just revealed that consuming several servings a day of low-fat dairy increases your risk of contracting Parkinson's disease by 34% to 39%. There is no such risk attached to consuming full-fat dairy. Nobody knows why.

Also, a study of Japanese-American men in Hawaii showed that non-coffee drinkers were five times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than heavy coffee drinkers (drinking four and a half to five and a half six-ounce cups of coffee per day). The magic ingredient may be caffeine, as other caffeinated products are also linked to a lower risk of Parkinson's. Coffee is also the number one source of anti-oxidants, which are good for you! Anti-oxidants are contained in many foods, especially fruits and vegetables, and fight disease-causing free radicals and cellular damage that can lead to heart disease and cancer.

As for melanoma, if you have melanoma in your family or you are fair skinned, see your dermatologist regularly. I do, and I make my husband do it too. When I met him, he had a red mustache and red body hair. His Dad's nickname was "Red." He was a carrot top until his hair turned white. My mother had auburn hair and red body hair.

If you want to see what various melanomas look like, click here. Years ago a soccer mom, a redhead, who stood with me while watching our sons' soccer team play, told me she thought she just had "a bunch of freckles run together" on her cheek. Turns out it was a melanoma and a good chunk of her cheek had to be surgically removed. The surgeons did a good job and she wasn't disfigured or anything. While most patients find their own melanomas (or their partners do), the best judge of whether a mole is a melanoma or not is your dermatologist.

If you're a risk taker and you don't think you "need" to see a dermatologist if some asymmetric, odd lesion turns up on your skin, remember that if your melanoma is only 1/25th of an inch deep, you're likely to make it. If it's 1/5th of an inch deep, your chances aren't as good. Nodular melanomas grow downward quickly. Nodular melanomas are the most deadly because they hide in plain sight and can rapidly spread to your lymph nodes. They usually appear as a thick mole-like growth on the skin that may appear wart-like, but less often they may be smooth.

I wonder if that's the kind of melanoma that killed my paternal Uncle Dick (Richard Hugh Houser) when he was 26 or 27? The melanoma was on his shoulder. A bomber pilot during WWII, he died three months before his first and only child was born. My Aunt Rose, one of the Chappelier triplets, never did remarry. He had pale skin and his dad was a colonel in the Army, so he lived in sunny places like Hawaii; Riverside, CA; and San Antonio, TX.

My Dad, the youngest, had an outrigger canoe in Hawaii, so not only did the Houser boys get exposed to sun, they got more sun reflected off of the water, which would be an intensification of sunlight exposure. Dad got the top of his ear cut off late in life due to skin cancer. He also had to get his face acid washed to prevent more skin cancer. As a young man, he trained at West Point and at Fort Benning, GA. He'd run 25 miles with a full pack at Fort Benning. He was a paratrooper in New Guinea during WWII. He biked RAGBRAI with us till a car hit him when he was 82. More sun. He's 93 now and dying of Parkinson's disease.