Natural hair color and the incidence of endometriosis
Open accessAbstract
Objective To investigate a previously hypothesized relation between natural hair color and endometriosis.Design Prospective cohort study.Setting Nurses' Health Study II with 10 years of follow-up.Participant(s) A total of 90,065 women, 25-42 years old, who had never been diagnosed with endometriosis, infertility, or cancer at baseline in 1989.Main outcome measure(s) Incidence of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis according to natural hair color.Result(s) During 379,422 person-years of follow-up, 1,130 cases of laparoscopically confirmed endometriosis were reported among women with no past infertility. After adjusting for age, calendar time, parity, race, and body mass index at age 18, we observed no association overall. However, compared with women with any other hair color, we observed an increased rate of endometriosis among women with naturally red hair who had never been infertile (incidence rate = 1.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.0-1.7), but a decreased rate among women with naturally red hair among women who were infertile (incidence rate = 0.4, 95% CI = 0.2-1.2); P value, test for heterogeneity = .03.Conclusion(s) Overall, we did not observe a significant relation between red hair color and the rate of endometriosis, however this prospective cohort study suggests that the relation may differ by infertility status.
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Hair and eye color are associated with endometriosis.
“Two questions on hair and eye color, previously associated with endometriosis (71–75) and possibly useful in marking genetic subpopulations, are also included.”
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References 28 · Cited by 38
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Pardanani S, Barbieri RL. The gold standard for the surgical diagnosis of endometriosis: visual findings or biopsy results? Journal of Gyne- cologic Techniques 1998;4:121-4.
- Authors
- Missmer, S. A., Spiegelman, D., Hankinson, S. E., Malspeis, S., Barbieri, R. L., & Hunter, D. J.
- Affiliations
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Missmer, Stacey A.
- Venue
- Fertility and Sterility
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-04
- Volume
- 85
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 866-870
- ISSN
- 0015-0282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2039737669
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 2.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Fertility and Sterility (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD40882)
- National Institutes of Health (CA50385)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Endometriosis Research and Treatment
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ectopic Pregnancy Diagnosis and Management
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Plant and fungal interactions
- Keywords
- endometriosis, red hair, infertility, genetic susceptibility, Nurses' Health Study II
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Endometriosis, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Hair Color, Humans, Infertility, Female, Prospective Studies, Cohort Studies, Incidence, Confidence Intervals
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