Chatting to some of the production crew on Survivor South Africa, I was asked to comment on a curious fact they had picked up. By the end of the series, it was noticeable that the women in the series who had lasted longest had become more hairy than they were on arrival on the island.
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And this wasn't from lack of visits to the cosmetician for waxing. What was observed was a more widespread grown of fine, downy hair.
I recognised that what they were discussing was probably something called lanugo.
What is lanugo?
Very fine white hair, which grows on areas where hair is not usually seen on that individual, like the stomach, back and chest, as well as on arms and legs.
It appears to be an effort by the body to provide insulation when there has been significant weight loss and thus a relative lack of body fat beneath the skin, almost as though the body is growing a blanket to protect itself.
It routinely occurs on the unborn foetus, and is usually shed from at around 40 weeks of gestation. Thus we see it more often in babies born early.
Having more persistent lanugo tends to run in families. It is shed during the first weeks of life.
When it is shed within the womb as the foetus floats in the amniotic fluid, some of it is swallowed by the baby and later forms part of the meconium that gets passed in the child's first bowel movements.
Lanugo in adults
Lanugo is also seen in adults with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and in fact can be one of the signs a good doctor might notice when considering this as a possible diagnosis.
And then there are adults who have for other reasons been relatively starved and malnourished, such as our Survivor competitors. Finally, it can be seen in some people who have untreated infections; and it can be stimulated by some drugs and toxins (such as mercury).
Hypertrichosis
People at the high end of the normal variation of human hairiness would be described as showing hirsutism. Excessive hair growth can also be seen in a number of medical and hormonal disturbances in males or females.
This should not be confused with the condition of hypertrichosis, in which an individual is peculiarly hairy and may have the entire body covered in thick fur, rather like a Star Wars Wookie. Hypertrichosis is a congenital, genetic abnormality of extreme hairiness. There are around 20 cases known to be alive today, an incidence of around one in 340 million.
In extreme cases - and only around 50 cases have been described since the Middle Ages up until recently - such people might become famous as side-show freaks.
Famous hairy faces
For instance there was Lionel the Lion-Faced Man, Stephan Bibrowsky, who was born in 1890 to 'normal' parents in Poland. His body hair was 14cm long and his 'story' was that when she was pregnant, his mother had seen his father attacked by a circus lion. In America he became a major attraction at the Barnum and Bailey circus and died in 1932.
Similarly, there was Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy. Born in St Petersburg as Fedor Jeftichew, he ended up barking and growling on tour with the showman Barnum, who claimed that he had been captured in a cave.
Earlier, there was Petrus Gonsalvus, known as The Hirsute Man. Born in 1556 in Tenerife, he was brought as a child to the Court of the French King Henry II, who had him educated.
Later he lived at the court of Margaret of Parma, then regent of the Netherlands. He married and reportedly had four children, two of which were equally hairy. He and his family were objects of great curiosity and were examined by famed doctors and naturalists of the time.
A female example was Julia Pastrana, who, in addition to being covered in black hair, was under five feet tall and had huge ears and nose. She was known as the Ugliest Woman in the World.
She married a man who exhibited her widely and when she died he had her body preserved so he could continue to profit from the show.
There was also Krao, from Laos, known as Darwin's Missing Link (1876-1926) and she was first exhibited when she was only six years old and was publicised by Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, as an intermediate creature proving Darwin's theory of evolution.
And no side-show was complete with a Bearded Lady, most of whom, despite their unusual appearance, were married. Lady Olga had the longest beard (around 35cm) and married four times.
She appeared with a number of other famed side-show attractions in the incredible 1920s Todd Browning film "Freaks", which is occasionally shown on DSTV.
Hypertrichosis was also known, rather luridly, as Werewolf Syndrome.
(Professor M.A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, November 2007)
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