Oh, Those Brits: BMJ Offers Holiday Cheer

Dec. 19, 2010— -- Oddball but genuine scientific research papers are an annual Christmas tradition at BMJ, and this year is no exception -- as the journal tackled topics ranging from medical uses of pencils to the real identity of a head reputed to be that of a Renaissance French king.

Not to be confused with April Fool's Day pranks, studies in the BMJ Christmas issue "are all 'real' scientific papers," a journal spokeswoman explained.

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"[They] go through our usual peer-review processes. They use proper research methods and have to stand up scientifically. It's the subject matter that is quirky and fun," she wrote in an e-mail.

In some quarters, patients with red hair are believed to bleed more during surgery, feel pain more strongly, and develop more hernias, according to Jonathan D. Barry of Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales, and colleagues.

They conducted a Google-based literature search for well-conducted studies confirming these beliefs, largely coming up empty. What they did find was that "many anecdotes have been recounted about the clinical behavior of people with red hair."

But they did identify two systematic studies suggesting that redheads need more anesthesia during surgery.

"The clinical implications of red hair phenotype remain questionable," they concluded.

Anybody who has shopped at Ikea, the Swedish furniture and housewares megastore chain, is familiar with its three-inch pencils for making onsite shopping lists. In some segments of Britain's National Health Service, they are apparently also surgical instruments.

"As popular as these pencils are, we were still a little surprised to be handed one halfway through a surgical case," wrote two NHS physicians, Karen Eley and Stephen Watt-Smith, though they noted that pencils have been used previously to mark osteotomy cuts in facial surgery.