September 9, 2006: Wolf girl

This Thai girl is Supatra Sasuphan, nicknamed Nat. Apparently she lives a normal life, and a happy one. She looks happy. But she has a rare problem: Hypertrichosis, which as you can see causes hair to grow all over her face and body.

The caption on this item claimed that there have been 40 documented cases since first documented in 1648. But it's not a disease; it's a natural human genetic variation. That's right: somewhere deep in our DNA is the ability for all of us to be like that.



This Mexican family has multiple cases of it, showing how the genetic linkage appears.

IotD has seen this before here.

That kid has a lovely smile.

I wonder if they combed it down over her face for the photographs? It seems they would try to comb it, or cut it, away from her eyes. That would be a source of constant irritation, getting poked in the eye.

aside: From the link....

I hope she donates to the oil spill hair clean-up effort.

Can't somebody at least OFFER her electrolysis? Just as an option? Perhaps she truly is happy like that but, my lord, it looks like it would be pretty hot under all that hair.

hmm... when she washes her face, does she use facial soap or shampoo?

Hmmm - to take the high road or the low road?? Its Sunday, I'll take the high road.

I'm assuming those other kids are classmates, not siblings. Either way, I would nominate them with their nonchalance as being the most remarkable parts of the images. (I like how the girl in the second picture is not the one being pointed at.)

What surprises me is the relative lack of hair on her arms. I'd always thought that this gene didn't simply direct hair growth on the face but on the whole body as well.

Poor little girl She may seem happy now, but just wait until she hits seventh grade... it'll just go downhill from there. I hope they find some way of getting rid of that hair by then!

Now, I personally don't have anything against people with physical differences, (how can I, in my proffesion?) but what she has is not a deformity and not a disorder, so her classmates may be less sensitive about it.

One funny question- why is some of the hair white?

She does have a lovely smile, though.

I wonder if she'll have a huge bush when she gets grown.

BoingBoing mentioned that the parents hope the hair falls out as she becomes an adult, as sometimes happens in these cases, but if not they do have an offer for laser treatment.

UT, just out of curiosity, why did you change the way you specify the date on the IoTDs?

To better accomodate blog-format readers who are accustomed to the day-first date format. (vBulletin readers already get a dose of mm-dd-yyyy on every message.)

I agree that the very best format is year-month-day, but that's a clash of civilizations that we just won't win.

Ah-so.

The picture on Kirk's Boing-Boing link makes her look much more hairy....very much more.