American Journal of Human Genetics, scientists have pinpointed the cause of hypertrichosis, a condition that causes people to sprout thick hair on their faces and bodies.
Hypertrichosis affects less than 100 people worldwide, including Larry Gomez, a trapeze artist and acrobat known around the world as "The Wolf Boy" thanks to his work in films like “Water For Elephants.”
"I'm very happy about this,” he told AOL Weird News. “For sure I'm not the only one who will have this condition. So I'm thinking for the future, for the others who will have this condition. If they are not happy with it, they can change it."
According to the new research, hypertrichosis is caused by an extra chunk of genes on a section of the X chromosome that affects hair growth, Fox News reports.
Researchers have long known the disorder runs in families, and in 1995 they traced the approximate location of the mutation to a section of the X chromosome, one of the two sex chromosomes, in a Mexican family affected by hypertrichosis.
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