Melanin Myth #4: Melanin Reduces Vitamin D Levels https://keyamsha.com/2018/02/07/melanin-myth-4-melanin-reduces-vit...

Melanin Myth #4: Melanin Reduces Vitamin

D Levels

FREDERICK G. MURRAY

This is part 4 in a ten part series of posts surrounding the myths about melanin.

In this episode we address the myth claiming melanin reduces vitamin D levels,
which seems to be, for the most part, a matter of perception. Does melanin reduce
vitamin D levels or do people who have high levels of skin melanin require more
sunlight to have proper amounts of vitamin D in latitudes where there is less
sunlight?

This myth appears to begin with a 1934 article entitled PIGMENTATION,

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Melanin Myth #4: Melanin Reduces Vitamin D Levels https://keyamsha.com/2018/02/07/melanin-myth-4-melanin-reduces-vit...

SUNLIGHT, AND NUTRITIONAL DISEASE by . Murray went through a great

deal of effort to give the impression melanin, or using his term pigmentation, in
skin led to rickets. He describes ergosterol, when irradiated or exposed to
sunlight, as metabolizing blood calcium and phosphorus into vitamin D. Then,
he lists the three cures for rickets as being sunlight, cod liver oil or mercury
vapor lamp ultra violet irradiation. Murray states “It has long been recognized
that infants of the colored race in the United States are more predisposed to
rickets than are the white babies.” He concludes melanin is the cause. What
Murray overlooks, from one of his own sources, is the effect of diet in rickets.
According to Update in vitamin D. Very few people in the United States do not
suffer from Vitamin D deficiency. Based on data extracted from the National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 90% of the United States
population with the highest skin melanin levels suffer from vitamin D
insufficiency while nearly three fourths of the melanin challenged population
does as well.
The 2015 study 24,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 and Vitamin D Status of
Community-Dwelling Black and White Americans found “Blacks frequently
have low total 25D without manifestations of vitamin D deficiency,
suggesting that total serum 25D may incorrectly reflect vitamin D status in
different racial groups.”
It has been shown individuals with high levels of skin melanin, “living at
latitudes comparable to New England, can generate sufficient vitamin D during
normal summer seasons to satisfy year-round VD3 requirements.“
Does testing for vitamin D levels for people with high skin melanin occur in
winter or summer?
People with high levels of skin melanin have low levels of fragility fractures due
to osteoporosis even when living at high latitudes.
What is the level of solar insolation at which melanogenesis occurs? No one ever
mentions this simple fact which would, apparently, have a correlation to the UV
Index.
A 2013 New England Journal of Medicine study notes people who have
Vitamin-D deficiency present indications of hyperparathyroidism,
hypocalcemia, or low BMD. Since Black people lack those conditions another
cause had to be found for their low levels of Vitamin-D. Results found African
people have a polymorphism in the Vitamin-D binding gene.
The 2016 study Free 25-Hydroxyvitamin D: Impact of Vitamin D Binding
Protein Assays on Racial-Genotypic Associations which included participants
from the US, UK and Gambia found results that contradicted the 2013 study
findings but could not explain the lack of rickets or Osteomalacia (soft bones).
Where is the history of rickets and osteomalacia among enslaved Africans?
Did rickets and osteomalacia not prevail among enslaved Africans due to their
skin melanin levels or calcium deficiency due to poor diet?
In the 17th century rickets was considered the English disease. Rickets was first
discovered among the Greeks. If melanin causes low vitamin D then rickets
should not have originated among people with low levels of cutaneous melanin.
Rickets has been found to be due to low levels of calcium, not Vitamin D. The
disease manifested during the 1600s in Europe due to pollution from
industrialization obscuring sunlight. Less sunlight led to less Vitamin D. What
else could science have gotten wrong? It seems the problem of rickets, which
became rare during the 20th century, reemerged at the end of the 20th century.
But melanin levels did not magically increase during that time period.
What changed? Are African people spending too much time indoors?
End result, take cod-liver oil. It has 340% of the recommended daily allowance

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Melanin Myth #4: Melanin Reduces Vitamin D Levels https://keyamsha.com/2018/02/07/melanin-myth-4-melanin-reduces-vit...

of Vitamin D.

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