African People Aren't Vitamin D Deficient

[Waynish]

Always have been skeptical of this... I know rich blacks who can get zero sun and do fine with their better nutrition. Nutrient deficient people have all those "vitamin D deficiency" symptoms everywhere they go.
This just pushes the "out of Africa" ideology that has been debunked many times.
1) blacks are victims 2) you used to be black too 3) you had the "privilege" of evolution (such that you get more Vitamin D, for example) 4)... Endless nonsense

It also pushes nonsense biochemistry... "Melanin protects you from the sun (some evolutionary drivel...)" ... "People with darker skin get less Vitamin D..."
Excuse me? That does not make sense physically or chemically. Dark is hotter & absorbs more / reflects less. Melanin is somehow stopping cholesterol in skin + UV from forming the pre-vitamin-D chemicals? Sounds far fetched!

 

[Wen]

Always have been skeptical of this... I know rich blacks who can get zero sun and do fine with their better nutrition. Nutrient deficient people have all those "vitamin D deficiency" symptoms everywhere they go.
This just pushes the "out of Africa" ideology that has been debunked many times.

Science isn't racist. There's a reason black people are black and a reason white people are white. Otherwise we'd all be the same colour. The OP already agreed that white people are white because they need to to be able to absorb more vitamin D in low light conditions....but black people can also absorb enough vitamin D in low light conditions without being white at all....which means there's no need for anyone to be white.....it's just an endless contradictory circle.

He also said 'African' people, not black so this is nothing to do with that. Black people with descent other than African will still have a problem with vitamin D according to this thread.

 

[Peatness]

What does this mean for black people, of African descent or elsewhere, should they not supplement Vitamin D? What are the implications of a calcium rich Peaty diet for such individuals?

 

[Wen]

What does this mean for black people, of African descent or elsewhere, should they not supplement Vitamin D? What are the implications of a calcium rich Peaty diet for such individuals?

All races should supplement as needed and you need D along with your calcium. I would ignore the findings of this post, they are very odd and inconsistent.

 

[Perry Staltic]

OK everything makes sense now. Four of the study's authors "report being co-inventors on a patent pending on the use of bioavailable vitamin D for the assessment of vitamin D status". The study's conclusion is based on that technology. There is a link at the bottom of the study to a letter to the editor that comments on the study. Based on it I think the study may be an example of scientist entrepreneurs trying to tip the scale in their favor.

The authors used an assay for vitamin D–binding protein that is untested for the key measurement in their study. This assay is based on a primary monoclonal antibody produced against a single peptide fragment of the human vitamin D–binding protein. Standard vitamin D– binding protein assays are based on polyclonal antibodies against an intact vitamin D–binding protein.1–3 The problem is that the monoclonal-antibody assay gives lower values in blacks who have primarily the Gc1F variant of vitamin D– binding protein. The monoclonal antibody discriminates between the Gc1F and Gc1S variants to provide artificially low values for total vitamin D–binding protein in blacks, thus bringing the conclusion of this study into question. As shown in Figure S4 in the Supplementary Appendix (available with the full text of the article at NEJM.org), “calculated” concentrations of bio-available 25-hydroxyvitamin D correlate well with physically measured concentrations in participants homozygous for either the Gc1F or Gc1S variant, but the slopes of the relationships are very different. Specifically, for any given physically measured level of bio-available 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the authors are overestimating bio-available 25-hydroxyvitamin D by 2 to 2.5 times owing to underestimation of vitamin D–binding protein in blacks.

Vitamin D–Binding Protein and Vitamin D in Blacks and Whites

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Waynish]

Science isn't racist. There's a reason black people are black and a reason white people are white. Otherwise we'd all be the same colour. The OP already agreed that white people are white because they need to to be able to absorb more vitamin D in low light conditions....but black people can also absorb enough vitamin D in low light conditions without being white at all....which means there's no need for anyone to be white.....it's just an endless contradictory circle.

He also said 'African' people, not black so this is nothing to do with that. Black people with descent other than African will still have a problem with vitamin D according to this thread.

Where did I bring up racism? That was you.

 

[Wen]

Where did I bring up racism? That was you.

Your comment suggested black people can absorb just as much vitamin d without needing to be light skinned to do so. In other words white people are white for no reason at all. Therefore I said "science isn't racist" ie we all need vitamin d around about equally and the darker your skin, the more protection you will have but the more exposure you'll need to get the same amount of vitamin d. You can't magically have both and white people never would have evolved to become white...think about it.

I never stated you brought up racism, that was you, I merely stated that "science isn't racist". Also your comment was about 'black' people when the post is clearly about 'African' people was a bit racist. It's like calling any Asian you see 'Chinese'.

 

[Waynish]

Your comment suggested black people can absorb just as much vitamin d without needing to be light skinned to do so. In other words white people are white for no reason at all. Therefore I said "science isn't racist" ie we all need vitamin d around about equally and the darker your skin, the more protection you will have but the more exposure you'll need to get the same amount of vitamin d. You can't magically have both and white people never would have evolved to become white...think about it.

I never stated you brought up racism, that was you, I merely stated that "science isn't racist". Also your comment was about 'black' people when the post is clearly about 'African' people was a bit racist. It's like calling any Asian you see 'Chinese'.

"Science" is a process not a person or thing or authority. Processes could actually be "racist," but I don't want to enter into nonsense land with that nonsense terminology. However, in terms of physics, black absorbs more heat - and I've not seen demonstrated how much of the reflected energy would be in the UV spectrum. You've still not presented proof that the darker your skin the more vitamin D or UV you need. Grant you one miracle and you can justify anything, indeed.

 

[Wen]

"Science" is a process not a person or thing or authority. Processes could actually be "racist," but I don't want to enter into nonsense land with that nonsense terminology.

No that's scientific study or research, science itself are laws that the universe is governed upon. Like if you heat water it boils at 100 degrees, that's just a fact, even long before we discovered it through scientific experiments, it was a fact. Therefore science itself is not racist since they're just laws and facts.

However, in terms of physics, black absorbs more heat - and I've not seen demonstrated how much of the reflected energy would be in the UV spectrum. You've still not presented proof that the darker your skin the more vitamin D or UV you need. Grant you one miracle and you can justify anything, indeed.

The Human race basically all began in Africa, so white people wouldn't have evolved to be white after moving to low light areas if there was no need. Even the OP already agreed white people need to be white to absorb more vitamin D....in other words 'humans' needed to be more white to absorb more vitamin D, hence that was why 'humans' that traveled to live in low light areas evolved to be white...'humans' that remained in Africa did not need to evolve that way because they always got plenty of light all year round where they were.

"Vitamin D deficiency is not common. Some people are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency including: People with naturally very dark skin. This is because the pigment (melanin) in dark skin doesn't allow the skin to absorb as much UV radiation."

This is the same for anyone. Even a white person moving to a tropical country, living there for a few years developing a very deep tan would find it harder at that skin darkness to absorb vitamin D in a low light area like Scotland.

 

[Waynish]

No that's scientific study or research, science itself are laws that the universe is governed upon. Like if you heat water it boils at 100 degrees, that's just a fact, even long before we discovered it through scientific experiments, it was a fact. Therefore science itself is not racist since they're just laws and facts.

The Human race basically all began in Africa, so white people wouldn't have evolved to be white after moving to low light areas if there was no need. Even the OP already agreed white people need to be white to absorb more vitamin D....in other words 'humans' needed to be more white to absorb more vitamin D, hence that was why 'humans' that traveled to live in low light areas evolved to be white...'humans' that remained in Africa did not need to evolve that way because they always got plenty of light all year round where they were.

"Vitamin D deficiency is not common. Some people are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency including: People with naturally very dark skin. This is because the pigment (melanin) in dark skin doesn't allow the skin to absorb as much UV radiation."

This is the same for anyone. Even a white person moving to a tropical country, living there for a few years developing a very deep tan would find it harder at that skin darkness to absorb vitamin D in a low light area like Scotland.

"The Human race basically all began in Africa..." Not worth discussing with you. Have a good one.

 

[Ben.]

Charlie posted somewhere that it was observed in one person that thiamin (Vitamin B1) supplementation led to increase in vitamin d and vitamin b12 levels without any additional interventions.

This sounds to me like there are multiple factors playing into vitamin d and may explain why some don't manage to change their levels even if they supplement.
There are instances where people both black and whites noticed improvement in lifequality trough vitamin d supplementations, while others feel bad on it.


If the assumption of black people needing vitamin d supplements to live north (which is a argument that, sounds like a marketing tactic to sell supplements) wouldn't it have led, way way earlier in history to a significant observation of sick dark coloured people that started migrating north? I mean according to this argument every single black or dark coloured person should be sick living in northern europe/america.

It seem to be more obvious that general health, nutrition and certain biological mechanisms to play a more complex role here.

 

[Wen]

"The Human race basically all began in Africa..." Not worth discussing with you. Have a good one.

Introduction to Human Evolution

humanorigins.si.edu

"Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent."

Nice cherry picking out of all my points too. Best to end it there or I might say some other things that make you go crazy like 'the Earth revolves around the Sun' etc.

If the assumption of black people needing vitamin d supplements to live north (which is a argument that, sounds like a marketing tactic to sell supplements) wouldn't it have led, way way earlier in history to a significant observation of sick dark coloured people that started migrating north? I mean according to this argument every single black or dark coloured person should be sick living in northern europe/america.

No, just more prone to many diseases, from strokes, to cancer to diabetes - which is well known. Vitamin D isn't the be all and end all and while they will find it harder to absorb vitamin D but that doesn't mean they will have none at all or even necessarily even be deficient. Most black people probably still have enough to avoid being sick 24/7, but they'll be more prone to certain diseases.

One question I've asked about a million times in this thread that no-one has even attempted to answer is why would white people evolve to be white in order to absorb vitamin D in low light areas if it's totally unnecessary? That's the question you need to answer before progressing.

 

[Peatness]

This thread raises some important questions. I have been Peating for 4 years and my health issues are not being resolved. I have often wondered if there are ethnic variations in nutrients requirements that could make a Peat style diet not suitable for most black people. Since I started Peating I have developed high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It is possible that this would have happened anyway. Now I am struggling to lower these numbers. This is serious stuff and I hope this thread can unearth some answers why this has happened. Black people tend to retain more calcium and sodium, why is that? Would supplementing Vitamin D help or hinder this? How much is too much?

 

[Perry Staltic]

This thread raises some important questions. I have been Peating for 4 years and my health issues are not being resolved. I have often wondered if there are ethnic variations in nutrients requirements that could make a Peat style diet not suitable for most black people. Since I started Peating I have developed high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It is possible that this would have happened anyway. Now I am struggling to lower these numbers. This is serious stuff and I hope this thread can unearth some answers why this has happened. Black people tend to retain more calcium and sodium, why is that? Would supplementing Vitamin D help or hinder this? How much is too much?

Ignore the title of this article. It's a conclusion based on a study that used an inaccurate method patented by the study authors for determining bioavailable vitamin D.