Are Blacks More Likely to Get Addicted to Smoking?

{snip} A surprising new study suggests that darker-skinned people have a stronger propensity for becoming addicted to tobacco.

“We have found that the concentration of melanin is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked daily, levels of nicotine dependence, and nicotine exposure among African Americans,” said Gary King, professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State. He said that higher concentrations of melanin–the color pigment in skin and hair–may be placing darker pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter skinned smokers, according to scientists.

Early studies also show that nicotine has a “biochemical affinity for melanin,” he said, suggesting that the connection could mean there’s an accumulation of the addictive agent in melanin-containing tissues of smokers with greater amounts of skin pigmentation.

“The point of the study is that, if in fact, nicotine does bind to melanin, populations with high levels of melanin could indicate certain types of smoking behavior, dependence, and health outcomes that will be different from those in less pigmented populations,” explained King. {snip}

[Editor’s Note: “Link between facultative melanin and tobacco use among African Americans,” by Gary Kinga, Valerie B. Yergerb, et al., can be read on-line or downloaded in HTML or as a PDF file here. There is a charge.]